“Beams of light from the setting sun entered through the cracks in the boards. / Specks of dust danced in the air. The yellow marble glowed like a lamp. / The silver sardine can shone. / All was hushed, still.”

— Orris and Timble: The Beginning by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Carmen Mok

“Far above the treetop / a lone cloud meanders / in the star-speckled sky, / swaying this way, / rolling that way. / Who has woken the cloud?”

— On a Summer Night by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Kenard Pak

“Big Bear steps into the boat. It wobbles and creaks.  Little Bear looks at the wobbling and listens to the creaking for quite some time. / Then Big Bear holds out his arms, and Little Bear jumps. Now everyone is in the boat.”

— Big Bear and Little Bear Go Fishing by Amy Hest, illustrated by Erin Stead

“No time to Rest! / Raise the Storm Sail!/ Mind the Turnbuckle! / Hold fast to the Mizzenmast! / Rough seas ahead!”

— Ahoy! by Sophie Blackall

Imagine the fortunate children who grow up listening to picture books every day with such beautiful, lively writing. Writing that doesn’t talk down to them, isn’t out to teach reading lessons or morals. Writing that tells good stories in elevated language that children absorb.

Look at the image that Kate DiCamillo renders: concrete nouns, active verbs, colors. Even that comma: “All was hushed, still” cues the reader to pause and demonstrates, without being a lesson, that sentences can shine and dance and glow and...hush. Deborah Hopkinson doesn’t shy away from the right word, such as meander and star-speckled. Amy Hest employs a bit of rhythm and repetition: “wobbles and creaks...wobbling and creaking...to good effect. No need for a lesson on verbs and gerunds or even pointing it out; young listeners are listening to a wonderful story that Kirkus says has “all the hallmarks of a family classic.” And Sophie Blackall certainly doesn’t talk down to her readers! But she does provide a dictionary of pirate phrases for readers and listeners alike. Part of the fun is that extravagant language. Young readers seem to especially enjoy her use of “poop deck” on a previous page (and grown-up readers will probably want to explain that one) The fact that these books are gorgeously illustrated and contribute to young listeners’ appreciation of art and their development of visual literacy is not just a bonus but integral to what a great picture book is all about.

Now, imagine a four-year-old girl, who has grown up surrounded by such books and has heard thousands of books already, in a house with few electronic distractions but with parents and her aunt, nicknamed Mimi, who read to her. Her aunt is a good friend of mine and a great librarian in Nashville and this niece has been visiting her for the last several days. Here is the first half of a list of books that Mimi has read aloud to her in just the last six days:

May 27: The Fire Cat; The Library; Katy No-Pocket; Library Lion; Tawny Scrawny Lion; The Happy Day; Robert the Rose Horse; Unfortunately, Fortunately; Shoes for Angela.

May 28: Leave Me Alone!; Kitten and the Night Watchman; Bunny’s Book Club Goes to School; Tops and Bottoms; Mel Fell; Petunia; Not a Box; Journey; The Dog Walk; A Little Old Man; Knight Owl.

May 29: Harry the Dirty Dog; A, My Name Is Alice; Caps for Sale.

May 31: Andrew Henry’s Meadow; Penny and Her Marble; Penny and Her Sled; Little Bear’s New Friend; Angelina’s Birthday; If I Built a Car; Goldilocks and the Three Bears; Tanya and Emily in a Dance for Two; Fred and Ted Like to Fly; Harold and the Purple Crayon; Lentil; Shoes; Going West.

June 1: Robert the Rose Horse (so good we read it twice); Christina Katerina and the Box; The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear; A Baby Sister for Frances; George and Martha; Bedtime for Frances; Not the Piano, Mrs. Medley!; Tom and Pippo and the Washing Machine; Cinderella; The Three Billy Goats Gruff; Sylvester and the Magic Pebble; The Gingerbread Man; Mary Poppins; If You Want to Knit Some Mittens; Early Bird on Sesame Street.

Mimi and her niece are doing a reading challenge together. Mimi’s goal was one hundred books in under two weeks, and that seemed likely having read fifty-one books already in the first six days. As a challenge, it’s more books than most humans would read in two weeks, but it shows what’s possible. And several of the books are classics of children’s literature, so there’s the cultural literacy side of this too. And just a few days later, the two of them completed the challenge, one hundred books read aloud together in under ten days! I asked Mimi what book, out of the hundred, seemed to be a special one for the young reader, and she said, The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen. That book was the first winner of the Robin Smith Picture Book Prize and is one of my favorite read-alouds; my main criterion for the award is that each book must be a superb read-aloud, one that I can imagine Robin reading aloud from her rocking chair to her second graders.

