This Year, How Can We Make Books A Habit, Not A Hurdle?

Do you think you can find 10 minutes in your day to do the one thing that is proven to not only boost academic performance, but also bring you closer as a family? Reading together. Just ten minutes. 

In today's episode, we are talking about small rituals that will create big readers. It's a New Year and a great time for a reading reset. We share a practical plan to build a joyful reading culture at home in a screen‑heavy world, anchored by a ten‑minute read‑aloud that fits any day. From confidence gains to a school book swap, we show low‑pressure ways to make stories social, affordable, and fun.

• why reading for pleasure drives cognition, mental health and empathy
• designing low‑pressure rituals that make books the default
• the 10‑minute read‑aloud challenge and rewards
• early wins with pronunciation, confidence and classics
• flexible timing that survives busy schedules
• kids using apps to log, review and discover
• launching a budget‑friendly school book swap
• and lastly, cutting to our classic guide on home book club culture where we revisit Episode 11 (Season 1): Creating a Home Book Club Culture: No Homework Required to give you awesome tips for how you can incorporate reading in your home life this year. 

A few links from this episode: 

- Learn more about the RAR Read Aloud Challenge

Some websites I mention in the episode revisit: 

Art for Kids Hub

Little School of Smiths 

Tea, Tales, and Tomes blog 

Find us on Instagram @teatalesandtomes and don't forget to join us next time for more bookish wonder. 

Podcast music by Lundstroem (Episode 1 onwards) and Audionautix (TTAT Trailer). Podcast edited by Timothy Wiggill. 

Transcript

New Year, New Bookish Routines

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Hello bookish friends. This is Natasha and you're listening to Tea Tales and Homes, where we are living our favorite lives, talking books and drinking hot beverages. So grab your cupper and let's talk books. It's January 2026, a whole new year. What's that saying again? New Year, new me? Well, I think I'm okay with the old me, and to be honest, I'm not always one for New Year's resolutions, but one thing I still love is the new beginnings feel of the beginning of a new year. We can start new traditions, new rituals, new habits, and you know what else? New bookish routines. It all feels possible at the start of a new year, right? In the grand scheme of things, I guess January might be just a pretty arbitrary month, and you can really start new things literally at any point during the year, during your life, but still there is something about this global new year phenomenon, and I think that we can take advantage of that. As we step into a new year, I want to talk today a bit about creating bookish habits and routines that make your reading life and that of your children even more awesome this year. In doing this, I'm revisiting an older podcast episode, one pretty close to my heart and perfect for the beginning of the new year. It's also, very, very interestingly, the second most popular episode since the podcast began in March 2025. It's called Creating a Home Book Club Culture, No Homework Required. So this episode is filled with low pressure ways to make reading part of the fun rhythms in your home, in your family, whether you've never done anything like this before, never read aloud to your child, have children who don't enjoy reading yet, or even children who can't read at all. I'm also going to chat about a few new things that we're trying out to get some great reading moments in our home, and these might be things that could work for you too in 2026. So let's get into it. We are hearing more than ever that despite global literacy figures showing a general upward trend, people reading for pleasure is not increasing in the same way. It means basically that fewer people are reading just for enjoyment. So when we link this to the fact that reading for pleasure is one of the single greatest enhancers of cognitive development, mental health, and empathy in both children and adults, it paints a very bleak picture. So even in my close circles, many children simply do not read for pleasure. Reading is the chore. It's the homework. Reading is the thing to rebel against in the face of Fortnite, iPads, and other screens. Reading is the chore, and the reward seems to be getting screen time. It's gotten so bad that I actually just read an article that said that the World Health Organization, together with various pediatric associations, have declared screens a significant health risk due to the scientific link that excessive screen time has with physical and mental health issues in children of all ages. Yeah, that that's pretty scary, you know? It's you know, it's scary and I think it's a little bit backward. But it's not unique to my family and it's not unique to yours. It's where we are. We're here though, a place in time where many things are competing for space in our lives, and screens of all kinds seem to be dominating for the most part. So screens are winning at all costs for the most part. From people sitting on their phones during family dinners to putting on the TV the moment they wake up or when we get home to kids gaming for the majority of the day. So here's the thing though, kids and adults, we love screens, yes. But we also love hanging out with the people that we love. We love going on adventures and trying new things. We love driving to new places and cycling, bicycling, walking, running, jogging. We love playing tabletop games or card games or imagination games with other people. We love listening to music. We will enjoy a picnic in