Hi, welcome back to Literacy Musing Mondays.  This week we have a great guest post about the importance of reading in community.  I hope you enjoy!

Note: This guest post contains Amazon affiliate links which means Tina will make a small commission if you click through and buy something. We include these for your convenience and to support her on-going ministry in Southeast Asia. Thanks for your support.

 Why It’s Important to Read in Community

By Tina Chen

For many of us, reading can be a very solitary experience. Unless you do a lot of reading aloud with others, reading is something you probably do alone. You may be in the same room with your family, all reading different books so you’re together, but in some ways, you’re still alone. You are experiencing a whole different world on your own. And it’s so much fun! I personally wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

I love to lose myself in a whole new world! And one of my favorite things to do when I read is look for evidence of God’s imprint on humanity. I love reading Christian fiction where the authors intentionally include God’s workings in their stories, but I also love reading secular books and hunting for little glimmers of glory and analogies of redemption. And when I find them in any genre, I feel desperate to share them with someone!

I have been known to call or email several trusted reading buddies with the request/demand 🙂 that they read a book I’m in the middle of or have just finished as soon as possible before I explode for the lack of someone to discuss it with! Have you ever had this experience? Two books that immediately come to mind that this happened with are Blue by Lou Aronica, a secular novel, and Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay, a piece of Christian fiction. I highly recommend both of these books, and if you need someone to talk about them with, I’m willing to read them again just for you. 🙂

I think it’s so important to have people you can talk about books with. Not only so you yourself don’t explode but so that you can see things from different perspectives. Even though I’m always on the hunt for glimmers of Truth, I miss them quite often. And I love it when a friend is able to point them out to me! I always want to run straight to the book and read it immediately, even if I’ve already read it!

This is one of the main reasons I take part in linky parties like Literacy Musing Mondays, and why I started my own weekly book linky party – Booknificent Thursdays on Mommynificent.com. I wanted to create and be a part of a community where people who love books can talk about them with other book-lovers. I have learned so much from reading the thoughts of other book bloggers about the books they are reading.

So thank you for writing about what you read, and thank you for listening to me talk about what I read. You are such an important part of my journey. And please consider yourself invited to Booknificent Thursday this week and every week! We’d love to have you!

Tina Chen is an island-loving mom of five fun kids. She currently lives near a beach in Malaysia but has also called Bali and the Cayman Islands home since leaving her land-locked hometown of Kansas City. Her greatest passions are learning with her husband how to live and love like Jesus and teaching others to do the same. She particularly enjoys teaching kids to worship and pray fervently and creatively. She loves music, cooking, and reading, and is a complete sucker for a good redemptive analogy! Tina blogs at mommynificent.com and desperatehomeschoolers.com about living and homeschooling in Southeast Asia.

I so agree with Tina.  I join her wonderful reading community too at least weekly. Reading, I think is synonymous with learning and literacy. I also add writing and blogging to my definition of reading.  Our community has grown so much in the almost 15 months since we started the link up.

I want to continue to grow our community and encourage even more interaction.  That is why we are going to start honoring the person who comments the most each week on other people’s blog posts linked up with Literacy Musing Mondays with a special feature and thank you across all our social media channels. To participate, you just need to email me the number and title of blog posts that you commented on each week by midnight on  Fridays.  All our Literacy Musing Monday readers are invited to participate.

We are going to have a special contest the week of February 15 for a copy of If I Run and a $10 Amazon gift card. I will have more specific rules for that contest next week, but you do not have to be a blogger to earn the “top commentor” of the week honor or win next week’s prizes. This week will be a practice run; so start commenting and keeping track of where you commented and email your report to marykatbpcsc45 @ gmail (d0t) com by midnight Friday.  Let me know what you think about this additional feature to our link-up too in the comments below.

Also on another note:   I have learned how to create a separate email list in MailPoet for just Literacy Musing Monday reminders! At the bottom of the post today is a MailPoet opt in form if you want to continue to receive these weekly reminders. Starting March 1, I will send my weekly reminders to those who have subscribed using MailPoet and cease sending them through my personal email. You will be able to opt out at anytime with MailPoet without sending me a request after March 1. Please opt in by March 1; so I can keep sending your reminders. I want to keep you up-to-date on Literacy Musing Mondays info.

Now on to our linkup. First let’s

Last Week’s Top Clicked Post!

 

5 Hacks To Help Kids Fall In Love With Books

By Shan, The How to Guru

Favorite quote from her post: “So what if kids under your influence need help to fall in love with books? There’s always hope.

Don’t give up, Mom.”

Shan blended excellent story-telling that made me cry with practical tips on how to encourage your children to fall in love with books and reading. This post is a most read!

Now, it is time to link up to the Literacy Musing Mondays hop! You will have until Saturdays at 12 p.m. now to link up! So come back often.

Linkup Rules:

1. Include a link back or the blog hop button linked to this hop on your posts.
2. Link up the urls to your posts not to your blog.
3. Please remember this is a family-friendly linkup.  Although we believe in the right for adults to read whatever they want to read, we prefer to read wholesome posts that feature literature that edify and uplift families. We reserve the right to delete any posts that are not family friendly. We love all kinds of literature and genres including family-friendly inspirational romances, fantasy, or science fiction. We do not welcome posts featuring books or written with excessive violence, sexual content, or cursing. These posts will be deleted.
4. We also want to be loving community by supporting one another. Please make a point to do this this week! Visit the post next to yours and at least one other blogger’s post of your choice! I want to see lots of clicks on everyone’s posts. I know as a blogger, you know how it feels not receive comments, right. 🙂 Remember it is also nice to follow them on their social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
5. Follow your hosts and co-hosts on their social media.
6. Tweet about the link up too.

[tweetthis]Come join the fun! Link up your family-friendly, book- or literacy-related posts at #LMMLinkup ![/tweetthis]

Remember to share any ideas you have to improve the Literacy Musing Mondays community in the comments section below. We can’t wait to read your input!

Linking up the great linkups listed on my Linkup Parties page. I updated it this week so be sure to check it out!