on grisly illustrations effect on her as a child, 164
MRI observation, 4, 223n4
Rashid family reading experiment, 195–97, 212–15
and Rivendell remembrance, 56–57
Wall Street Journal children’s book critic position, xix
Gurdon, Molly, 2–3, 101, 126–27
Gurdon, Paris, 65–66, 127–28, 203
Gurdon, Phoebe, 81–82, 101–2, 135, 161
Gurdon, Violet, xix, 101–2
Guroian, Vigen, 138, 153–54
Haas, Irene, 205–6
Handy, Bruce, 53–54
Hansel and Gretel (retold by Endora on Bewitched), 171–72
The Happy Lion (Fatio), 55
Harrogate, North Yorkshire, 29
Hartwell-Walker, Marie, 87
Head Start study of children’s emotional regulation ability, 80–81
Heffernan, Virginia, 41–42
Hepworth, Amelia, 47
Higgins, Paul, 186
Hillman, James, 118
Hillyer, Virgil, 174–75
Hinton, S. E., 131–32
Hirsch, E. D., 110
historical perspective
art history books, 161–63
in A Child’s History of the World (Hillyer), 174–75
current moral objections to past attitudes, 167–68
in A History of Reading (Manguel), 24–25
recognizing the importance of the past, 148–51, 167–71, 246n168
A History of Reading (Manguel), 24–25
Hoban, Russell, 54–55
The Hobbit (Tolkien), 56
Hoffman, Heinrich, 164
Holmes, Dwight O. W., 138–39
Homer
The Iliad, 22–23, 25, 27–29
The Odyssey, 21–23, 25, 38–39, 149
Hornik, Lauri, 181, 210
Horst, Jessica, 102–4
hospitalized parents, reading to, 178–79, 192
The House of Sixty Fathers (DeJong), 55
“How Reading Books Fosters Language Development Around the World” (Dickinson et. al), 81
human nature, exposing dualities of, 137
Humans Are Underrated (Colvin), 47
The Hunger Games (Collins), 60
Hunters in the Snow (Bruegel), 163
Hurd, Clement, 1–3, 101, 159
Hurston, Zora Neale, 138–39
Hutton, John
biographical info, 5
on development of a child’s brain, 7
fMRI research on children, 7–9, 11–14
Sleepy Solar System, 6
Ibatoulline, Bagram, 101
The Iliad (Homer), 22–23, 25, 27–29
The Iliad (retold by Cross), 56, 171
illiteracy, 17, 26, 33–34, 35, 226n17
illustrators, 158–64. See also names of illustrators included in Read-Aloud Books Mentioned in The Enchanted Hour
I Love You to the Moon and Back (Hepworth), 47
imagination, 8–9
incarcerated parents, 61–62
Indiana University, Bloomington, study of children’s vocabulary based on conversations versus read-aloud time, 98–99
Indian storytellers (sutas), 24
Innocenti, Roberto, 203
interactive and dialogic reading, 1–3, 92–93, 105–8, 112, 197, 241n112
Irresistible (Alter), 204
Irving, Washington, 54
The Island of the Blue Dolphins (O’Dell), 111, 124
Italian Renaissance evoked in picture books, 162
“Jabberwocky” (Carroll), 125–26
Jackson, Shirley, 69
Jacques, Brian, 94
James and the Giant Peach (Dahl), 136–37
Japanese language, 70
Johnny Tremain (Forbes), 135
Johnson, Thomas, 140
joint attention, 79, 81–83, 198
Jones, Sarah “Miss Sarah,” 5–6
Journey into the Whirlwind (Ginzburg), 140–41
Keats, Ezra Jack, 158–59
Kendle, Candace, 16–17
Khan, Linda, 177–79, 192
The Killer Angels (Shaara), 192–93
Kirke family adapts to military deployment, 59–60
Klass, Perri, 83–84, 199
Koenig, Sarah, 132–33
Kubla Khan (Coleridge), 139
lady of the castle metaphor, 94–95
