What’s Hoo Upto?

“While I didn’t have many books as a child, the experience of reading the funny pages in the newspaper while sitting on my father’s lap has stayed with me over the years. This closeness with my father impressed upon me that he loved me and cared about me and that our time together, reading or walking in the woods looking at insects underneath the peeled away bark of a tree, mattered a great deal to him. Sharing books together can provide such important moments for children and their parents or caregivers.” Eric Carle

“The first book that changed my literate life was actually published as an adult book, but my mother had the insight and wisdom to read it aloud to me when I was eight years old. I still remember the sound of her voice, the shape of her shoulders as she held the thick hard-cover book, and the hall light illuminating her as she sat in the hallway and read to me and my sister, each in our bedrooms. The book was The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.”
Lois Lowry
Author of The Giver and Number the Stars

“I got hooked on books because my parents read bedtime stories to us from The Children’s Hour, a 16-volume collection of short stories. I loved Volume 13: Roads to Adventure. The children’s book that got me hooked on writing for children is Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine — it perfectly captures the magic of being a kid.”
Wendelin Van Draanen
Author of Sammy Keyes and Shredderman

From firstbook.org

1. Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud.
2. Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read.
3. Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.
4. Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.
5. Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time.
6. Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games.
7. Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.
8. Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.
9. Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books.
10. Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.

Mem Fox, Author