the backyard. We love visiting new places and we love reading books, especially if those books and those moments with books feel special to us. So we just have to fill the space we have in our days, in our months, in our lives with these other things too. And when it comes to reading, we have to be very deliberate about it because it can very easily take a back seat to everything else. So, how can we do that? So, in the episode that I'm gonna replay, I talk about that exact thing, but we'll get to that just now. So, what are some of the things that we in the Tea Tales and Tomes home are doing this year? Number one, we have started the Read Aloud Revival, that's R A R's Read Aloud Challenge, which I will link to, which is a super simple challenge to read aloud to someone for 10 minutes every day. 10 minutes every day, 10 minutes only. So, Keegan, both the kids and I have signed on to be part of this challenge. We have our charts on the wall to mark off when we have completed our 10 minutes for the day. And every time we finish 25 days, there is a reward. Now, with the RAR challenge, it's basically just for January for 25 days of reading this year, but we've decided to extend it throughout the year so there could possibly be a number of rewards every time 25 days of reading aloud for 10 minutes is completed. And these rewards are not huge, and but they're very relevant for our family. And I will post the full list in the show notes, but they're simple things like a coffee date as a place of your choice, a new book, there's some financial rewards, choosing what the family has for dinner, an ice cream date, desserts of your choice, an activity of your choice. It's just such a great challenge because kids are quite competitive, and this is a great way to get the whole family involved in doing something that's actually going to help us build connections with each other. Just 10 minutes of reading aloud to someone, and yes, pets and stuffed toys also count. But why do we bother doing a read aloud challenge? Well, simply put, reading aloud is the easiest way to build connections with your loved ones as well as with the books that we are reading. In short, it's the easiest way to create a reading culture at home. So both my kids can read now, and it really would be the easiest thing to just tell them to go and read. Let them continue on to their reading journeys by themselves, but without us making the time, 10 minutes only, to read aloud and read together, we lose that shared connection through stories. There are so many academic reasons as well for reading aloud, naturally growing language, making difficult books more accessible to all ages, modeling what a reader looks like, and making reading relational and not isolating. And these are just some of them. I could go on and on and will actually be focusing the next episode as to why we should be reading aloud to kids, even if they can already read for themselves. So some of the early learnings from this challenge. We're currently on day 16, and not everyone has done 10 minutes every day because sometimes people forgot. In any case, you know, it's not tracked as a streak. It's basically once you get your 25 days, even if they're not exactly consecutive days, it's totally fine. You get your reward. It's not a challenge that's meant to make you feel bad about not reading. It's not meant to be punitive, it's meant to be rewarding. And the rewards are so much more than the rewards that we're getting in terms of the coupons, like a coffee date. Keegan is also part of the challenge, like I just said. And because we're sharing books that we all love, we're also learning so much more about each other. Like, for example, Keegan has chosen a childhood favorite of his, which is Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, and it's the kid's first proper classic. So as he reads aloud, we are discovering how the language is so different and also not always easy. But the best part is that it's just 10 minutes, firstly, and we get to discuss about how books were written back then, how characters were described back then, how different it is to how things are written now. And for me, the most exciting part is that even when the timer for the 10 minutes goes off, the kids still want more. They want more of that story, and that is just brilliant, and it shows you the power of reading aloud. Also the power of a good classic. Another learning has been that even though Kai and Jazz are voracious readers, they actually do the thing that a lot of voracious readers do. Because they read to themselves, they don't always know how all the words are pronounced because they're pronouncing the words in their minds the way they see them on the paper, which may not always be correct because, as we know, English is a completely nutty language. So as they read aloud, we can also correct them or talk to them about pronunciation. And these small corrections on these difficult words is actually so amazing. It's also building their confidence. From day one to day 16, they have come such a long way in their ability and their confidence to read aloud. And that's huge. And how imagine how they will be after 25 days or after 50 days. So this is, I think, one of those challenges that it's definitely worthwhile you adopting within your home because, like I said, it's not punitive. If you don't do it, you're not getting punished. It's also just 10 minutes. It is not difficult to find 10 minutes. 10 minutes at breakfast, 10 minutes in the car, 10 minutes before supper, 10 minutes during supper, 10 minutes before bed. Various times in the day, we can find 10 minutes. And if you can't find 10 minutes, 5 minutes now and 5 minutes later. And if you can't find five minutes, 2 minutes now, then 2 minutes intervals throughout the day. But we have been very hard-pressed, even despite the start of school and the schedules of the kids in terms of their school day as well as their extracurricula. We have not struggled with finding 10 minutes. Now, kids, Keegan and I have had uh a Goodreads account for a long, long time, but now we've created accounts for the kids, and we just figured that this is such a great way for them to log their books because somehow logging books makes things a lot more exciting. The added benefit of this is that we thought that in this way they will learn computer skills in a safe way. So they will learn how to type the names of the books, they will learn how to perform searches, to do reviews, and it's just such a great way to do these things, right? It's also, you know, like I said, it's just fun. We all love logging our books and seeing all the books that we've read, and Goodreads also recommends books based on your ratings and based on the books that you've read. So it's a whole new world for the kids and it's very exciting. So I'll tell you a bit more about this as the year progresses as well. Lastly, so the last thing uh that we're doing this January is I'm going to be initiating a book swap or a book exchange at school with the voracious readers in high school. So this idea came up because we are rapidly running out of shelf space and books are also hella expensive. So if you have kids that read, you know that they go through books with lightning speed. Keeping up the demand for news stories is virtually impossible because books are expensive, and in our part of the world, libraries don't always have the best selections. So with the book exchange, I'm hoping that this means more opportunities to read different books without breaking the bank. I've chatted to some of the moms about this already, and I think the small, low pressure, bookish way to socialize is going to make reading even more appealing to kids. It's totally experimental, but I'm so excited to see how it goes, and again, I will let you know. So those are the only three things we're currently doing, but as the year progresses, I will definitely do a few more things as I have already discussed in the creating a home book club culture episode. So I'm now going to cut to that episode because if you're struggling with how to get your very reluctant readers reading or how to create a low-pressure home book club culture, how to get reading just part of the culture of your home. This is the episode for you. It's going to help you to do that without making reading feel like a chore, without making reading feel like homework. So please do enjoy and remember that it doesn't have to look like the movies, it doesn't have to look perfect. Small steps will get you where you want to be. Also, don't forget to drop me a message on Instagram at T Tales and Tomes if you want any advice on raising readers, book recommendations, or even specific topics that you want me to discuss on the show. Here's the episode on creating a book club culture at home without homework. Or maybe you think I've got two perfect little book dragons who spend all day reading, writing, and begging for more homework, right? Wrong. The truth is you couldn't be further off. So last year we joined the Jonathan Ball Publishers Kids Book Club, and it was a wonderful experience, in theory. Free books to read and opportunities for the kids to share their thoughts. But here's the thing: if my kids didn't like a particular book, getting them to read it, let alone review it, was like pulling teeth. A complete nightmare for me because we had an obligation to post a review, but sometimes they were just not into it. And honestly, I couldn't bring myself to fake enthusiasm for books that were sometimes at best average and at worst D and F territory. That did not finish in Bookspeak. So no, my kids aren't just lounging around and discussing symbolism in middle grade fiction while skipping happily past the PlayStation. Come on, guys, they're typical kids. And I get it. Book reviews and book clubs don't exactly scream fun. Even as an adult who lives for books, I hate school style book reviews. You know the ones. What's the theme of the story? Summarize the plot. Tell me what this meant. What was the author trying to say? Ugh. Those questions always make me want to throw the book across the room, not talk about it, or my experience reading it. They feel like an interrogation, and that is not what reading should ever feel like. But that doesn't mean I don't love talking about books. In fact, my favorite book chats have happened over coffee with friends, and I'm sure that this is the case for you as well. When, you know, you're sitting there, a lovely drink in hand. Sometimes it may be friends, sometimes it may be strangers. The conversation just flows naturally. What are you reading right now? Oh wait, you've got to read this book I just finished. It's informal, it's energizing, and it's real. And that is what I want to unpack in this episode. How can we make book clubs and book reviews feel less like homework and more like connection? More play, less pressure. More spark, less structure. Because when it's done right, the magic of book talk is undeniable for kids and grown-ups alike. After this episode, you're gonna be so inspired to create a book club culture at home. One that works for your family, suits your child's personality, and makes reading even more magical. If you have reluctant readers, this might even turn the tide on that too. So, first, let's get into why we should even bother with doing this. If your kids are