Lucky the children who have parents and extended family and friends who read to them

I just received an email from a mother who took a children’s literature class with me when her children were young. Now they are in college but they have not forgotten the pleasure their favorite picture books of long ago offered and they certainly remember the love that came along with being read to. The young woman, while eating peaches asked her mom if they could read Peach and Blue when they got home.

More than likely it is the experience of being read those dearly loved picture books of childhood that turn children into adult lifelong readers. No one ever forgets the kind of love and attention that comes from a “Reading Relationship” where parents and children share their thoughts and feelings.

The email brought to mind the well-known poem by Strickland Gillian.

I quote a little of it here—

I had a mother who read to me

Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath…

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a Mother who read to me.