So, I’ve shared before that when it comes to my kids’ books, I refuse to believe that they’re outgrowing them. They are both big Harry Potter fans and my daughter has read the entire series, but I won’t let her get rid of her Elephant and Piggie books. I own this, with no shame.  However, in the last couple of days, my confidence has grown and I have found that these books can still come in handy.

We are in the process of moving, so my kids have packed most of their books, but I had them keep some of them out because we must always have something to read available. The other evening, my son grabbed this classic for the three of us to read before bed:

What?! I loved this book as a child, and for them to love it too is icing on the cake. We hadn’t read it in quite some time, yet I still thought they’d behave as if they were too old to play along. But no, we had a great time reading about Grover’s insistence that we stop turning the pages of the book.

Then, a few days later, in my cleaning/packing, I found some Elephant and Piggie books. I decided I Love My New Toy! was going to be our bedtime read for the evening. Again, I was thinking it would be a quick read where they were half listening. However, they were all into the facial reactions of the characters and even giggled in the right places. Although I couldn’t let them know it, I was amazed that they fell right back into it, like it was the first time we had read it.

So I share all this to say, in your #RaisingReaders journey, you are completely justified in keeping those books that your child has outgrown…at least a few of them anyway.  You could always bring them back out and take a nice stroll down memory lane.