I’ve always loved reading. This isn’t a surprise, really. Not a big revelation to you all. It’s sort of like saying, “Breathing is awesome.”

But I never realized just how awesome breathing reading really is until I had kids. Now, sure, I spent entire weekends reading when I was a kid. But there’s something about watching my kids transported by reading – it makes me feel like a magician. And we all need more magic in our lives. And it’s a huge ego boost to be the one wielding the wand (um, book).

I still smile when I think of the way my kids cheered – like, hollered, “HOORAY!” and pumped their fists in their air, which I always thought was sort of a self-conscious reaction to something, but turns out it can be completely natural – when we got to the climax of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. And they still, 7 months after we finished it, are building Peter Nimble Lego scenes, or saying, in casual conversation, “That guy kind of sounds like Old Scabbs.”

Any chapter book we read is sure to lead to extended role playing. Often a mash-up: “Let’s play The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lunch Lady and Babymouse and Our Only May Amelia. How about Babymouse and May Amelia go through the wardrobe and fight the White Witch, but then Lunch Lady comes and saves them?” These characters and stories are so real to them. Writers are brilliant. They are able to create these people and creatures that live and breathe in our minds. We cheer when they win, and we rage and cry when they die (thanks a lot for that, Jennifer L. Holm).

Today we finished The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. I am so grateful that I’m in a situation where I can start a book, and we can collectively declare it so excellent that we can decide to read it all in one day. Except that it took us two days. It would have taken one day if we didn’t have to keep stopping to laugh (also, it’s 423 pages long). I’m not even going to describe this book to you, except to tell you to just go read it because it’s very silly, brilliantly written, hysterically funny, and features completely improbable situations and characters that are now so real to all of us that I would know them if I saw them on the street, and would invite them to dinner (and know what to feed them). And more than that, we love them. We want them to move in.

Books are magic. Reading is alchemy. I feel like I’ve bumbled at parenting, but then I look over at my four kids (only one of whom can actually, fluently read) and they are all nose-deep in books, and I feel like I’m doing something right. (And this isn’t even talking about the magic of non-fiction, without which we wouldn’t have been able to fix the car this past weekend, which was pretty magical right there, let me tell you.)

I leave you with this, the True Meaning of Smekday book trailer: