Happy Blog Birthday to us! 9 Years of Book Blogging!

9 years ago today, it all began with this review of "No Roses for Harry" by Margaret Bloy Graham and Gene Zion (which, by the way, is still an utterly brilliant book).

Strictly speaking though, we had actually begun a couple of years before we started writing "Read It, Daddy" - with a trip to our local library.

My wife and I both wanted to see whether you could get library membership for the tinest of tots, and the card I still carry around in my wallet is the library card we got for C when she was just a few months old.

Most non-booky folk give us the side-eye when we tell them that we used to read books to her from that early an age but it just became something that felt like it was a vital part of being a parent. Cradling a child on your lap with a book sometimes awkwardly balanced 'just so' - but right from the very start we could see that books would become a huge part of her life, and would be hugely beneficial.

Even when she was such a tiny tot the pages drew her attention and she'd instantly feel so much calmer. Sometimes she'd even coo while we read, like she was reading along with us both.

A couple of years later my wife - who had fallen in love with travel blogging (though sadly no longer writes "Can I Walk, Mummy?") came up with the idea of me setting up a blog to try and keep track of the books we'd either got from the library or we'd bought or were given as gifts.

I can't even recall the exact conversation we had back then, but let's face it, it was a pretty brilliant idea of my wife's (but then she's a pretty brilliant person, just don't tell her I said that OK?)

The actual blog name came about from wanting to set up a 'dad and daughter' book blog. There was a huge explosion in the number of mummy blogs around at the time and it felt quite rare to be a dad blogger back then. Nowadays I'm very pleased to say that many, many dads and of course mums are in on this book blogging game, and write about children's books just as passionately as we do. Hooray!

Since the beginning, my wife and I have always taken it in turns to read to C every single night we can. I think the only time we ever miss a night is when it's so late that all she wants to do is tuck herself in and go to sleep, but it's actually quite cute that even now, 11 years on, she still wants to be read to - though now I suspect it's part of that whole 'dragging bedtime out as long as possible' thing that 11 year olds are absolutely expert at.

(C would argue this point, of course but above all we still love to read to her as much as we always did).

After 9 years it's beginning to feel like it's time to take our foot off the throttle for various reasons. Daily book blogging is a huge, huge time sink and (though you're probably as bored as I am with hearing us saying we're going to 'quit' for one reason or another) as we move towards our 10th anniversary the plan is to throw everything we've got at this blog for our final year, hopefully leaving on a massive high.

This time next year after our 10th blog birthday has come and gone, we'll either call it a day entirely, or move purely over to middle grade, YA and comic coverage - perhaps with the odd picture book release that really wows us cropping up in the reviews if we do continue.

We've always tried to produce reviews of as many books as we get sent for as wide an age range as possible, and clearly that's becoming more and more difficult as C gets to the point where she will flatly refuse to look at certain picture books.

Other things are getting in the way of the blogging too, and now she's in senior school it's just going to get tougher and tougher to sit her down to nab her opinions on things.

We always had one motivation for writing the blog - to share amazing books with folk, but others are performing that vital and important role in far more dazzling and imaginative ways than we can scrape together the time for, and we'd urge you to check out all the other amazing bloggers who are writing up a storm.

Though it's always been fantastic to get lots of books to review - effectively for free - it was never really our main motivation for doing this, so will we miss free books? Yeah maybe, you'd be nuts to say no to 'em - but in the grand scheme of things it's not like books are going to disappear from our lives entirely.



So if it really is the last year we do this (and we'll be closely scrutinising our stats for the next year - though WE don't pay much attention to our hits, it's becoming more of a 'thing' for a lot of publishers - and we're always honest about them, what's the point in making 'em up?), we're going to make it one heck of a swansong year.

We've always given the blog our utmost effort, We've enjoyed ourselves and as I said, it's not like we're going to stop reading (I never could keep a lid on it when it comes to books) but if we do continue past our tenth birthday, it'll be a case of 'less is more' - maybe with longer more in-depth reviews and analysis of books, but fewer articles and definitely not daily.

There are so many people to thank for keeping us going up to this point, and it is important to thank them as these are the folk who are the real life blood of the industry - and without whom book blogging wouldn't really be a 'thing' at all for a lot of people.

To the hard working press and PR folk who keep us well and truly stocked up with awesome books to review.

To the amazing authors, illustrators, publishers,  publishing staff and agents who do a truly stratospheric job year in year out.

And of course to you, our blog readers and followers, who have always been our main reason for carrying on.

Let's make our final year an absolutely brilliant one.

Huge huge love from all at Team ReadItDaddy!