Moving Up

"Wow! this is longer than a grocery receipt," said the librarian as the machine spewed out our library check out receipt.

"Which is good," she added.

I smiled and gulped down a handful of embarassment. We're regular and loyal patrons of our local public library. Too loyal such that we would always walk in through the automatic doors wheeling a backpack on wheels, and walk out with the same bag bursting to the seams plus two or three more plastic bags filled with books.


As the kids devour one book after another, I would get,

"Ummi, we need to go to the library! I'm out of books!"

If only I have that much time for reading alone, I'd be living in complete bliss.

Though I'm filled with personal pride at the voracious reading habit of my offsprings, after a while, I'm filled with an equal sense of worry. Christmas, Hanukkah, puppies, 'jokes', are recurrent words my kids will devour as they go through those books we check out from the library. In the end, won't it be the same as watching TV? Reading books to me is the same as watching TV, except for the fact that you acquire vocabulary and possibly some writing and analytical skills.

I turned to find more Islamic-oriented books, but at the rate they are devouring written words, my search was soon exhausted. The nonfiction are not too appealing to them. This only sends writers the message that they need to hone those writing skills so as to pluck out at least a teeny bit of curiosity and enjoyment for children in reading nonfiction.

As of now, we have a shortage of Islamic fiction, and I implore all of you who read this post to sign this petition.

It might be too late for my kids, but that shouldn't stop me from supporting this cause for the benefit of our future generation insyaallah.