Books for Birthdays · 4:39pm Dec 21st, 2023
Last weekend my cousin had a birthday party for her two kids. The two of them are four years apart in age (six and ten), but their birthdays are only two days from one another, so they just celebrate on the same day. Considering how close to Christmas it is, I'm surprised they don't celebrate the holiday and the birthdays at the same time (like my dad does, though to be fair his birthday is Christmas, so...). Anywho, I of course went to the shindig.
Most of it was your average get-together. All the kids playing with one another while the cousins, aunts and uncles chatted about "adult stuff". Things only got interesting when it came time to open the birthday kids' presents. Both of them got books. Like, a lot of books. And they were genuinely excited about it. In the case of the ten-year-old, at least one of the books looked comparatively big, easily hitting the 200-page range. She promptly went on for some five minutes about how she'd been dying to read it and it was by such-and-such author and it was the best birthday gift ever.
I couldn't help thinking about when I was that age. I certainly don't remember any kids back then getting excited over a book. It's funny, my parents instilled in me a love of reading, but thinking on it I realize that I never asked for books for Christmas or my birthdays. This despite being an avid reader. For some reason I just never thought to ask for a book. And yet here I am, watching these kids running up and hugging my cousin for what she thought was a great gift. Her little brother lacked the same level of enthusiasm overall, but he was still pretty happy about getting some books.
Then there came the "big surprise". My Uncle H, as I've mentioned in a previous post, is a handyman by hobby. He decided to build for the kids a pair of bedside dressers each. And when my Uncle builds something, it doesn't look like a homemade item; these things are artisan. I guarantee you they'd demand a pretty penny if sold at a store. They looked amazing and I honestly don't know how he does it. But still, they're just dressers. A chest of drawers! What kid would care about something like that?
Merida, the elder, did. She liked them a lot. She was out on the front patio, I was on the other side of the house in the kitchen, and yet I could still hear her shrieking with joy. The girl, who I remind you is only ten, ranted Pinkie Pie-style for nearly ten minutes about how much she loved them. You'd swear she'd been gifted a pony.
Would I have been excited over a couple of dressers at that age? Not a chance.
All of this makes me wonder. Is it just the new age, and children appreciate different things? Or is Merida herself, and her little brother to a lesser extent, the one who is different? In regards to the books I'm sure it helps that their mother is an English teacher, but the dressers? I have no idea. My cousin (not their mother, different cousin) believes it's because the parenting of today is different from the parenting of our childhoods, and while I'm confident that's true I'm not sure it would account for this. Meh, it's just a curiosity on my part.
That's all I've got for today. Tune in next week for masked criminals, ghostly ministry mares, and everyone's favorite filly nightmare on holiday.
"Enjoy it, kid, because your parents are officially impoverished now."
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/23/11440638/child-benefit-child-allowance
Universal child benefits to the rescue!
Man, I wish I got lot of books as an older kid. Once I moved into larger hardback chapter books they got too expensive for hauls, my parents didn't understand what I liked, and so at best I'd get like one (1) book I wanted. If someone had just rolled up in 1999 with the complete Artemis Fowl series, I would have lost my mind.
I would think it has something more to do with the kids' environment than anything necessarily related to their generation, as I've noticed that many of my cousins don't actually care much for books. If they've been raised in a certain way and were encouraged, not belittled, to read, then I think it follows they'd be that excited for books. I know I would have been, although honestly my parents found it hard to buy books for me, as my tastes varied with my age.
As for the dressers, well... maybe it's a niche interest. Or she just likes having a place to put clothes and other stuff. Or it just looks good, who knows? I guess what accounts is that she's happy with them, and that's what matters.
As it happens I always loved getting books for Christmas, and as it happens both my grandfathers were good carpenters, so I can relate to this a little more than some people probably can!
I think I got a few books as a child but I don’t remember because to me that was so long ago.
I love books. I have a small shelf of books that were bought new, consisting of about 20 books, carefully displayed on a shelf my Papa made with love.
Everyone I know knows I love books. And yet, when I ask for books as presents, all I get are weird looks and judgmental comments about how books are not great gifts. Nonsense, I say.
So to hear such young children being in love with books, being excited to get books as presents, being so happy with a lovingly hand-crafted dresser... It warms my heart. Thank you for sharing this story.
