“My mom loved Beatrix Potter and I remember reading a lot of those books,” Rebecca reminisces in her soft and charming English accent. “Growing up we used to go on holiday to the Lake District where Beatrix Potter got all her inspiration for all the characters. Whenever we'd go there for Easter breaks as a family we'd always go to the Beatrix Potter Museum, it was always such a fun day out.”
The playroom that Rebecca has created for her children (or “bugs” she calls them) is a paradise for little literature lovers. A stuffed Paddington, Jemima Puddle-duck, Winnie-the-Pooh and Peter Rabbit sit quietly on their shelf surrounded by various shelves, carts, baskets, and cubby holes stuffed with colorful books against the walls. Four magnet boards above are laden with souvenir magnets boasting destinations like Argentina, Iceland, Hawaii, and Africa.
At the age of 20, Rebecca Newberry left her small England village and boarded a cruise ship as a retail worker to see the world. After meeting her husband Buzz, the two traveled the world for three years, married, and landed in DFW. While Rebecca’s son Jasper was born when she was working a corporate job in Dallas, the birth of her daughter Poppy coincided with the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and Rebecca became a full-time stay-at-home “mum”.
As boredom threatened to overtake us all during the pandemic, for Rebecca and her kids, reading books quickly became their most common pastime. Reading soon inspired more activities such as sensory play and themed crafts as Rebecca worked creatively to both entertain and begin homeschooling her oldest son, “Our love for reading just grew from there… and was part of our daily routine.”
Already a fan of book influencers (or “bookstagrammers”) on Instagram, Rebecca decided to give it a shot herself in April of 2022. She began her page @boodlebugbooks, naming it after her own childhood nickname “boodlebug”, and her children, “my little bugs”. She started by sharing many of her own favorite British childhood classics that no one knew of in the US. As her page grew, publishing houses began reaching out and offering to send her books in exchange for a review.
Today, Rebecca’s page boasts 6.5k followers and shares book recommendations and reviews, her life as a native Brit and mom of two, tips and advice for reading with your kids, and a love for literature and imagination that seeps out of every corner of her persona. “I'm just helping people find ways to get children involved,” she says.
“A huge part of reading is educating and exposing your children to different cultures and environments. One of the things we're doing this summer with my kids is ‘Where in the world are we eating tonight?’” With her background in traveling, the importance of new ideas is vital to Rebecca, like using books such as “Peppa Goes on Holiday” to learn about Italian culture, or “Laolao’s Dumplings” to introduce Asian cuisine.
The joy of reading comes from the connections it makes, Rebecca explains passionately. It’s about kids learning to connect with stories, ideas and words, growing their vocabulary, stretching their imagination, learning about life and different scenarios, and developing the ability to think outside the box. But more than that, “the base of it is having that beautiful connection with my children, getting in bed with them at the end of the day, snuggling down and reading to them.” Even if it’s just 20 minutes a day, it’s 20 minutes of them learning, growing, and spending quality time that you can all look forward to.
From her childhood in England, Rebecca remembers bedtime reading being a big part of her childhood. But I think my love for reading came when I was older. It grew even more when I had children. I saw the need for it to be part of our lives with all the screen time and everything that children get nowadays. It was so important to me for my children to have a love for reading from an early age,” she says thoughtfully. Rebecca’s ability to pass on her love for reading to both her children and her audience is done with a grace and joy that matches the whimsy and beauty of the books she reads to her children so often.