The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction

by Meghan Cox Gurdon Narrated by Meghan Cox Gurdon

Overview

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.

A 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

Bringing 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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile

This wonderful audiobook is a fully enjoyable listen. Meghan Cox Gurdon is the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s reviewer of children’s books, so it isn’t surprising that she brings great insight and passion to this work. What may be surprising, however, is just how good a narrator she is. She sprinkles her delivery with appropriate accents and enthusiasm. Furthermore, her pacing is excellent, and her ability to maintain listener attention is impressive. Half the fun of listening is recalling the children’s books from our own pasts and recollecting the joy of reading to little ones. Add in Gurdon’s research on the benefits of reading aloud, along with a dollop of screen weariness, and you have an important and engaging audiobook. J.P.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

10/15/2018
Gurdon, children’s book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, combines a consciously old-fashioned, anti-technology perspective with modern, data-driven cognitive arguments to advocate for face-to-face reading with children early and often. Gurdon focuses especially on the value of the picture book to build connection, regulate attention and emotional awareness, transmit cultural values, and give children feelings of mastery through repetition. In trying to cover her subject thoroughly—she also discusses the value of reading aloud to vulnerable adults, such as hospitalized seniors—Gurdon sometimes contradicts her own points. For instance, she posits recordings as being of lesser value for not being interactive, but also that parents recording books for their children shows the value of reading aloud; similarly, that classics should not be retired for their prejudices and outdated messages, but also that home readers should modify what they read at will for their audience. This completism, combined with Gurdon’s choice not to explain, until the end of her book, how to create an “enchanted hour” of reading aloud, may lead to readers losing interest partway, leaving them with the feeling she is still trying to convince long after they are ready to take action. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

This book shines a light on the incredible power of reading aloud for everyone – not just children. . . . A joyous book that’ll have you scrambling to the library.” — Yours Magazine (UK)

“An inspirational account that will make you want to grab a book and share it with someone you love.” — Sun (UK)

“This wonderful audiobook is a fully enjoyable listen. . . . [Gurdon’s] pacing is excellent, and her ability to maintain listener attention is impressive. . . . An important and engaging audiobook.” — AudioFile Magazine

“Don’t pick up this bewitching book! It’s so enchanting you won’t be able to put it down.” — Mem Fox, author of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and Reading Magic

“The Enchanted Hour enthralled and inspired me in equal measure.... Meghan Cox Gurdon’s book is the most charming, gentle encouragement to step away from your phone, and into the embrace of your family’s most vivid imaginations.” — Sarah Ivens, author of Forest Therapy

“Parents and grandparents shouldn’t miss The Enchanted Hour, but more important, we all need to heed this delightful book’s wise advice: Please read to your kids.  It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading, it’s our job – and it’s a wonderful, magical act of love and caring.” — James Patterson, international bestselling author

“Meghan Gurdon has given today’s parents much needed wisdom to raise attentive and curious children in the Age of Distraction. I hope her book finds a huge audience.” — Rosemary Wells, author of the Max and Ruby series

“Gurdon convincingly describes the importance and delight of sharing books with loved ones. . . . For anybody interested in reading, especially parents, teachers, caregivers, and librarians, this inspirational work proclaims its joys and rewards.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“In her heartfelt first book, Gurdon makes an earnest... case for reading aloud.... An inspiring argument for sharing the joys of reading.” — Kirkus Reviews

Sun (UK)

An inspirational account that will make you want to grab a book and share it with someone you love.

Yours Magazine (UK)

This book shines a light on the incredible power of reading aloud for everyone – not just children. . . . A joyous book that’ll have you scrambling to the library.

Rosemary Wells

Meghan Gurdon has given today’s parents much needed wisdom to raise attentive and curious children in the Age of Distraction. I hope her book finds a huge audience.

James Patterson

Parents and grandparents shouldn’t miss The Enchanted Hour, but more important, we all need to heed this delightful book’s wise advice: Please read to your kids.  It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading, it’s our job – and it’s a wonderful, magical act of love and caring.

Sarah Ivens

The Enchanted Hour enthralled and inspired me in equal measure.... Meghan Cox Gurdon’s book is the most charming, gentle encouragement to step away from your phone, and into the embrace of your family’s most vivid imaginations.”

AudioFile Magazine

This wonderful audiobook is a fully enjoyable listen. . . . [Gurdon’s] pacing is excellent, and her ability to maintain listener attention is impressive. . . . An important and engaging audiobook.

Mem Fox

Don’t pick up this bewitching book! It’s so enchanting you won’t be able to put it down.

Yours Magazine-(UK)

This book shines a light on the incredible power of reading aloud for everyone – not just children. . . . A joyous book that’ll have you scrambling to the library.

The Sun (UK)

[The Enchanted Hour] is an inspirational account that will make you want to grab a book and share it with someone you love.

FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile

This wonderful audiobook is a fully enjoyable listen. Meghan Cox Gurdon is the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s reviewer of children’s books, so it isn’t surprising that she brings great insight and passion to this work. What may be surprising, however, is just how good a narrator she is. She sprinkles her delivery with appropriate accents and enthusiasm. Furthermore, her pacing is excellent, and her ability to maintain listener attention is impressive. Half the fun of listening is recalling the children’s books from our own pasts and recollecting the joy of reading to little ones. Add in Gurdon’s research on the benefits of reading aloud, along with a dollop of screen weariness, and you have an important and engaging audiobook. J.P.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-09-12

How reading aloud confers cognitive, emotional, and social benefits.

In her heartfelt first book, Gurdon, children's book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, makes an earnest, but unfortunately repetitive, case for reading aloud. Drawing on her experiences of nightly reading to her five children, scientific studies, interviews, and anecdotes, the author argues that when one person reads to another, "a miraculous alchemy takes place" in which "the ordinary stuff of life—a book, a voice, a place to sit and a bit of time" transforms "into astonishing fuel for the heart, the mind, and the imagination." Children who are read to show "a quantifiable difference in brain function" compared with children deprived of this activity, according to many pediatricians. Based on such studies, the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that reading daily to young children "stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships" and, furthermore, "builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime." Gurdon urges parents to put down phones and iPads in favor of books, underscoring the difference between listening to a story and watching it on a screen. When children follow a story on video, researchers have found "the decoupling of vision, imagery, and language." Well-versed in children's literature, Gurdon cites more than 100 books that have the potential to build vocabulary and impart "vicarious emotional experiences." In The Story of Babar, for example—which takes under seven minutes to read—the child "will see tenderness and catastrophe, fear and comfort, pride and anger, death, marriage, sorrow, and joy." Besides developing language facility, empathy, and cultural literacy, reading aloud creates a deep bond between reader and listener, sweeping them together "in a lovely neurochemical tsunami." "When we read to other people," she writes, "we show them that they matter to us; that we want to give our time and attention and energy in order to bring them something good." An appendix lists six pages of suggested stories for reading aloud.

An inspiring argument for sharing the joys of reading.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170008889
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/15/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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