To you, perhaps. For the kids? The dresser are an expression of love, handmade for them by someone they love and cherish. In my house, my desk, bookshelf and nightstand were all made by my Papa, and I was beyond happy to get those. If I had been a child when I got them, I would have been over the moon.
In the end, though, does it really matter? Maybe they are a bit weird for liking dressers like they do. But they're young, and none of us can claim we didn't like weird things at their ages.
Plus it's the thought that counts.
I loved books too, but pretty much the same situation: never asked for them, but was happy enough to receive. Got a lot of ancient Snoopy books my parents probably raided from garage sales.
Generally, I think any book I actually loved I could just get from the library (both school and public), and if I didn't already read it I wouldn't have much reason to specifically ask for it. Also grew up with "Don't put more than three things on your list because you shouldn't be greedy!" so I always had to save room for the video games.
As for why the modern kiddies are different, it's really hard to say. I think kids have always been perfectly capable of enjoying good craftsmanship and effort, so maybe you would have been more excited than you think. There might also be an angle that because so much of their fun is digital, they don't value bright toys as much as we did and have more interest in serious possessions that are distinctly theirs.
Just a spitball.~
Hearing the value they place in physical books does warm my heart, like a lot of other folks here. Myself, I did rather like getting a good book, though very rare was it that I asked for something specific. It was the video games that were the specifics asks!
As an adult, the problem with books is they can be a rather cheap gift to get (in thought, not money), and it's kind of a thing over here, getting a stocking filler book, likely picked from the Top Charts shelf in a newsagents, that is tailored to the recipient but is still vague or abstract enough that it might not get read at all. Or at best, once. Not quite a lazy as a gift card as a present, but it's up there!
That said, over the years as an adult, people have been quite good at getting me non-fiction books tailored just perfectly to me. You know, an Aardman Animation biography here, a "Women in Disney Animation" book there, that sort of thing.
Honestly, my biggest issue is I just have no real shelf space left for anything!
Good on the family members for getting those kids something they liked for Christmas. Sounds like they really know their kids.
Personally, books make great gifts. I've always got a few recommendations at the ready for just such an occasion.
I still remember a christmas where I got a couple of packs of pokemon cards from my aunt and I was thrilled. Then, I later received some kind of meaningful statuette from my uncle and had to do everything within my power to not look as disappointed as I was. From then on, I learned to be very specific with my christmas lists and know exactly what I wanted when I sent them out. In the strangest way possible, I wasn't much of a 'toy' kid in that I didn't like figures or characters in particular. I always wanted something I could build or make myself or play a game with. Bakugan, Beyblades, trading cards (pokemon, yugioh), and the big one, Bionicles. If I ever got those, I was off and out of the party as soon as it was in my hands. As time went on and video games became the thing, christmas became less about gifts (because games were a lot more expensive than a ten dollar lego toy or a 4 dollar pack of cards) and more about the food. As one of four, son of the youngest of four, in a family that barely all fit in the same house, and only one of the twelve children at the house, it got expensive fast. 10 to 20 dollar gift cards became the norm and the real presents were provided by the parents. I know this is a post about christmas and not birthdays, but my birthday is on Tuesday, i.e. the 26th, so a great majority of my birthday memories are intertwined with the christmas ones. Dad's birthday is the 28th and he was also very adamant about keeping my birthday and christmas separate, so unless we collaborated on a very expensive gift, they were usually two very separate but equally special things.
Even very young, I was an audio book person (back in the days when you could rent them from the library as a little MP3 player). So getting actual books to me was more like a 'whatever' present. Stocking filler you might say. For ending up here writing all the time, I could probably count on my hands the number of physical books I read as a kid, manga/comics discounted. I'm also a giant weeb, so the only 'books' I've ever bought for my niece or nephews were comic books, and that was specifically the MLP manga series for the oldest niece. She's only like, 4 or so, and I ended up reading it to her. I genuinely couldn't imagine giving a book to either of the nephews.
It depends on two things: the modern world influencing children's preferences and each person's inner world. Predicting what might interest a child can be challenging. For me, the book Lord of the Flies changed my perspective on reading, revealing the captivating world of literature. I've been reading free essay examples to explore this book, and I found a great article I want to share with you, check out the link. It covers different topics, making it interesting for anyone looking to dive in.
The love for books begins with a special story that enchants a child's mind, influenced by the modern world and individual uniqueness. Just as Lord of the Flies opened up the magic of reading for me, perhaps for Merida and her brother, it was those unique stories that revealed a vast world of possibilities.