Happy new year!   What will you be reading?   What do you wish to read?  Feel free to send me a shelfie of your dreamed of selection. 

For bibliophiles, new year resolutions include readolutions. In my case, there is the added impetus of soon beginning a new decade, allowing a ten-times inflation of ambition.  So here are two goals for the coming decade:

Learn 1000 poems by heart – including, this year, committing The Pied Piper of Hamelin to memory, inspired by the beautifully illustrated edition my mother gave me when I was six, one of my most treasured possessions.  See also a short essay on this business of memorizing poetry.

Read 1000 fairy tales, folk tales, myths and legends – starting with Folk Tales and Legends of the World, a book I loved and read repeatedly as a child.    

These laudable goals emerged when devising parallel decade-long curricula for two characters I’ve been getting to know, who have for some reason commissioned me to tell their stories.  In order to do so, I had to delve into their education to understand what they know (and don’t). 

Will keep you posted; it is likely that some of the poems I learn and stories I read will show up in our podcasts.  In case you missed the poems already shared there, feel free to explore the ‘Poems for my Family’ series.

Photo credit: Annie Spratt at unsplash