What does this little girl get out of all of this reading? Think of the foundation for her reading Mimi is providing. Think of all of that time together, side by side, aunt and niece, sharing books and creating a lifelong bond. She receives a gift of language. As William Zinsser wrote in Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children, “This gift — to get good language into the ear of children at a very early age — is what children’s literature has in its power to bestow. Much wailing is heard in the land nowadays over the fact that ‘nobody can write well anymore.’ One reason is that parents don’t read aloud to their children as much as they once did. The voice heard at bedtime is more often the voice of television, gratefully used as a babysitter by fathers and mothers exhausted by their jobs. But to write well it is necessary to grow up hearing how other people have written well: to get into one’s metabolism a sense of the grandeur, the playfulness and the plain narrative strength of the English language.” Zinsser wrote that back in 1990, when television ruled the roost; think of all the electronic pied pipers that have captured young people’s attention and fractured family life since then.

These are gifts that this young girl is receiving from her parents and from Mimi: the gift of language, the capacity to sit undistracted for hours listening to stories, and a love of books that will last her a lifetime. But another gift that she has received is Mimi, herself. Mimi is giving her a gift of love and togetherness and family. Years from now, think of this child — and Mimi — looking back on these moments together, cuddled together, reading aloud, and listening. Mimi may well be proud of having a hand in raising a reader, but she will be especially grateful for all the special time spent with her niece. My wife Robin and I read aloud to our two children every single night, almost from the time they were born until they were in sixth grade and overly busy with school activities and homework. Yes, Julie and Andrew are both avid readers and writers now, but Robin and I always knew that early evening reading-aloud time was the best family time of the day, the time to settle down, sit together, be together, and read. And at bedtime, Julie and Andrew read in bed, and we said they could stay up beyond their bedtime if they wanted to keep reading for a bit. Thus, reading was a treat.

Kate DiCamillo spoke at my school yesterday, and I was lucky enough to get to introduce her. One question from a parent was about the many kids who don’t like to read when there are so many digital distractions in their lives. Kate’s response: “The best thing you can do is read aloud. You get something out of it, and your child gets something out of it.” Exactly my point here: Mimi's niece gets something out of it, and Mimi gets something out of it.

So many students I have taught in recent years have not grown up in families where reading aloud happens. They have not grown up reading much of anything at all outside of school, because so many children now see reading as only something they do in school. Thus, many students are tone deaf when it comes to writing: they can generate words quickly on their laptops, but they have little sense of style and grammar and punctuation, let alone the playfulness of language, that comes from growing up with books. And they haven’t grown up with these beloved books. An eighth-grade science teacher told me the other day that she had made a casual reference to Charlotte’s Web in class, and some students had never heard of the book.

Schools are not doing all they can to encourage reading. Test scores are down, reading comprehension skills are weak, so a typical school response is to teach more skills, and fewer books are read. Lots of students don’t even read whole books at school anymore, just excerpts from books in textbooks.

I am heartened, however, by all those parents, librarians, and teachers who do read aloud and make sure to get books into the lives of their children. I am a frequent customer at Parnassus Books in Nashville, and next to writer and owner Ann Patchett herself, I think I might be their best customer and have become friends with several of the young staff. On my recent trips to the store, I have seen a noticeable rise in the number of young parents and their small children in the store, picking out books, reading aloud, getting expert advice from the booksellers. I often listen in on conversations and add my two cents about books. Just a few days ago, I suggested We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. Oxenbury’s Tom and Pippo books were Robin’s and my favorite read-alouds when our kids were little. Others I always try to remember to “sell” at the store are Chick Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert. I try to keep certain illustrators in my mental Rolodex for my unsolicited recommendation: Eric Carle, Sophie Blackall, Kevin Henkes, Philip and Erin Stead. Other favorites are Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie’s Jazz Baby and Jacqueline Woodson and Leo Espinosa’s The World Belonged to Us; my granddaughter Lucy loved this book and the rhythms of the beautiful language when she was only three. And add to these few titles, the hundred Mimi read to her niece, and all the titles knowledgeable booksellers and librarians can suggest. It can be a wonderful day for books and their champions and the fortunate children in their lives.