“Book-eater” is a term that my father uses to describe me. He says that this apple, being me, didn’t fall far from the tree. The maternal tree. My mother? The original book-eater. Nothing is more precious to me than books, and I found a man that feels the same way that I do. In fact, we are in complete agreement that we could have $20 to our name, and we will spend it on books.

Now I can add Pea and Coco to our “Book-eater” list. Coco, fairly new to the nighttime ritual of stories, is now getting into her pajamas, running to her book basket, and handing me a stack of five or six books to read to her, before she turns in for the night. I love it. Just love it.

And Pea? She insists on five books every night. I have no problem with that. I am finding children’s books these days to be completely captivating, amusing, clever and sassy.

“The House on East 88th Street” arrived yesterday from Amazon. We promptly tore into the box, unwrapped the book and snuggled up on the sofa to read it. I was instantly transported back to my childhood, warm and fuzzy feelings of the better memories of my younger life, when I could literally lose myself in someone else’s story. While there was much angst, anger and feelings of resentment and abandonment, there were always books to take me away from it all.

The real winner in yesterday’s stack, however, was “This is Texas.” Written in the 1960s, I’m not sure how entirely accurate some of the numbers are, such as populations, statistics; but the gist of the book? Spot on. It’s so stylized, the illustrations, the writing, that even though I knew it was a brand new edition, I had to fight the urge to hold it up to my nose and take a deep inhale, searching for that familiarly old and musty smell of books from a time gone by.

It’s a big hardcover. Gorgeously illustrated. And since I am particularly smitten with the 60s right now, I couldn’t get enough of the drawings. And the writing? It’s very tongue-in-cheek. Take this little tidbit, in the section on Dallas, for instance:

“The deposits in the banks of Dallas total $16 billion. And if you think that’s enough and don’t want to add to it, you can leave all your money at Neiman Marcus, one of the most elegant stores in the world.”

Ahh, how true that is.

There are about one dozen books in this series. Rome, NY, San Francisco, Ireland. There’s even one on Greece, which I pre-ordered. That’s where my little Sweet Pea was conceived, so I thought that it’d be a lovely trip down Memory Lane. And of course, you knew that the Lover of All Things French just had to order the one on Paris, right? We’re diving into that one tonight…

These books are not just for children, either. I think they’d be so clever stacked up on a coffee table. A conversation piece, for sure…