“I cannot live without books.”

This morning, on my way from the bedroom to the kitchen, the tornado of books in the living room gave me pause. Judy Moody, Big Nate, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda… they were everywhere. My perfectionism surged and I started stacking books by size on the coffee table. Jackson, who was waiting patiently in the kitchen for his Strawberry Mini Wheats, got concerned.

“What are you doing?”

“The living room is a mess,” I told him. “There are too many books in here.”

I cannot live without books,” he said calmly.

My heart beamed.

“I know. Me neither. But we can at least stack them neatly.”

Jackson’s latest literary statement is not original, though he’s adopted it as his own. It came from Thomas Jefferson, and after Jackson read it on our visit to the Library of Congress, he’s been repeating it on the regular. This photo was the only one I was able to sneak of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library (photography was prohibited). Notice the statement at the top of the photo.

I cannot live without booksI love that he’s a reader – and a passionate one, no less. Even though we couldn’t touch anything in the Library of Congress, the children’s section was entirely hands-on. We sat and waited while Jack got his fix.

Jackson in the children's library

In the spirit of Throwback Thursday, here’s my sweetest reader from 2007. He was one year and four months old.

Jackson and books in 2007

 

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