Here we go!

We are one day and four books into our 1,000 book challenge!

Our favorite of the batch was a book our librarians spotlighted, Wait!  I Want to Tell You a Story by Tom Willans.

In this charming story, a muskrat is caught by a tiger, but distracts him by telling him story after embedded story about animals caught in the same predicament, all using the same story to distract their captors.  The descent into Inception-like madness ends when a crocodile sneaks up behind the tiger and eats him, allowing the muskrat to escape.

Why do I like this?  It's silly.  It's funny in a way that appeals to kids without boring adults.  It playfully parallels the classic story line of "1001 Nights". The illustrations are simple, bright, and happy go lucky.

In order to keep my ever-expanding list in check (even as I'm typing, Dad is upstairs reading a few more stories) I've created a spreadsheet, which is available as a separate page entitled "Master List of 1,000 books".  Here I list each book we read, along with its author, the date we read it, and a rating.  Rating system is as follows:

1--pretty lousy book.  I'll assign this to books I find sentimental, cloying, or dull.  This is a signal that I do not recommend this book and do not intend to read it again.

2--I expect most books to fit into this category.  This is intended to cover the broad range of books that we read, enjoy, and then forget.  There isn't anything wrong with a book I rate "2", I just don't want to mark it as a particular book to remember.

3--This is where I put books that stand out to me for being particularly memorable.  This is the sort of book I would consider purchasing as a gift or for our own personal library.  I want to be able to look back at these books and read them again!

Leave me a comment telling me about what you're reading these days!