languages
and ability to succeed, 96–100
learning a foreign language, 70learning English as an infant, 71–72, 71–75, 76–79, 234n71
Mandarin Chinese, 77
Russian 3-year-old learning English, 87–89
Lawson, Robert, 155–56
“Learning on Hold” study of effect of cell phone interruptions on child-parent time, 198
Lemov, Doug, 110–11
Lessing, Doris, 182–84
Lewis, C. S., 55, 147–48
liberated word, 25–26
liberation from reading, 138–44
life expectancy increase from reading, 187
The Light in the Forest (Richter), 66
Lindgren, Astrid, 54
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis), 55
literacy skills
brain networks for, 11–14
cultural literacy, 151–55, 157–58, 161–62, 167–71
illiteracy vs., 17, 26, 33–34, 35, 226n17
learning new words by association, 110, 151–53, 155
read-aloud time as a continuum of, 30–31, 130
recognizing the importance of the past, 148–51, 167–71, 246n168
Little Eagle (Chen), 162
The Little Prince (Saint-Exupéry), 155, 217–18
Little Red Riding Hood (Perrault), 146–47, 153–54, 244n147
Little Town on the Prairie (Wilder), 170
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 185–86
The Long Winter (Wilder), 32–33
Looking at Pictures in Picture Books (Doonan), 166
lotus-eaters metaphor, 38–39
The Maggie B (Haas), 205–7
The Magic Horse of Han Gan (Chen), 162
The Magician’s Book (Miller), 169
Mahabharata (Sanskrit poem), 23
Manguel, Alberto, 24–25, 33–34, 124
Mansbach, Adam, 86–87
mapping a language, 71, 102–4
Marshall, Sybil, 118
Martinez, Saturnino, 33
math skills and school readiness, 16, 225n16
Matthew effect, 96
Mayer, Mercer, 157–58
McBratney, Sam, 47
McGough, Roger, 19
McKee, David, 101
McWhorter, John, 148, 244n148
The Merry Chase (Hurd), 101
Micklethwait, Lucy, 161–62
Milgrim, David “Ann Droyd,” 41
military parents, 58–61
Mill, John Stewart, 174, 246n168
Miller, Laura, 27, 169
Milton, John, 126
Mitchell, Margaret, 141–42
Mitchell, Stephen, 101
Moby-Dick (retold by Wang brothers), 157
Mohlenbrock, Betty, 60
Monaco, Taylor, 60–61
Morgan Library, New York, 145–47
Morpurgo, Michael, 149
Morse, Katrina, 47
movies, 128–30, 242n129
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
child’s experience of, 4, 7, 223n4
research on children, 4, 5, 7–8
research results, 8–9, 12–14
Munsch, Robert, 11
Murphy, Mary, 47
Murthy, Vivek, 189
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 160
Mutiny on the Bounty (Bligh), 55
myths and legends, 155
Nabokov, Vladimir, 181–82
Nadella, Satya, 122
Native American storytellers (shamans), 24
Neller, Robert, 58
Nelson, Charles A., 73
Nelson, Chris
tine, 145, 146–47
neural coupling, 47–48
Newman, Judith, 65
New York University study of parents’ use of wordless picture books, 157–58
Nielsen Book Research, 18
Nolan, Claire, 48–49
Nolan, Dale, 48–49
Nolan, Tyrone, 48–49
nonfiction, social-emotional effects of fiction vs., 187, 248n187
Northwestern University study of videos claiming to teach infants, 75
Not Now, Bernard (McKee), 101
nursery rhymes and songs, 151–53
O’Dell, Scott, 111, 124
O’Donohue, John, 151
The Odyssey (Homer, Fitzgerald, trans.)
first lines quoted, 21
knowledge imparted by, 149
multiple translations of, 25
rhapsodes telling from memory, 21–23
sailors eat the honey-sweet lotus, 38–39
The Odyssey (retold by Cross), 56
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), 226n17
The Old Curiosity Shop (Dickens), 29–30
Oliver, Alison, 156
Olson, Walter, 87–89, 123–24
“Once upon a time . . .,” 21, 26–27
Ondaatje, Michael, 177, 180
oral storytelling, 20, 21–26, 29
Oregon State University study of attention-span persistence, 122–23
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 226n17
orphans in Romania, 73
orphans in Russia, 88
Our Kids (Putnam), 15
Outside Over There (Sendak), 162
The Outsiders (Hinton), 131–32
Paglia, Camille, 172
Paradise Lost (Milton), 126
parenting
an autistic son, 63–65
challenge of reading every day, xviii, 18–19, 108–9, 202–3, 204–6
and child’s school readiness, 15
choosing reading material, 19
conversations with your child, 98–99, 104–8, 166, 172
effect of cell phone interruptions during child-parent time, 198
entering storytelling mode, 200–205
incarcerated mothers, 61–62
military parents, 58–61
Russian 3-year-old boy, 87–89
shifting from perfect to fallible as your child grows up, 211–12
and smartphones, 43–46
starting a read-aloud tradition, 200
using wordless picture books to pass on culture, 157–58
See also read-aloud time
Parents magazine, 74
Parsons, Kelly, 102–4
Patterson, James, 134
Peek-a-Boo! (Ahlberg and Ahlberg), 67–69
Pennac, Daniel, 124
Pennsylvania State University study of technoference, 44
Perrault, Charles, 146–47, 153–54, 244n147
Persian-influenced picture books, 162
phenomes, 152–53
Phidias, 174–75
picture books
overview, 98–100, 106–7, 158–60
as adhesive for families, 53–55, 76–79, 80
and aesthetic senses development, 85–86, 165–68
biographies, 150
close looking, 165–66
connecting children to art, 160–61, 166
for developing empathy, 84–85
dialogic reading built into, 107–8
technological substitutes, 10–14, 74
using wordless books to share cultural wisdom, 157–58for vocabulary development, 103–4
See also children’s books; read-aloud time
Pinker, Susan, 45–46, 47, 49
Pinocchio (Collodi), 203
Pip and Posy (Scheffler), 100
Pippi Goes on Board (Lindgren), 54
Pippin, Steve, 87–89
Plutarch, 25
podcasts, 36, 37, 132–33
poetry
“the Bard” tournament, 27–29
benefits of memorizing, 22
children’s discovery of, 85, 153
effect of, 126, 187–88, 191–92
Kubla Khan (Coleridge), 139
in prison cell in the Soviet Union, 140–41
Potter, Beatrix, 107
premature babies, reading to, 48–49, 50–53, 232n50
Pride and Prejudice (Austen), 167
prisoners and their children, 61–62
Project Gutenberg, 173
Proust and the Squid (Wolf), 96
Pullman, Philip, 95, 126
Putnam, Robert, 15
Queen’s University Belfast study of brain activation in premature infants, 49–50, 232n50
Ramayana (Sanskrit poem), 23, 25
Rand Corporation, 58
Rapunzel (Zelinsky), 162
Rashid family reading experiment, 195–97, 212–15
Rayner, Catherine, 84–85
Read Aloud 15 MINUTES, 16–17
read-aloud time
overview, 191, 197– 212
audiobooks versus live readers, 37–38, 131
in Baltimore school library, 118–21, 123
bathtime as, 213–14
at bedtime, 15, 87–89
benefits from, xv, 19–20, 46–48, 122
children reading text while you read aloud, 208
children reading to their parents, 178–79
and children’s age differences, 205
commitment to, 108–9
as a continuum of literacy skills, 130
in Cuban cigar factories, 33–34
cumulative benefits, 86–87
for dogs, 188–91
as entertainment, 29–31, 228n31
executive function skill development, 80–82, 187
fairy tales, 146–48
as indicator of child’s prospects in life, xiv, 15, 52, 96–100, 122–23
inner richness of, 217–18
interactive reading, 1–3, 106
liberation offered by, 138–44
making time for, 108–9, 202–3, 204–5, 205–6
nursing home program, 182–86
