Although my mother taught her children to love books with a fierce and covetous passion, it was a rare occasion when she read to us. She was a woman who had five children in nine years, who lived in Alaska with no electricity or running water, who baked everything we ate from scratch and was either cooking  or washing our clothes or doing her best to keep us in a presentable state. She had time for little else.

My father read to us in the winter when the nights were long–Heidi,  The Rose and the Ring, Treasure Island,  –my earliest memories are of these books that enthralled me long before I went to school. Then he went blind.

By the time my father was no longer able to read aloud, I was hopelessly ensnared in the tradition. The minute I finished a book that I loved, I would promptly begin reading it aloud to my younger sisters and brother, my captive audience. They were, however, a strongminded group and would certainly have rebelled if necessary, but instead they would frequently ask me to read to them, even after they could read to themselves. (more…)

There’s nothing more exciting than meeting a new small person who has embarked on the adventure of exploring the world–and that was the gift I was given when my buddies from Brooklyn came to town with their ten-month-old son. It was sheer, unadulterated joy to see Charlie enchant an entire coffeehouse without making a sound, simply through the radiance of his smile and the bouncing enthusiasm of his little body. He knows that everyone he sees will soon be his friend, and the delight that he finds in everything around him makes him irresistible.

Charlie’s father is a writer, and Charlie’s mother and I love many of the same books, so of course I wanted to know what have they read to Charlie? And of course, their answer was a story.

It was the end of the day and Charlie and his mother were snuggled together, when she realized that this was the perfect evening for their first bedtime story. She found Goodnight Moon, arranged the pillows on her bed to the proper level of support and comfort, placed the book so that Charlie would be able to appreciate the pictures while she read–and then Charlie’s father entered the room.

” Are you going to read Charlie his first bedtime story?” he asked, and then said, “No–wait.” He went off to his bookshelves and came back with the perfect words for his son’s introduction to the ritual of bedtime reading. That night Charlie’s parents prepared him for sleep by reading him The Odyssey.

As a parent who read Out of Africa, The Wasteland, and A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud to my infant sons, I understood and loved this story. When we introduce our babies to words read aloud, we want those words to resonate, to imprint our children with the majesty of literature–then from there we turn to more conventional choices that are filled with color and delight and pleasure.

It’s no wonder that people not only love books, they are deeply attached to them. For many of us, being read to is one of our first memories, and our love for language on a page is intertwined with our memories of being warm, being snuggled, being secure, and being loved.

What was the first book you read aloud to your child?