The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids

by Sarah Mackenzie

Of all the things I want most for my children, true friendship with one another is one of my greatest desires.

“If you want a child to know the truth, tell him the truth. If you want a child to love the truth, tell him a story.”

C. S. Lewis says it best: “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”7

Most of the people I know who fell in love with books as children didn’t fall in love while reading The Hound of the Baskervilles or unabridged versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Swiss Family Robinson. Love for those came later (if at all), but that initial love—that moment of transformation when we progress from being a child who doesn’t read much to one who reads voraciously—usually happens with lighter fare. I’ve asked countless Read-Aloud Revival listeners to tell me which books turned them into readers, and this is what they tell me: Cam Jansen, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Babysitter’s Club . . . Their eyes twinkle as they recall nights spent with a flashlight under the covers, flipping through collections of Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, or Marvel and DC comic books. They