Reading Aloud

Courtesy freedigitalphotos.net, “Book with flying text” by digitalart

Last week was World Read Aloud Day, which now that I’ve learned about it has got to rank up there as one of the best of all days. I was read to as a little girl, I read to my own kids, and now everyone in the family reads to each other. What is better than lying in bed and falling asleep to the sound of a good book? What’s better than turning a book into a live, moment-to-moment conversation when you’re reading to a small child and all her questions bubble to the surface sentence by sentence? Kate DiCamillo recently wrote about the pleasure of reading aloud, and the sense of community it gives. When you read a story out loud, reader and listener and writer all share the same room, the same journey, the same highs and lows. When I think about the pleasures I look forward to in life, reading to the next generation is at the top of the list.