as purpose for writing, 24–26
responsive adaptations, 171–72
as sacrifice and nuisance, xviii, 108–9, 202–3, 204–6
among American settlers, 31–33
starting with older children, 200
with technology for military parents, 57–61
and vocabulary development, 92–95, 97–100, 102–4
widening perspective with, 148–51, 173–76, 244n147
in Wilder’s The Long Winter, 32–33
Reade, Charles, 31–32
The Reader, 185, 188
reading aloud skills
overview, 180, 181–82
and auditory discrimination, 107–8
mothers and fathers compared, 205–7
reading groups for the elderly, 182–88
Reading Magic (Fox), 153
receptive vocabulary, 109–10, 125, 240n110
Reidy, Carolyn, 121–22
repressive governments limiting access to books and information, 142–44
research
Georgetown University, on effects of reading aloud to babies, 50–53
Head Start study of children’s emotional regulation ability, 80–81
Indiana University, Bloomington, on children’s vocabulary based on conversations versus read-aloud time, 98–99
“Learning on Hold,” on effect of cell phone interruptions on child-parent time, 198
New York University, on parents’ use of wordless picture books, 157–58
Northwestern University, on videos claiming to teach infants, 75
Oregon State University, on attention-span persistence, 122–23
Pennsylvania State University, on technoference, 44
Queen’s University Belfast, on brain activation in premature infants, 49–50, 232n50
Stanford University, on low-
income families’ child-directed words, 99
University of California, on domestic alienation, 45
University of Delaware, on effect of cell phone interruptions on child-parent time, 198
University of Kansas, on language skill development of children in word-rich versus word-poor homes, 96–97, 99
University of Liverpool, on reading to Alzheimers patients, 187–88
University of Montreal, on babies’ recognition of their mother’s voices, 49
University of Sussex, on children learning vocabulary from books, 102–4
University of Virginia, on DVD claiming to teach vocabulary to infants, 74–75
Yale University, on life expectancy and reading, 187
responsive adaptations, 171–72
rhapsodes (Greek storytellers), 21–23, 24, 29
Richter, Conrad, 66
Riddell, Chris, 118
The Rights of the Reader (Pennac), 124
Rip Van Winkle (Irving), 54
Robinson, Jackie, 1
Romania’s Abandoned Children (Nelson, Fox, and Zeanah), 73
Romania’s orphanages, 73
Rommely, Danica, 63, 64
Rommely, Eric, 63, 64
Rommely, Gabe, 63–65
Rosen, Christine, 163–64
routines and structure, 87–89, 100–101, 102
Rowland, Caroline, 106
Rubery, Matthew, 35, 36, 38, 131, 229n36
Rumpelstiltskin (Zelinsky), 162
Rushdie, Salman, 23
Russian 3-year-old child adoption story, 87–89
Sail (Patterson), 134
de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, 155, 217–18
Sam and Dave Dig a Hole (Barnett), 107
The Sand Castle Contest (Munsch), 11
Scarry, Patsy, 159
Scarry, Richard, 101, 159
Scheffler, Axel, 100
Schlitz, Laura Amy, 118–21
Scholastic family reading habits surveys, 18
Scholastic’s 2016 survey of family reading habits, 211
schools
methods for teaching about literature, 131–35
read-aloud time at a Baltimore school library, 118–21, 123
school readiness, 16–18, 225n16
art and science as escape from everyday life, 179–80
self-determination theory, 211
semantic network, 12
Sendak, Maurice, 162, 165
sense of horizons, 148–51, 244n147
Seo, Suna, 50–51
separation anxiety alleviated with videos, 57–61
Serial (podcast, Koenig), 132–33
settlers’ read-aloud time in American West, 31–33
Shaara, Michael, 192–93
The Shadow (Diamond), 85–86
shamans (Native American storytellers), 24
Sheldon, Michael, 178
Show and Tell (Evans), 85
Sims, Michael, 46
singing the text, 201–2
Sleepy Solar System (Hutton), 6
smartphones and tablets
adults’ addiction to, 42–43
day care center anti-phone sign, 43–44
The Enchanted Hour Page 29
