A Book is Like a Garden Carried in a Pocket – Chinese Proverb

Book Give Away, Book Give Away, Book Give Away!! *hint* read all the way to the end.

I was standing in the bookstore with 4 new books in my hands when a group of children, sitting in circle being read to, caught my eye.  In a flash, I knew I wanted to share my love of  books with you all.  I decided, right then and there, that I would start a monthly posting based around my favorite books from my childhood.  I also decided I wanted to give away a copy of each book I featured to one of you.

You see, books were a HUGE part of my upbringing and I do mean HUGE!  Piles of books could be found around the house, weekly trips to the library occurred and we were read to every night.  I’m still a serious reader, often reading several books at a time.  I adore that my sisters’ instilled this love of reading in my nieces and nephews too!  It never ceases to amaze me to find children, 7 and under, choosing to sit on the couch to read.

The dinner table and Mr. Popper’s Penguins sets the scene for one of my fondest childhood memories.  My mom brought home a book and explained that this was one of her all time favorite books when she was a kid.  Not only did she want us to read it, she wanted us to read it as a family.  Her plan was to have one of us read a couple of pages out loud then pass the book to our right for the next person to read.

Mr Popper is a small town painter who is bored with his life.  He dreams of far off travels and seeing the Poles.  His down time is spent reading everything he can on explorers and their trips to the Poles.  One day he writes a fan letter to famed explorer Admiral Drake.  To his complete surprise, Admiral Drake sends him a penguin!  Soon the small Popper Family grows to include 12 penguins – all who have to eat!  The traveling show “Popper’s Performing Penguins” is born.  The penguins create all sorts of trouble and slapstick moments while on the road.  Every night would find us at the dinner table waiting with anticipation to see what the penguins got up to next!

Now the fun part!  The book giveaway!!  Every month I’ll feature a book in a post and set a comments closing date.  For  the sake of simplicity, all comments must take place on the blog, comments on our Facebook fan page won’t be counted.  I’ll close all comments 9pm EST on the set date.  If 10+ people have commented I’ll put the total number of comments into a random number picker (your assigned number is based on the comment sequence – first comment = 1, second comment = 2, etc…) and the number that comes back is the winner!  I’ll announce and contact the winner two days after the closing date and arrange to send them a copy of the book!  So excited to share this with you!!  So here are the details for this month’s book.

April 2010 Book: Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

Comment Closing Date: May 12th, 2010

Announcement of Winner: May 14th, 2010

Now if you just can’t wait until May 14th here’s an Amazon direct link.