reading, that's fine, they're reading, right? Let's just leave it at that. Why poke the bear? Because if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times. Reading isn't just about decoding words on a page, it's about connection, imagination, and conversation. When we create space to talk about books, whether with toddlers, with tweens, or teens, we give our children tools to process big emotions, see different perspectives, and build their own ideas. Okay, so I hear you, Natasha. They do this at school, right? Why should we bother doing it at home? A book club culture at home doesn't mean formal meetings or assigned reading. It's about creating regular opportunities to read together or alongside each other and then chat about it, over tea, on a car ride, while baking cookies. It shows your kids that books aren't just for school, they're for life. I'm gonna say that again. When we create a book club culture at home, it shows our children that books are meant to be cherished, that books aren't just for school, they're for life. It's about those moments when you pop into a cafe and see scones, and your kids immediately think about the famous five mysteries that they just read, which centred baking scones by the main characters, buying the scones and enjoying the treat while talking about the story, or mysteries in real life, or not talking at all. It's about when our kids have difficulty making friends, and then reminding them about Hyacinth from The Vanderbeekers by Karina Jan Glazer, also learning to find strength in her intro version and seeing it as a superpower. It's about comforting a friend who has lost his dad, remembering that we are all connected to everyone we love by invisible strings, even if we can't physically see that person anymore. Just like in Patrice Karst's amazing book, The Invisible String. In all those moments, bookish friends, you are crossing the barriers. Barrier from being a parent and entering your child's world, dwelling in that world for a little while, and getting a wonderful glimpse into their hearts and minds. So that's why this is important. That's why that book club culture at home is so much more than just did you read that book? So here's the Cliff Notes version without all my bookish references and my emotive reasoning. That book club culture is going to strengthen bonds because shared stories equals shared memories. Reading together or just chatting about books releases oxytocin, the same hormone linked to trust and attachment. That means reading together and talking about books can literally make you feel closer as a family. It's also going to boost your child's comprehension because talking about books helps kids understand and retain what they've read. Studies have shown that when children talk about the books that they've read, it strengthens both language development and emotional regulation. The conversations we have about characters, problems, and endings help build neural connections and vocabulary, even more so when books are discussed naturally rather than in structured test-like formats. It also is going to help to grow empathy because they are walking in someone else's shoes while they read the story. And then when they chat to us, we're helping them to relate this to real life situations, real life people. How amazing is that? And lastly, a home book club culture will help with encouraging critical thinking. Because even the youngest kids can have big ideas when we ask the right questions. We're gonna take a little break, and when we come back, I am going to talk about how exactly we build this book club culture at home without it seeming like school, without it seeming forced, and without it being one more thing for us to do as parents when we already have a million things on our to-do list. Okay, welcome back, bookish friends. So I touched briefly about building a book club culture at home and why it's important and maybe a little bit on how to do it, you know, do it over tea, do it over coffee, over scones, etc. But what would this actually look like? Firstly, I'm not talking about rigid schedules and intense literary debates. Unless, of course, that's your vibe, then you know what? You go for it. I'm not here to judge. What I mean for me is creating a space, a rhythm, and a mindset where books aren't just read but shared, felt, and talked about. Your aim here, strike that. Our aim here is to make reading communal almost. So all humans want connection, and this is especially so for children of all ages, even those grumpy hormonal teens. When we create a cozy book club culture, it is such a powerful way to bring people together, especially if it is a bucket-filling exercise and not one that is bucket emptying. So, first up, let's just talk about the quickest and easiest way you can do it. No planning, low effort, all the gains, none of the drama. I've done this so many times, especially in those times which happen very often when life gets really hectic or really heavy or filled with those zesty lemons, and I start to feel like we're all at each other's throats, and everything and everyone is full of rough edges, and there's a bit of distance among us. What I do then is firstly center myself, take a few deep breaths, and then I'll rummage in the cupboard and get a bunch of biscuits, make some hot chocolate or some tea or some coffee, grab a book or a bunch of books, lay out a blanket on the lounge carpet with all these goodies, and just start reading aloud. I kid you not. As simple as that. Just a bit of a rummage, a bit of a hot beverage, and I'm on the carpet. Before I know it, the kids are next to me. First one, then the other, eating and drinking and listening