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

by Sarah Mackenzie

Second, a good book leaves you more grateful to be alive. You close the final pages of the book a little breathless, a little more in awe of the great and glorious world. The book may be tragic (Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson), moving (A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park), or goofy and nonsensical (The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber), yet it leaves you with a feeling you find difficult to express: amazement at the world, an awe for life, a gratitude for humanity and its quirkiness, its messiness, its vitality. A book that fails to leave the reader with hope has neglected its most important role: to help the reader see the world afresh. Funny books do it, sad books do it, heartrending or harrowing or lighthearted books do it. They leave us with new vision. They allow us to view the seemingly mundane world around us—and the people in it—with new eyes. A book should fill us with hope, even in the midst of bone-rattling thrill or heart-wrenching sorrow.