What to Read When: The Books and Stories to Read with Your Child--and All the Best Times to Read Them - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Pam Allyn is the Executive Director of LitLife, a national organization specializing in innovative literacy education for schools and families. Pam is also the Founding Director of LitWorld which brings literacy programs to underserved communities worldwide.

She is the author of The Complete 4 for Literacy, a guide for educators, and coauthor of the six-book series The Complete Year in Reading and Writing. Pam also founded and leads the renowned literacy initiative for foster care children, Books for Boys. She is the recipient of several awards for her commitment to childhood literacy. Pam is widely known as a motivational speaker on the subject of raising lifelong readers and writers.

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Introduction:
The Sound of Reading
Calls Us Home

My strongest memory from childhood is the sound of mymother’s voice reading Blueberries for Sal. Little Sal is walking withher pail, and because she is eating so many of the berries, the onesshe does manage to save enter her pail with a kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk. Iloved the way my mother formed those words as she said them. There wassomething immensely satisfying in her reading of that book to me. It was acombination of the way she spoke and the nature of the story itself: terrificallyscary but at the same time tremendously comforting. One rainy day afterschool, my mother sat next to me on the couch and read that book to me forprobably the hundredth time. I can still remember from that particular daythe sound of the rain on the windowpane and the sound of her voice formingthe words: kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk. Sal is happily oblivious to the bearcub nearby and yet we know that mother is also nearby. Nothing will happento Sal. Nothing will happen to the cub. Something in Robert McCloskey’stelling makes you sure.

Years later, it is nighttime, and I am holding one of my daughters, Charlotte,in my arms. She cannot sleep, and so we are sitting together; the chairgoes back and forth; her hair smells like milk. We are under the window wherethe glimmer of a full moon glints down upon us. She reaches her hand up,and it looks to my tired eyes as if she is literally holding the moon insideit. “Good night, moon,” she whispers. She is not yet two. “Good night, room,”I whisper back. “Good night, old lady,” she whispers back to me, and it lookslike she winks at me as her hand falls to my shoulder, and she drifts, finally,off to sleep.

The power of reading aloud to draw you and your child near is profound. As Goodnight Moon proves millions of bedtimes over, and as Blueberries forSal proved unmistakably to me, the sound of the human voice can reach acrossthe gulf of age, of all the things that keep us apart, and create a bridge thatlasts a lifetime and extends through generations. Through books and storiesthat are designed to be read aloud, we convey to our children the beauty oflanguage and the joys of rhythm and rhyme; and in the books we choose toread and the way we read them, we also convey the values we hold dear. Everyday as you pack a lunch, wave good-bye to a school bus, tie a shoelace, braida ponytail, the words you want to say to your child hum inside: I love you, besafe, I love you, be free. I love you, I love you, I love you, let the world treatyou kindly, come back to me. Here are the values of my life, our family, hereis what I hope for you, here is what I dream for you. And yet, for most of us,too many moments slip by and we’re lucky to get an “I love you” in edgewise.The good news, wondrously, is that the world is full of literature written bypeople who know you are longing to make connections and are striving to puta voice to them. This book is your guide to making lasting connections withyour child through reading. It is also an essential resource for all the bestbooks to read to your child and all the right times to read them.

Children’s literature has long held a cherished place in our culture as aconveyor of values, of belief systems that will give our children courage andhelp them through a hard day. In Victorian times, children’s books were usedto convey a strong sense of morals and discipline. Generations later, writerssuch as Margaret Wise Brown and Maurice Sendak changed the paradigm ofchildren’s literature by giving voice to the real lives of children, with theirmany worries and delights. Through these radically new narratives, the “hereand now,” as Margaret Wise Brown called them, children were given theopportunity to explore a sometimes confusing universe with a moral compass.How and where will your own child find the human center in an often overwhelmingworld? Begin the conversation with books that resonate and giveyou both a point of reference. Whatever the issue at hand—a lost toy, a newsibling, a scary shadow—books and the time spent together reading them canhelp. There has never been a better time to read aloud to your child. Librariesand bookstores are full of beautiful, astonishing collections that continue tobreak new ground in their confluence of art and language and depth of feeling.The millions of books available to us also offer an opportunity to redefinechildhood in our wired and overprogrammed times, helping us to slow downand reconnect with something timeless and universal. At the same time, thebreadth of books with subtle emotion allows us to connect with our childrenin new and intensely meaningful ways.

And yet, for many of us, there has never been a more confusing time toshop for a book. It’s possible to go to a bookstore and stand for what feelslike hours in front of rows and rows of books and not know how to choose.They all look beautiful, but who knows what’s inside? We know we trust theold favorites, the ones we all remember. But what about the books that speakto the sorrows and the joys of childhood as it is in today’s world? These toomust be added to our canon. And yet there are thousands. How does a busyparent, grandparent, or caregiver search for the just right book? What is justthe right book?

The same way we choose foods to suit our moods—hot soup on a coldwinter’s night, spicy ribs for a family picnic—we long to choose the “justright” books that will match the moments we find ourselves in with our children.With all those books out there, certainly there must be a book for everymoment: a book to mark the moment of leaving, of coming, of newness, ofsameness, of change. As adults, we connect with our reading of books in differentways at different times. So what, then, are the books that are right forour children at very particular times in their lives? How can we match thetime, place, and circumstances of our lives with just the right book? What toRead When will help you find the perfect books for the perfect times. This isthe work of parenting no one told you about when you left the hospital orwalked through the front door with your newly adopted child. At all life-cyclemoments, we adults hunger to capture the moment in words: we read poemsto each other at weddings, we tell stories of a beloved friend at a funeral service.It is humanity’s greatest gift to be able to see the power of storytelling topin down experience, to capture it, and render it timeless. What to Read Whenis a guide to the life-cycle moments of childhood—the occasions big and smallwhen you want to bond most with your children—and the books, words, andpictures that will bring both clarity and connection to those moments.

When your child is small, and you turn the pages of Mr. Rabbit and theLovely Present, by Charlotte Zolotow, and the two of you can nearly feel thetexture of the fruits he so lovingly chooses for his mother, the rabbit’s journeyand his gift giving help you to show your child the power of a simple act ofgenerosity. The tender repetition of the language as he adds his fruits to thebasket is soothing and familiar. You are reminded that gifts come in all sizesand all forms. This becomes one of the first, precious lessons you can teachyour child. Later, when your child is older, six or seven, and you read thechapter book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe aloud to this same childyou feel one another tense up as Lucy opens the door of the wardrobe andfeels the cold rush of air in Narnia for the first time. Here is where Lucy will find the courage she never knew she had and meet beloved friends such as Mr. Tumnus. Here too is where she will face the frailties of human naturewhen her own...