2025 Summer Blog Series: Avi

Peo­ple, young and old, like to talk about their for­mer teach­ers. “She was so nice.” “He was so kind to me when … ” “I loved the way she talked about his­to­ry.” “I nev­er liked poet­ry until … ” And so on.

But the phrase I have tru­ly heard most often is, “She used to read to us. At least one chap­ter a day. Every­body loved it. My favorite book was … I’ll nev­er for­get it.”

The key point is that the peo­ple who say these things have become readers.

There is some­thing about being read to, the shared expe­ri­ence, the com­fort of a sooth­ing voice, the excite­ment of sim­ply being absorbed in a sto­ry, the phys­i­cal plea­sure (if it’s a par­ent who is doing the read­ing) of sit­ting close, of absorb­ing a sto­ry and affec­tion at the same time, that’s cap­ti­vat­ing. And often life-changing.

My moth­er used to read pic­ture books to us when my sib­lings and I were kids. I can tell you about those books in great detail after some sev­en­ty years plus. It was mag­i­cal night after night.

With my old­er boys, I (and my wife) read the entire Lau­ra Ingalls Wilder series one year in sequence — we didn’t just enjoy the books, we talked about the events as if we were there, and as if the char­ac­ters were part of our lives. Though we were young and old, it was a shared experience.

Many a kid has told me (teach­ers too) that hav­ing read one of my series book, kids go on and on and read the others.

Not every book, no mat­ter how well writ­ten, is best suit­ed for read­ing aloud. What works? Books with short­er chap­ters. Books with cliff-hang­ing end­ings. Books with sus­pense. Books full of sur­pris­es. Fun­ny books. Books with a grace­ful flow of lan­guage. Fan­ta­sy books that speak of fan­tas­ti­cal events. Books with great char­ac­ters. Books that tell of expe­ri­ences your audi­ence can relate to.

When I first began to be called upon to read from my work, I signed up for a course in act­ing, which focused on learn­ing how to speak. What pace do you use? Speak too fast, and peo­ple can’t absorb what you are say­ing. How do you pitch your voice? Folks can lis­ten to a low­er voice with greater com­fort. How will folks under­stand you? Make sure you speak unusu­al words with great clar­i­ty and use body lan­guage and facial expres­sions to sug­gest mean­ing. When do you pause in your read­ing? When it’s most excit­ing. How to stop — mid-read­ing — and explain what needs to be explained. New or hard words? Pre­view them with lis­ten­ers before the read­ing. Make your own read­ing dra­mat­ic. And if you want to laugh (or cry) go with it. Your lis­ten­ers will join you. They will love your emotions.

And, not beside the point, being read to helps a young per­son write bet­ter. They inter­nal­ize your read­ings and con­scious­ly or uncon­scious­ly apply them to their work.

Final­ly, not beside the point, you, the read­er, will enjoy read­ing out loud as much as your listeners.