to me read the books. After a while, we are all in a beautiful bubble of words and connection, and those rough edges have gone. They feel so much softer. If I have more time and if I feel up to it, baking is after all my happy place. I might bake some crunchies or brownies, and you will watch how the smell of the baked goodies is gonna bring everyone out of their miserable attitudes. Lay it out again. Start a book. This is the perfect time for me and my family to actually start a chapter book because usually after baking, I feel very fulfilled. So then I'll be like, okay, you know, I'm gonna start a new chapter book. And starting it means that they're now interested, especially if it's a really great one. And we will get to an episode where I talk about the best chapter books for kids of all ages. And if you have no time, just popcorn. I tell you, treats and books and mom on the floor reading is always a winner. It's so strange. I will be all alone one minute reading to an empty room, and then suddenly everyone is huddled next to me like moths to a flame. And if that's not magic, I don't know what is. So that's the easiest way. If you want something more planned, more regular, here are a few other things you can do. And these are all things that I have tried and I have tested and they have worked. So trust me when I say that nothing I mention here is going to create drama in your life. And if you do try something and it doesn't work, give it a miss and move on to one of my other recommendations. And you're gonna see how easy it is to create this book club culture to start documenting your books. It's been really an amazing experience for me going from somebody who felt like this is not something that I can do, to now being able to do it so easily, so organically, that it doesn't feel strange anymore. Oh, right, which brings me to another point which I I remembered that I needed to mention is that it will feel strange if you've never done this. Just like if you are somebody who has never read a book out loud, it feels strange the first 10 times you do it. It feels like you are performing, it feels like you are putting on a show, it feels like you are doing something that's not who you are, and you're gonna feel like an imposter, but give it some time and it's gonna feel like the most natural thing, and your kids are just gonna love it. They will love it. Okay, so here go let's go on to now the more planned, the more regular, scheduled kind of things. Still not schoolish. So make it a ritual, pick a day of the week, or even just pick a day of the month if a weekly thing is too much. Do it monthly when everyone will call up with a snack and chat about a book. Whether it's one that you've read together, where all of you have read together, or different ones you've enjoyed. Mark it on the calendar and keep it light and fun so that it is something that everyone is looking forward to, not someone that something that's gonna be super cringy. Something that you can also do to make it super special is to go on a coffee date with your child to talk about the books that they've read. So this can also be part of those rituals. So find a ritual that will work in your family. So for me, uh, I don't do very well with schedule. So it's very difficult for me to say every Friday I'm gonna do this with Kai or with Jazz, or we're gonna do this as a family, and if I don't do it, I'm gonna feel like a bad mom. I'll never ever say, I'm gonna meet you every Friday and we're gonna talk, we're gonna have a coffee date. So, what works for me is if there's ever a time, and there often will be, there'll be at least two or three times in the month, where if I'm picking up Kai from school, we will have a little bit of time. We will literally pop over to a nearby coffee shop and I'll just casually mention a book as we're walking there and grabbing our hot drinks. I'll mention a book that I am reading and what I think about it. So I'll be like, oh, you know, I just started this book and it's called Everything You Ever Need Is In the Library. This is an actual story. And I'll be like, you know, it's it's really slow and I'm not sure whether I'm gonna carry on reading it. And then Kai will then ask me a hundred questions about the book. Why am I saying this? What is it about? And we'll start talking about it. And then suddenly we start talking about something that he has read recently or is currently reading or that we have read together, and I'll talk about what I felt about it or what he felt about it. And I tell you, it's just amazing. It's so natural. I'm pretty sure that even if I do sneak in some of those bookish questions that I kind of want to get in his mind and get embedded in his mind, which I'm gonna talk about later on in this podcast. Things that make your little reader a better reader when they're actually reading those books, things that they're going to start to look at or look for when they're reading a book. But I'm gonna come to that, sorry. I'm jumping all over the place because this makes me so excited. I tell you, we did this, we do this quite often. Because, like I said, sometimes we will have that little bit of time and a little bit of extra cash to just go down to the coffee shop. And it's so nice because, in addition to us talking about the books, this is when Kyle will open up about something that happened at school because it may tangentially relate to something that we are talking about, or an interesting idea that he has had. And then I get to be so immersed in this conversation, in his ideas, that it's it really is an amazing bonding experience. That even though, in a way, I've kind of contrived that it's gonna happen because I know