Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. For everyone, reading aloud engages the mind in complex narratives for children, it’s an irreplaceable gift that builds vocabulary, fosters imagination, and kindles a lifelong appreciation of language, stories and pictures.īringing together the latest scientific research, practical tips, and reading recommendations, The Enchanted Hour will both charm and galvanize, inspiring readers to share this invaluable, life-altering tradition with the people they love most. Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that this ancient practice is a fast-working antidote to the fractured attention spans, atomized families and unfulfilling ephemera of the tech era, helping to replenish what our devices are leaching away.

In her beautiful new book The Enchanted Hour, author Meghan Cox Gurdon, a long-time Wall Street Journal columnist, seamlessly combines both scientific studies and personal experiences to showcase the merits of reading aloud to your children.

But it’s not just about bedtime stories for little kids: Reading aloud consoles, uplifts and invigorates at every age, deepening the intellectual lives and emotional well-being of teenagers and adults, too. An interview with the author of ‘The Enchanted Hour’, celebrating the art of family storytime. Meghan Cox Gurdon has taken her personal and professional love of reading (she has been the Wall Street Journal’s children’s book reviewer since 2005) and written a thoughtful and inspiring book about the power of reading out loud to childrenyoung and oldas well as the infirm and elderly. Grounded in the latest neuroscience and behavioral research, and drawing widely from literature, The Enchanted Hour explains the dazzling cognitive and social-emotional benefits that await children, whatever their class, nationality or family background. A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.Ī miraculous alchemy occurs when one person reads to another, transforming the simple stuff of a book, a voice, and a bit of time into complex and powerful fuel for the heart, brain, and imagination.

Meghan cox gurdon the enchanted hour