“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents, ” author Emilie Buchwald once said.
And she was on to something. Reading offers an opportunity to spend quality time with your children while also setting them up for success.
We recently caught up with one parent who even went as far as to start a book club with her daughter.
Cindy Hudson is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, and is also the creator of MotherDaughterBookClub.com.
Here she talks about the benefits she’s found in writing a book and the rewards of starting a book club with her child.
How can writing a book be a great experience?
1. Writing a book, especially nonfiction, can help you spread the news about something you are passionate about to others.
2. While researching and writing, you are likely to discover more about your topic than you knew when you got started.
3. You often get to connect with other people who are interested in the same things you are. I have stayed in touch with several moms, authors and librarians that I met while researching my book.
4. Talking about your book with the new people you meet often leads to interesting conversations.
How can it benefit your children?
Having the ability to read well impacts so many aspects of a person’s life. When children see their parents reading and writing, they are more likely to engage in these activities themselves and develop higher literacy skills.
How did you (and your family) get into writing/book clubs?
Reading has always been a big part of our family life. From the time my two daughters were born, my husband and I both sat with them and read. First, there were board books that were easy for their baby fingers to grasp and turn. Then came picture books. We started reading classic children’s tales to them long before they could read themselves, because they could understand the story.
I was in a book club with other adult friends, where I saw the value of talking about books as a way of tackling big issues. So I decided to start a book club with my oldest daughter, who was then 9, and other moms and their daughters. It was such a hit my younger daughter couldn’t wait to turn 9 and get started in a book club of her own.
When planning the meetings we hosted, I discovered that there were few resources out there to help out people in mother-daughter or parent-child book clubs that I decided to write a book based on my own experiences, including the advice of authors, librarians and other experts.
How has it impacted your family?
I know that the book clubs in the book I wrote have encouraged all of us to keep reading together, which I believe has led to a greater depth of understanding about our distinct personalities, and has helped us to remain close as a family over the years.
Follow Cindy Hudson on Twitter.
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