that when I picked him up, I'm gonna have this coffee date. And I think at this stage, because it's happened often enough, that he knows it's gonna happen too. But we both love it. You know, we know it's not school, we know we enjoy it, and we're also getting to spend that time together. Now, with jazz, we also have those times where it's just us, just Jazz and I, one-on-one time. I will always have my tablet with me because for Jazz, he's much younger than Kai, well, two years younger than Kai, and I find that as much as he would love to just talk about books, he really needs to be able to show me the book as he's talking. So I'll have my tablet there so that we can quickly do that. We can go and have a look at the book and have a look at the book covers or have a look at something interesting, an interesting fact that he found out in the book. So it may be different for different age groups, you know, for your older teens, that coffee club date with mom and dad alone will be so special and it will be way more than a book club uh chat because your teen is gonna feel seen by you firstly, because you are showing an interest in something that they read, but you're also not just interrogating them, you're also sharing something from you, you're sharing something you read or something that happened to you that you're relating to a book. So it it's a it's it has to be a two-way thing. It can't be you coming in there as a teacher saying, Okay, so tell me about this book, tell me what the themes were, tell me who you thought was your favorite character and why. You know, you're coming in there as a friend, you're coming in there as um a fellow book connaisseur, and that is where the magic lies. That is where the magic of a home book club culture lies. Alright, so let's move on from that one. Another one, number two, make it a challenge. So if you have kids that enjoy challenges and competitions, this is an excellent way to get them to read more. So at the start of the year or of a long school break, sit with your kids and set out a bookish challenge. Involve them in it so that they really take ownership of it, but guide the process so that it is meaningful to them and to you. So the challenge could be around the number of books or it could be the number of books as well as the diversity of books, with you suggesting some of the books that they read. And this is also a really great way for you to get your kids reading a little bit different to what they normally read. And if you've got competitive kids who enjoy a challenge, they're going to read those other books, and in that way you are opening their mind to this wonderful world of books, which sometimes our kids can have serious blinkers on about what they like. Nope, I am only going to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid Ugh, or I will only read Harry Potter. But there are amazing and better books out there. But if we do recommend those books, they're not going to touch that book with a 10-foot pole. So a challenge like this, with you suggesting one or two books out of the bigger set of books, is really great. And there could be a prize at the end of it, like a trip to a favorite hangout spot, doing a fun activity together, visiting a bookshop, or having a coffee date, or something relevant to your family, but not too extravagant. And there can even be mini prizes, depending on how long the challenge is, so that you can keep the momentum going. So I never do annual challenges with my kids because I personally find it too overwhelming. So instead, I focus on either a term challenge, sometimes even just a weekend challenge. With my littlest, it can even be a day challenge. Okay, you're gonna read these three books out loud, and then if you do finish, we're gonna have a bubble bath at the end. So I hope you can see how flexible your challenge can be and how you can tailor it to the needs and wants of your family of your little homebook club. In a short bit, I'll go a little bit more into this tailoring, but let's move to the next tip in creating a book club culture at home. I think we're on to number three. I need to be better with my keeping track of my numbering eek. Uh, but I know you'll forgive me because book people really are the best people. So let's call it number three. And number three is all about respect. Make space for every single opinion. Whether your six-year-old says that a book was boring or your tween thinks that the villain was actually the hero, just lean into it with curiosity and a genuine willingness to understand and engage. Just celebrate that they actually have a perspective and that they're sharing this with you. You know, we're gonna find that our minds are blown by their insights and their wisdom. And they've been dwelling in these literary worlds. So when they're talking to us about it, you know, we get a little bit of a sneak peek into this as well as into the hearts of the characters that become almost tangible to them, as well as into their hearts. And this is true whether your kid is reading a picture book like The Pandos Who Promised by Rachel Bright or the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. They'll have opinions, just go along for the ride. So, lastly, when creating a book club culture at home, documenting some of that journey is gonna elevate the entire experience if done correctly. Wait, wait, I know you're like documenting sounds like book reviews, but just hear me out. How can we do this in a way that doesn't make it feel like we are giving them more homework? Like I mentioned right at the beginning of this episode, this is what I did over these July holidays, and it was really a wonderful experience. But