For My Father Who Taught Me the Beauty of Books

I truly believe that my love of books was nurtured most by my father. He was a great person to talk about the latest book I was reading or go book shopping with because he just let me go. He let me talk and talk about the book or he let me shop for hours. Even when we didn't have a lot of money he would allow me to buy at least one book. This is where we bonded most, our shared love of reading. So when I ran across the book "The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared" by Alice Ozma and published by Grand Central Publishing, I read the NOOKbook version,  I decided that this would be a good book for us to read together as it was all about a father reading to his daughter.

When Alice was young they made a deal to read for one hundred consecutive nights. They would read whenever they could at night as long as they got it in before midnight. When they reached their 100th night they went to celebrate the next morning. As they were enjoying their celebratory breakfast they decided to make a whole new pact. They decided to read for 1000 nights with no interruptions. 'The Streak' as they came to call it lasted from when Alice was 9-years-old until the day she left for college. It is an endearing story that is sure to make a place in your heart.

Although the story is basically about this amazing reading streak that Alice and her father went on it is not a story about books but rather about the people who read them. In the introduction Alice says this and so you know from the beginning that this was the case but I still hoped that the story would be a little bit about the books. I was mainly disappointed on that front though. The stories about how they barely made their reading time or what happened at the book fair were sweet and funny. But I feel as if this really should have been about the books because the fact that they read all those books were the reason she wrote her own book. I was disappointed that there was so little about the books, even when she did talk specifically about them. The quotes at the beginning of each chapter were nice and the chapters that followed usually had something to do with the quote. I guess I just wanted to know more about the books that they read. 

The writing was slightly disjointed it didn't really have a flow. But I still enjoyed the book, it had a charm that kept me reading. I would recommend this book for only a small audience because it's not really that interesting of a story. This book is for booklovers because it is basically a love letter to booklovers about booklovers. It is also a good read for a single father because it shows how deeply reading can bond a parent to their child. It's a nice story about a father and daughter and the love of reading they shared for most of her life.  This is a book for anyone who wants to see into a world that a father and daughter created between themselves and all the books they shared. Especially if it is a father looking for a good book to read to his daughter. Find a copy and share in the joy this father and daughter found in spending time reading together.