From very early on (I am talking within days of bringing Carter home from the hospital) I have read to my kids. We kept a basket of books next to the glider in the nursery and we would choose two to three books a night to read. The last book we would read (every night) was Goodnight Moon. I can still recite that entire book and would do just that if we were in the car driving and it was nap time. I would start with, “In the great green room…” and my kids would almost instantly quiet down and start closing their eyes.
As the kids got older, of course, the books that we would read began to change. Curious George still gets picked off the bookshelf from time-to-time but not as often as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and other more big-kid titles. I LOVE this time with my kids. Even at 7, 5 and 3 I still end up with at least one in my lap and they always want more. It is simply a fantastic way to end their day (and mine). I have also seen the down-stream benefits already, as Carter loves to read on his own and is reading at nearly a 4th Grade level despite being only in the 1st Grade.
As you can imagine, based on this habit, I was excited to find this list of 67 books every geek should read to their kids before age 10. I am just now digging in to the list (I have only completed 7 1/2 if you count The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which I am reading to them right now…one chapter a night), but they are already excited about it. So excited, it seems, that Carter is making his own prioritization based on this list:
So please, please read to your kids. I promise you that it will be just as rewarding to you as it is to them. These are memories that I will treasure for my entire life and I am pretty sure they will too (and hopefully pass along to their own children as well).
