But I bet it’s going to preach to the choir rather than convert many people. Specifically there’s a lot of nice content about reading aloud to the elderly or infirm. It’s about the value of reading aloud to children, even those who are proficient readers, but also delves into why reading aloud is good for humans of all ages.

Bigotry is measured by impact, not intention. I think this author really thought she was giving good advice to prevent racism in kids. Every antiracist advocate, especially the white ones, is fighting this battle every single day, and we will all make mistakes. Racism, and white supremacy more broadly, are not the realm of solely “bad people.” We have breathed this in since birth, and it is really hard to deprogram, and you probably will never deprogram it all even if you live a very long time. Say it with me: even good people can do racist things, even good people can unintentionally support white supremacy. That’s exactly why it’s a problem: this is an issue in the structure of our society that this book will unintentional reinforce. I think this is a serious issue, and I think that pretending the issues in this book are not a big deal is part of the problem in our society at large and in this book on a more micro-scale.Īnd I’ll also be clear that I think this is completely unintentional on the part of the author. Let me be clear: I’m not making that statement lightly. Well, now that I’ve written that summary, you’re probably like, “Uhhhh get to the second part.” Because you don’t just make a statement like that lightly. The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon It’d have been better if the list were more fully annotated (children’s book titles aren’t very descriptive!), but you can’t have everything. And there’s a really nice booklist in the back. I’d give it five stars if it had handled this issue better. But it also has some white supremacy issues that it doesn’t handle well. TL DR version: It’s a good book, worth a read.

Meghan cox gurdon the enchanted hour