Reading a book to a child sends them a love letter that will last forever.
June 26, 2016
How many love letters have you received in your life? Have you saved them? No grown up ever forgets the love they felt when they were read to as a child. The intimacy that lives inside a shared reading experience is not something one forgets.
Recalling childhood reading and their impact is to saunter down memory lane—discovering some of what made you who you are today. To read to a child is like rereading your own childhood—the one you had or the one you wished you had had. The words our parents read to us are haunted by a sense of well being.
When my sons were little, I started the habit of dating and inserting the location of where we were when we read the book. Another habit of mine is to write an inscription—it confirms that every book you give is indeed a gift.
I now pass on those books to other children and I inscribe them to the current recipient of the book. The inscriptions I wrote to my sons, still stand. The sentiment continues to be—Dare to dream. Put on your roller skates. Go and see the world and make a difference along the way. Dare to be who you are. Dare to Become who you want to be. Love, forever and a day.
My sons are now adults with children of their own. My inscriptions have not change, but I harbor one additional wish for them now—embrace the idea that the journey to Dare to become the man you want to be—never stops and books are wonderful companions to have on your journey, to know and better understand yourself and the world. Often in books, we meet the one character we are most reluctant to know—ourselves.
The gift of summer
June 19, 2016
The first day of summer conjures up memories as well as anticipation for those long and lazy days of summer. Unfortunately, and to a child’s detriment, the idea of unstructured time is not something they have much experience with. Think of what our world would be like without time to just Be in the moment.Those […]
Stories nurture a child’s BeComing
May 24, 2016
Late May, with Memorial Day quickly approaching, announces summer is about to arrive. A perfect summer activity awaits—the joy of reading a book just for pleasure, with no assignment attached, while eating an ice cream cone. Louise Erdich was recently asked what book made her who she is today? Her response speaks volumes—It’s wasn’t a […]
Peter Pan’s creator would be 156 years old today.
May 9, 2016
J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan 112 years ago and yet the book lives on in the mind and heart of every child who has read the story. What might be less known is the family tragedy that inspired Barrie to write the story of Peter Pan, the story of a boy that stayed a boy […]
What would the Bard have to say to his many critics if he showed up to mark the 400th anniversary of his death?
April 25, 2016
You are in good company if you hold Shakespeare in disdain. The roster of famous writers and celebrated personages who have picked quarrels with Shakespeare runs long. Who do you most align with—the poet laureate, Nahum Tate, Voltaire, Tolstoy? Tate adapted King Lear into a crowd pleaser—giving King Lear a happy ending, restoring Lear to […]
