Booking Journaling with Your Kids | Guest Post by Christen Krumm

When I was twelve years old, I discovered my best friend. We were both home-schooled, both preacher kids, and both loved books. She devoured them (I do believe she got an award one year for reading 397 books that year).

But back to what I was getting at. My best friend had this really amazingly cool notebook. It was just a spiral bound notebook, but in this notebook . . . oh in the notebook she had written every book she had ever read. As a book lover, list lover, and notebook lover, I was instantly smitten with this notebook.

I raced home and grabbed a spiral notebook (Yes, I had one on hand. I have always had a spiral bound notebook on hand. It’s a blessing and a curse.) and started from then on recording all the books I read. For a while, every book earned a sticker on the front cover of my notebook (I was twelve, and stickers were very cool). There was that bout in college where I didn’t write any of the books I read for my degree because I considered them “textbooks”—I regret that now.

Now. It is very much habit. I love finishing a book so I can write another title in my notebook (which is now an old school composition book that I recovered with fun photos).

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to books lately. How everyone seems to think that because I love to read, I’m a fast reader. Quite on the contrary. It takes me on average two weeks, at least, to read a book—lately it’s been a month (except in the case of the Hunger Games Series—I got the whole series finished in a little under two weeks). I like to savor my books, not inhale them (well, that and I’m working two full time jobs [motherhood, wife], a part-time job with Litfuse Publicity Group, tutoring, and teaching an online English class).

I’ve decided I’m starting a notebook for my three-year-old daughter, Elsie (only hers is a slight bit more fancier than momma’s). We read together a lot—we’re currently reading a fun book I picked up from a local church library, The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook.  When we are finished reading a book we track it in this fancy notebook. Moleskines are  simply the best notebooks ever! I swear by them. I hope this one will last her a long long time (but not to long—she’ll need to fill up her very own one of these days).

I do a quick google search for a photo of the book cover to include in the entry and jot down our thoughts. I’m also semi in love with my date stamp, so I had to figure out how to incorporate that as well. When she gets a little older (and I’m still reading stories to her because that’s how we roll) I will love to pass along the torch of record keeping of the books that we read together.

In an age where technology is drowning us, I really want to make sure my kids have a love of books—even if it will be considered old-fashioned.

Christen E. Krumm is the Litfuse Nester, an aspiring author, book lover, coffee drinker. She lives in Arkansas with her superhero husband and 2 mini people. @christenkrumm

Connect with Christen on her blog www.ChristenKrumm.com or on Twitter @ChristenKrumm