A note about the nightlight

Unlike many kidlit bloggers out there, I am completely unqualified to share my opinions about children’s books. By unqualified, I mean that I have no formal training in children’s librarianship, book publishing or reviewing, or anything to do with the children’s book trade. I am, however, about to become a new mom, and have been a voracious reader since I was a small girl. Although I have enjoyed acquiring all of those necessary baby things that newborns need (and some that they don’t), I have found that I have gotten the most pleasure out of the knowledge that soon I’ll be able to start sharing my love of reading with my son. He won’t be able to understand a word I read to him at first, or even be able to really focus on the pictures, but I know that eventually it will become as cherished an activity in his life as it has in mine.

The title of this blog refers to a nighttime ritual that both my sister, Liz, (the qualified professional out of the two of us) and I engaged in as children. After I had been tucked into bed, I would often get out from under the covers and continue reading my current book by the glow of the night-light. Turns out that Liz did the same thing. Our mother was on to us, and she would usually pop her head into our rooms 15 or 20 minutes later and tell us to go to sleep. Sometimes the book was too good to put down, however, and I’m sure I caused my mother a lot of frustration on those nights that I stayed up way past my bedtime.

Although the description of this blog above (re. books that keep kids up past their bedtimes) will certainly describe many of the posts that my sister and I write, this blog is meant to be more open-ended. Many of the books I’ll review will naturally be for very young children, since I soon will become intimately involved with the phenomenon of the board book. Liz will have a different point of view, since she is currently studying to be a children’s librarian and will have access to materials, theories, etc. that will be unknown or unfamiliar to me, the lay person. It is my hope that our two unique but complimentary approaches will add something new to the kidlit blogosphere.