Christmas Reading Miracles

Shake up your Ventolin puffer in preparation, Christmas is almost upon us. Ah, how I wish I were living in Little Women and I could present my children with two pencils and a sheet of paper, over which they would frolic and exclaim and view me with loving, moist eyes.
Instead I have a long list of what appear to be weapons of mass destruction and highly advanced technological contraptions. I stare at my children over breakfast and wonder if they are planning to take over the world. I know that if Santa coughs up the goodies he won't get much gratitude, but at least the kids will be happy as they hunt each other down in the street with Nerf Guns. Honestly, I banned guns since forever but as soon as they could work out how to arrange their chubby little fingers into a gun shape, they've been making fake guns. Aged 14 and 11 I have given in, based on the idea that they are running around at least in the fresh air and sunshine instead of getting a tan from the monitor or TV.
One kind of pressie which will get one of my children excited is books. Of course working in a bookstore means I am spoilt for choice, and I need to be as my other teen child is a non-reader extreme. The solution? Graphic Novels. Younger kids can be started on Captain Underpants (They're new book OOk and Gluk, Kung-fu Cavemen from the Future is pretty funny too) and of course the unbelievably popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid (actually have I told the story of how we had an author event for kids about the marvels of the universe and instead of listening to the lovely astrophysicist, two kids just sat there and read Diary of Wimpy Kid, in the front row, right in front of the guy). Anyway and then there is the wonderful classics of Tin Tin and Asterix and then you have the Alex Rider novels and then right through to stuff for older kids on everything from the classics to new stuff (there is a pretty good Twilight too). The other day our store even got a graphic novel on the Dalai Lama. Amazing! Anyway, if it gets them to read, do it. Graphic novels are just the kind of miracle this Christmas fairy needed.