The Kind of Peer Pressure I Can Get Behind…

My 12 year old daughter loves reading, and can become obsessed with characters in some of the series she reads. I feel like it is an absolute bonus that she has some friends that also love reading.

A while ago she was on a Zoom call with a couple of her friends, one who had recently had a birthday. My daughter was down the hall in her bedroom, so for the most part I couldn’t hear the content of their conversation. But then, the friend shared that she had received a gift card from Barnes and Noble and asked the other girls if they had any suggestions as to what she should get with her gift card, and MAN, did things get shriekishly loud after that question.

The girls emphatically told the birthday girl that she needed to get the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, and why that was super important. And when I say emphatically, I mean it wasn’t just a casual suggestion, they were making it sound like a requirement, with tons of supporting details. My daughter then proceeded to move over to her bookshelf so she could accurately tell her what else she needed to get with her gift card. In the process, my daughter also got some new book suggestions from the other two girls that she proceeded to tell me about after the gabfest was over.

Now after I finish a really good book or a friend asks me for suggestions, I do often do like my child did and go over to my bookshelf or look at my Goodreads account to get titles. But I may be missing the boat here, maybe I also need to emphatically screech at my friends to tell them what they should be reading? Either way, listening (eavesdropping?) in to this conversation was a case of peer pressure this mama could actually deal with.

Keep #RaisingReaders!