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Elizabeth Givens's avatar

My earliest childhood memories include pulling large volumes of The Harvard Classics off a shelf with my brother to build cities for our matchbox cars. That in turn led to him reading to me from them. Reading is the best way to inoculate the next generation against falsehoods as well as give them wings to explore the world.

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Melissa Woodruff's avatar

I love this!

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Elizabeth Givens's avatar

Those same Harvard Classics now live at the Warnemuende home and I get to pull them off the shelf and reread portions when I visit.

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

And we are continually thankful for them!

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Melissa Woodruff's avatar

I love that even more 😭

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Elizabeth Givens's avatar

The fun is that my maternal grandfather was a book publisher (Dodd Meade and Merriam Webster) so these were some of the bounty that passed thru his hands about 100 years ago.

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Rebecca J. Gomez's avatar

Yeah, this is pretty much how it was in our house. I didn’t set out to “raise readers.” I just loved sharing stories with my kids!

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Loren Warnemuende's avatar

I can very much relate to this!

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Heather Cadenhead's avatar

Loved this. Thanks for sharing!

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SDG Morgan's avatar

Caught not taught! Great article Melissa!

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Melissa Woodruff's avatar

Thank you!

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Sarah Miller's avatar

I love this. We for sure overcomplicate it (I don't just have a blog post or podcast episodes or homeschool conference workshop but an entire newsletter on this topic 😂) but it's not that complicated, in the end.

I think the challenge for some people, though, is when they weren't raised in this kind of environment, and/or came late to loving books and reading. They don't know what it looks like to live inside this kind of atmosphere or home, and so they struggle to know where to begin providing it for their own children/family. It's *not* complicated, but some people do need support and help, and I'd hate to see them left behind because of those of us who don't need the same.

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