let's just talk about how we can do this in the simplest way. Simply take pictures or selfies when you go on those one-on-one dates or have those little lounge carpet picnics. And if you can, print those pictures and place them around your bookshelves or around your home so that those times are always remembered as special and that your kids will want to do more of them. That's the simplest way to document it. Another thing that you can do if you are doing the reading challenges is to document those in a really fun and simple way. And there really are so many amazing ways to do this. Like, for example, draw a snaking path or a row divided into segments with a start and an end, almost like a bookish board game. And each segment has a prompt for a book to read. So as the books are read, the segment is colored in until you reach the destination, which could be whatever the reward for finishing the challenge is. So if a snaking path seems too onerous, a very simple book list with prompts with boxes to check off. For some reason, us humans, we love checking things off a list. It's one of our weird traits. So yeah, just a simple list with boxes to check off as your kid finishes your challenge. Those book prompts that I've mentioned now can be tailored to your kids' ages or what you want them to read, but they just have to be fun. I think as you're preparing these kinds of things, you just have to keep in the back of your mind, is this fun or am I now going into homeschooling territory? Just keep it super simple. Every time you feel a little bit of overwhelm, just remember you're overthinking it. So I'm gonna give you a few examples of prompts, but if you want more, just drop me a note. Or just go on to Google, there'll be tons there. Take what works for you and chuck the rest. So some of the ones that we've used, which you're gonna see on the blog post, read a book with a red cover, read a book that is nonfiction, read a book that you think looks boring, read a book that mom or dad read when they were little, read a book with a number in the title, read a book that has a title that's only one word. I can go on and on. So you can see here it's not saying read JK Rowling, it's not saying finish 20,000 books over the school year. It's actually just making it fun. Imagine scouring bookshelves, going into a library and looking for a book that has a red cover that also appeals to you. Super open-ended, it's super fun, and it's not going to feel like you are running a little dictatorship in your home. I've already posted what this might look like at Tea Tales and Tomes on Instagram as well as on the blog post because sometimes a visual really does help. So please do go check it out after you've listened to this episode. Another quick and easy way to document challenges or to track the number of books is to give kids a bookmark with rectangular blocks printed on it or actual bookshelves printed in black and white and have them color those blocks in as they read books throughout the year or month or whatever your stipulated time frame is. I even do this for myself. It's actually just a really fun thing. All you need is some crayons or felt pens, some color pencils, and yeah, you have a bookmark, so it's really, really practical, and you're busy doing something at the end. So it's a way of checking boxes, but in a really, really fun way. Lastly, about documenting it, review the book but make it fun. Documenting books you've read doesn't have to feel like homework. In fact, it really shouldn't. It really should not feel like homework. I've tried a few ways to get the kids interested in noting what they're reading, even creating their own story graph or Goodreads accounts, and nothing has really taken off, except for what I'm gonna mention now. It's been a real trial and error exercise for me, and I truly found something that has worked so brilliantly. For me, what was it? It was pairing drawing and book club with a book review that looked different and made the kids want to finish their books because it was really exciting to complete the review after. Again, the full details are going to be on the blog post because this is something you have to see to fully understand. But in a nutshell, I created different book report templates for Kai and Jazz. So let me Try and explain this to you. The first thing before I explain how it works was that even though they may have read dozens of books, they were only reviewing eight of those. They chose the number eight. It could have been five, it could have been two, heck, it could have been one, or it could have been twenty, but they chose eight. And it was very important that I got them to choose the number of books because it really got them to take ownership. So it was different for Kai and Jazz, which and I wanted to see what would work for these different age groups. So for Kai, he's eight. His book report was what I now have termed a book report envelope accordion. It wasn't my original idea. I wish I could take credit for it. It was another Instagram or Bookstagram user. I think it's called Little Happy Learners, but I might be wrong. And I will certainly give credit in the blog post as well as in the show notes to this episode. So it's called a book reports envelope accordion. Say what? Essentially, I took a bunch of envelopes and stuck them together at the flaps and folded them so that it looked like an accordion. So each envelope represented one book and I stuck together eight envelopes. So, like I said, even though he read dozens of books, I only wanted him to review eight. The ones that he chose were completely up to him. It's kind of hard to explain how they were stuck. So again, I'm gonna