The EASIEST, Least Painful Book Log Ever

My first real word, after Mama and Dada, was bookie.

I would follow my mother around the house, like her little shadow, with a book in hand. All the while I’d be repeating,

“Boooooookie bookie bookie bookie bookie!”

How annoying for my mom!

Well, the more things change the more they stay the same. Here I am, at 37 years young, still book obsessed.

I’ve always been this way, it is in my blood.

If I’m not doing something, I’m reading something. Or, if we’re being entirely accurate, I’m reading somethings.

I have my upstairs book, and my downstairs book, and my in-the-car book, and all the articles I am going to read open on my Chromebook, and all the other articles I am going to read open on my iPhone.

I never, ever leave home without a book.

And yet… growing up… if you told me to read something, I refused. I’d buy the Cliff Notes rather than give you the satisfaction.

This reader hates to be told to read things.

While you were talking about Heart of Darkness, I was sitting in the back of class secretly reading something else.

It’s funny to me now, but I only liked the books we read in AP English long after I’d actually graduated from high school… and read the books on my own… for the first time.

Do you remember those book logs you would have to keep in school? Those bad boys drove me bonkers. I loathed filling them out, and yet I read books like no one else I know.

This reader would wait until the last minute and then forge the g-damned book log.

And I read heaps of books!

I swear: Book logs are the devil. 

No one likes them. 

The readers hate them.

And I’m willing to bet that those who hate to read also despise the book log.

I thought those book logs were a thing of the past, but then I found myself suddenly, unexpectedly homeschooling my asynchronous little fella and guess what I’m required to maintain?

You guessed it: a book log.

The last thing I want to do is to kill this child’s love of reading, the way book logs of old squelched my own.

I want to raise readers.

Well, folks… I have discovered the easiest, least painful book log ever.

He doesn’t even know I keep it.

Are you ready?

All I did was create an e-mail for my little fella and download the Goodreads app on my iPhone.

When he finishes a book, I scan its barcode.

One beep and it’s done.

No writing.

No forging.

No grumbling.

Just reading heaps of great books, the way it should be.

Now, it’s your turn. Tell me: Did you loathe book logs as a kid? Do your kids hate them now? Share here!