The Blog

Rather than reviewing a book this week, I’m going to talk about a very special familial role. It’s not an official title, like Godmother, or a specific relationship, like sister-in-law. Rather, it is a role one chooses: the book aunt.

Being the book aunt means dabbling in all sorts of literature, from the very best kiddie-lit, to the coolest YA, to classics that involve truly timeless characters and situations. It means accepting that you’re an adult, while still enjoying stories for the sake of STORY, and not because they necessarily have political or social importance.

I am fortunate, in that I have a book aunt of my very own. She’s the one who sent me Don Quixote, when I was ten, and the entire Winnie-the-Pooh series, in order, when I was much younger than that (I remember being very excited about my sixth birthday, because I knew my book aunt would be gifting me with Now We Are Six).

When I turned twenty-one, she sent me a picture book, to remind me to let my inner child out to play once in a while, and just last year, she sent a book about the Astors in New York, because she knows I enjoy historical biographies. (She also gave me a box of stationery - note cards printed with pulp novel covers - that I can’t bear to use because I think they’re cool.)

Book aunts aren’t just purveyors of literature, however, they are the quietly dependable gift givers. I know that while other trinkets and baubles may be included, I can count on my book aunt for, well, a book.

After I got married, thankfully into a family of readers, I was privileged to take up the mantel of the book aunt with my own nieces and nephews. With the older boys, I confess, I sometimes resort to gift cards at a bookstore, but with the rest, I have a blast because I have to preview anything I send, to make sure whatever I’ve picked sparks imagination, without being laden with stereotypical characters, preachy, or maudlin.

As a result, I’ve shared many of my favorite children’s books with my young family members. Books like Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and (a perennial favorite) Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, have been sent to Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, New Jersey, and Southern California, at various times. My nieces have been introduced to everything from Charlotte’s Web and Harriet the Spy because of me, and my young nephews in SoCal are now fans of the Magic Treehouse series, the latter due, in part, to a young boy named Noah whom I accosted (gently) in Barnes and Nobel last year. (Don’t freak, he was with his father.).

“Hi,” I said. “You’re probably going to think this is strange, and I’m totally channeling my grandmother by asking, but, you look about the same age as my nephews, and I was wondering what you like to read?” Noah, his brother Ethan, and their very kind father helped me out immensely, while my husband watched in utter bemusement.

Now, as we approach October and November, and the holiday shopping season, my book aunt identity is coming out in force. I am scouring shelves for interesting YA (actually my nieces will be getting some of the books I’ve reviewed here) and kids books that aren’t patronizing. I don’t have hard and fast rules about what I will buy, except that I’m extremly anti-Seuss, but I do hand pick each book for each child.

It’s my job, after all.
Because I’m the book aunt.
And I was trained by the best.

Posted by Melissa in Book Talk |

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Book Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.