I will never outgrow picture books! Use the library to enjoy the gestalt.

Following is a post I made a year ago to a Shelfari group "Children's Book Repository" about a year ago.  I no longer use Shelfari; my friend/neighbor/pro-librarian has switched to Goodreads.com and so have I.  Try a site like Goodreads to keep track of your personal literary development!

Am I member #2? Where are all the chidlren's book lovers? I bet it's mostly adults who buy them and hoard them.

I will never outgrow picture books. As a former elementary school teacher of students with reading levels from K-12, and many second language learners, I have a good number of picture books on my shelf at home. I left full-time public school teaching when being treated for breast cancer in 2005. Tried to return a couple of times after the most drastic treatments were done, but just could not fit back into the groove. One of the things I had to leave behind was the majority of my classroom library of over a thousand books. I kept only those I was certain I'd paid for myself.

Now I really use the public library. The reason I recently posted two books by Cynthia Rylant (I could easily post every book she's written) is because when a concept hits me, I check out a wide swath of books that I can see at once. Cynthia Rylant was my most recent mass check-out. This interest was sparked when I recalled one of my all-time favorites: The Snail's Spell, written by Joanne Ryder and illustrated by Lynn Cherry. I thought of this book because of the way it asks the reader to become the snail. I am thinking of trying to write some chidlren's books of my own in a related vein. ANYWAY... illustrator Lynn Cherry has done several books for Cynthia Rylant... and off went my ADD brain. Glad I got the books all together at once... love the gestalt.