Reading with Kids

Book time with our little Mae–it’s a “hands (and feet) on” experience for her– along with a little page tasting…

“Let me say, from the perspective of someone with two grown and wonderful kids, that your instincts as parents are correct: a minute spent reading to your kids now will repay itself a million-fold later, not only because they love you for reading to them, but also because, years later, when they’re miles away, those quiet evenings, when you were tucked in with them, everything quiet but the sound of the page-turns, will, seem to you, I promise, sacred.”
— George Saunders (American writer of short stories, essays and children’s books.

Love this–it really caught my attention when I came across it.  I do love reading with kids of all stripes.  My favorite moments of our school day are as we nestle back into desks after lunch and I open our current story and begin to read.  Just now we’re deep into
A Wrinkle in Time.

I loved the years reading with my own 4 kids, settled into beds for the night we passed hundreds of hours with Laura Ingalls and the BFG, with Matilda and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, with Caddie Woodlawn and Aslan…   Some sweet shared times.

And now I have a whole new crop of reading buddies! –4 grand-girls, three of whom are coming to live at my house soon!  Get out the library card.  We’re ready to “hit the books” (in the most delightful sort of way).

I know those minutes and hours reading our way to other times and places are magical, memorable pockets of time together.  I treasure them all, readings past and those ahead…