The Reading Room

It was always my dream to have a small library at home. With all the travelling we had to do, being married to a software engineer, there was never a place we would stay at for more than a couple of years. With my husband’s numerous “on-site” projects which took us to the US, we never quite settled anywhere for almost fifteen years of our married life. Over the years, I had collected more than five hundred books on varying topics from fiction to cooking, decorating, designing, self-improvement, parenting, autobiographies, management and what not. And as kids happened along the way, my collection grew in leaps and bounds as kids literature got added to it in good measure.

As expected my kids grew up to be bookworms too. While most kids wish to be taken to a mall or a movie on weekends, my kids would only wish to be taken to the nearby library. We all spend a few happy hours in the library, each blissfully engrossed in books of their choice; biding good-bye to the library is one the of the toughest things to do! (And it so happened that many a times I had to literally drag them out kicking and screaming!)

Inculcating the reading habit is very vital to a child’s development. It helps children imagine and explore and stretch their creativity. It not only helps build vocabulary and grammar but also enhances their understanding of nuances such as satire and poetic expressions which cannot be taught. Children imbibe these along with the moral values imparted indirectly without even realizing it.

As the kids grew, we finally decided to settle down, owing to their educational needs and that’s when my life-long dream of owning a library came to be a reality. The apartment we zeroed-in on had a tiny spare room to be used as a servant room or a study and almost immediately I knew what I wanted  do with that room. No prizes for guessing correctly! I got to work with the room’s layout and I put my heart and soul into designing my little library. My kids were thrilled with the idea too. Together we came up with a beautiful, cozy little library. And today it’s one of the most often used rooms in our house.