Storytelling is powerful. Its history stretches back to the earliest days of humanity, and it’s an art form intertwined with the passing down of wisdom and understanding. Our love and need for stories is still alive today, although it may be more clearly seen in our habit of getting drawn into episode after episode of…
Vacation by the Book: The Joys and Benefits of Popcorn Reading
People pack all sorts of things when they head off on summer vacation. Most of these are standard for traveling: clothing suited to the destination and the weather, toiletries, food and drink, the wagonload of paraphernalia required for toddlers, and other necessities. Next come the specialty items. Some vacationers carefully select special treats—chocolates, wine, cheeses….
Treasures and Trash: Visiting the Library
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of a library,” Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote. Like Borges, many of us find a little slice of heaven in a public library. There, standing straight as soldiers in tight ranks on the shelves, are thousands of books waiting just for us: stories, adventures,…
A Rebel’s Reading List
Commentary Here is a bitter irony for you. Just as the world’s greatest literature of all ages became available to every person, mostly at no charge, and with only a search and a click, it seems like most people have lost interest. What incredible and tragic timing! For a large part of the 18th and…
The Reading Divide
Commentary A story appeared recently in The New Yorker carrying the funereal title “The End of the English Major.” It got a lot of attention, and it’s not an easy take for people who are committed to literary culture, who think that a society without a population of active literary readers is an unhealthy one….
No Grade Level Proficiency in Math or Reading at Dozens of Illinois Schools: Report
According to data from the Illinois State Board of Education, not a single student in 53 schools in Illinois can do math at grade level, and in 30 schools, not a single student can read at grade level. These schools, located throughout the state, are under the purview of the Illinois Public School system and…
The Gift of Reading Aloud to Your Children
Jim Trelease, author of “Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook,” says: “Every time we read to a child, we’re sending a ‘pleasure’ message to the child’s brain. You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure.” Reading aloud to your kids is truly a gift you give to them,…
How 30-minutes per Day Can Add Two Years to Your Life…without Exercise
The headline has exercise written all over it. But I’m not here to trick you into exercise. In fact, I’m not even going to give you a list of 30-minute healthy recipes. Nope. This little bit of news is less about getting active and more about sitting down in a comfortable chair. So, it might…
Read-Aloud: From Crib to College
In an interview with Winsome Sears, now Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Armstrong Williams asked Sears to name one major problem in Virginia. Sears responded that 85 percent of black eighth graders in the state are functionally illiterate. The astonished Williams had his fact-checkers look up that statistic while Sears continued speaking, and they found that 85 percent of black…
Gang Supplied ‘Genuine’ Passports to Murderers and International Fugitives, UK Court Told
READING, Berkshire—A British gang supplied fraudulently-obtained genuine passports (FOGs) to enable drug traffickers, murderers, and other fugitives to cross borders without being noticed, a court has been told. Six people went on trial at Reading Crown Court in England on Wednesday after a National Crime Agency investigation into “an organised crime group” which provided passports…
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