refer you to the Instagram post and to the blog post. And inside each of the envelopes was a folded A4 sheet, which had a few questions about the book, but nothing interrogatory or too difficult. And included things like book author entitled, the genre, rating, so what he felt about the book, uh, just in terms of emojis, whether the book reminded him of anything in his real life, what he felt the main idea for the book was, and his favorite character, or anything that he wants to remember from the book. Just really, really simple. The coolest part of this whole exercise was that on the outside of the envelope, he could draw anything that made him think of the book. The cover, a character, a scene, anything he wanted. Now, why this was cool, let me tell you something about my kid. He does not enjoy drawing. He really doesn't. In fact, he feels very insecure about it because both Keegan and I are quite good at drawing, especially my husband, Keegan, um, very, very good at drawing. So he feels a little bit insecure for some reason. But when this was kind of given to him as a very open-ended thing that he could now take ownership of, it allowed him to start to see himself as the illustrator. And I also told him that we will go online and we will look at art tutorials. Our favorite is Art for Kids Hub on YouTube, which is a dad, and he will just show you step by step how to draw. So we use so many videos on how to draw a troll, how to draw a rocket ship. It was amazing. And at the end of it, you have a product. You have a small and compact product which is filled with remarkable insight about the books because there's a little bit of questioning, a little bit of review, you're thinking a little bit more deeply. But then you're also using a much more creative side when you're drawing, and having a product is something that a child really loves. So do I actually. Having something that's really tangible that you can hold. He took it to school, he showed it to Miss Glock, he ended up getting a well-done badge for it, which was also amazing for him. It just really worked out. And I hope that you do go check out the blog post or the Insta reels that I've posted about it because it was life-changing for us. For jazz, it was a little bit more different. For jazz, I created a pie chart. So the pie chart had eight lift the flaps. So one paper stuck on another one, glued only on the edges, so that I could cut out the pie and fold back the flaps. Similarly to Kai, he also had to draw. We similarly used Art for Kids Hub. It was also only eight books that he chose. But with jazz, I made it a lot more flexible. It was his first time ever really reviewing and documenting books. So I wanted him to start to get the full variety of questions that could be asked. How can you rate a book? Can you remember the author's name? And because he isn't yet proficient with writing, I did the writing. It took away that stress. So he had no stress. Jazz loves drawing and following the step-by-step instructions, seeing how he drew the most amazing spider for his review of Charlotte's Webb, simply just following step-by-step instructions that we found on YouTube. It was fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. And inside I did ask questions like, What can you remember about this book? Was there any scenes that make you feel really sad? And I changed it up for different books. So if it was nonfiction, I would ask him, What was your favorite animal? Or what don't you ever want to forget from the story? If I was talking about Charlotte's Webb, and I know how he reacted to Charlotte's Webb when we finished reading it. He was just bawling his eyes out because it was it's one of those stories. If you've read Charlotte's Webb, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, I asked him, How did this book make you feel? Did any part make you sad? Did any part fill you with hope? Who was the most courageous? Did anybody feel brave? And in those questions, I started to realize that wait a second, he didn't know what courageous meant. So I got to also build his vocabulary through this. And I can guarantee you that when Kai and Jazz go into another story, when they go into books, these are the things they're thinking about. They're thinking about if I was gonna write a review, which will be the part that I want to remember, they're starting to think more deeply about books simply because we undertook this book review, book documenting, book reporting during the holidays. So, in a nutshell, why this works, you're building emotional literacy, you're building critical thinking skills, communication skills. More than that, you're giving your child the message that their voice matters, that their opinions about stories and characters and endings are worth hearing, worth documenting, worth me taking time to sit with them to find a picture that they can draw. The books are more than school. They're taking away the message that books are life. So, bookish friends, I hope that I've given you a few things that seem very doable to creating a book club culture at home. I've seen it work. I've seen how amazing it can be when we take a simple story and extend it in all of these various ways. I've seen firsthand how my child went from being really insecure about drawing to thinking of himself as an amazing illustrator. Whether you are reading aloud together, trading books among your friend's circle, or even recording little bookish chats on your phone for fun. Know this. Know that you're building something beautiful. You're building a home where books aren't just read, books are lived in. That's me for now, bookish friends. I hope to catch you again for more bookish wonder.