Share A Story: The Gift of Reading (Part 2) |

Book Dads is honored to be a part of Share A Story, Shape a Future. This is my first time to be participating and I couldn't be happier to be one of the hosts for today's theme: The Gift of Reading. For today's post, I asked dads, bloggers and authors I know to answer the following question:

Write about the "gift" you received as a dad upon seeing your child read their first words? Or by seeing them just hold the book on their own for the very first time and leaf through the pages. Or by simply seeing them enjoying a book. Please feel free to write anything about the "gift" you received from your child's exposure to reading.

Part 1 was posted earlier today. What follows is Part 2...

~ Alan Kercinik, Word Nerd & Dad Blogger from Chicago: @alankercinik / www.alwaysjacked.com
"Jack isn't old enough to read, but is old enough to insist upon "Book! Book!" before he goes to bed. It is the best part of my day, coming home from work and bonding with him over a story or three. When we're done, he takes his books to bed and pages through them, pointing at the things he knows and saying their names out loud. It's an echo of my own childhood when I turn out the light and tell him to not stay up all night, reading.

When I get him in the morning, there he is, sitting up and paging through his books, and I smile and think that maybe he is already defying me. I would take this kind of disobedience every day."

~ Read Aloud Dad, Child Literacy blogger at www.readalouddad.com / @readalouddad
"Incredible. Even though my 3-year 8-month old girl and boy do not know how to read yet, every day they "read" many more books than I manage to read! Guess why I've got this gift of a smile on my face every day?"

~ Why Is Daddy Crying, www.whyisdaddycrying / @whyisdaddycryin
"From chewing eight-page cardboard books, to sitting naked on the training potty eagerly trying to find “Waldo,” to listening to my many voices recount “Horton’s” heroic efforts to save the “Whos,” to seeing him graduate to book 5 of the Magic Tree House series…there are so many gifts associated with watching my son’s relationship with books mature over the past eight years. And one of the best gifts to date has been watching his impressionable young sister begin to copy him, falling asleep surrounded by a pallet of books. Literacy is everything. Experiencing your kids incorporate the written word in their daily lives is just indescribable and heart-warming."

~ Daddy Geek Boy, www.daddygeekboy.com / @daddygeekboy
"When it was time for the Bean to graduate from picture books to chapter books, we borrowed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from the library. We were unsure of how he would react to a long story with very few pictures—especially the more intense parts of the book. As my wife and I took turns reading the book to the Bean, I tried to talk with him about it at breakfast. Only I wasn’t able to engage him in conversation. Finally the phone rang at work one day:

“He got it! He got it!” my son’s voice exclaimed. “Charlie got a golden ticket!”

I knew in that one moment that my son’s love of reading had been permanently cemented."

~ Frederick J. Goodall, Mocha Dad Media (www.mochadad.com, www.makingitlastforever.com, www.sixstringtheories.com, @mochadad, Facebook, fjgoodall[at]mochadad[dot]com)
"One night, after I had tucked my daughter in bed and turned off all the lights, I noticed a glow coming from her room. I walked back in to discover that she was using a pocket flashlight to get in a few more minutes of reading. I was prepared to make her put away the book and go to sleep. Instead, I let her finish her story and smiled as I walked downstairs."

~ Douglas Glenn Clark, Author: www.lakefable.com / @lakefable
"Comedian Groucho Marx once quipped, “If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again.”
When my daughter Deirdre was a child she loved to be read the same story – over and over. I’d get restless. I’d want to move on to a new story.

But Deirdre, like Groucho, had another plan. She wanted her favorite stories repeated. And, looking back, I see the virtue: The stories we love create a foundation for our beliefs and emotional life. Repeating a story is a reminder of who we are.

There were other rewards, too. Deirdre’s “read it again” demand meant that stories and reading had become an important part of her young life. This was particularly gratifying for a dad who began buying books for his daughter long before she was born."

~ Robert Smith, Life Of A New Dad / @lifeofanewdad
"Seeing my son actually enjoy me reading to him for the first time gave me the gift of family and love. It took me all the way back to my childhood when my Dad so often read books to me. Remembering that and having those same very strong feelings of love and family with my son was an amazing gift."

~ Dan Nessel, Founder of DadDoes.com / @DanDadDoes / Facebook
"When my oldest son read his first words it really felt like a magical moment. I know the word magical is thrown around a great deal and the idea of a magical moment sounds so "hollywood", but in this case it just fits. There are a number of firsts with your kids - seeing them first crawl, then walk, then talk - all very special moments. After countless days and nights reading to them, you almost forget that one day they will read to you! That first night, when my son read to my wife and I, was a magical moment. All the things I had been worrying about that day, all the minor issues of life - just disappeared and I was completely in awe of what my son was doing. Everything else melted away and my wife and I just smiled and soaked up every word - amazed that we had created something so beautiful. Our son gave us the greatest gift of all, a magical moment."

~ Stefan Lanfer, Author of The Faith of A Child / Dad Today / @stefanlanfer
"One of the biggest surprises for me about parenthood has been the ways it links me to my parents - through new perspectives and appreciations for all they did for me way back when, even beyond where my memory can reach.

My kids have been nuts for books since they were very little. God forbid you cheat Maya out of one of the THREE books she has come to expect as part of the bedtime routine - there is hell to pay if you do, no matter how late. And wow what a way to end the day the other night, reading Winnie the Pooh with James. The fact that Owl spelled his name WOL was by far the funniest thing he had EVER heard. And his explosion of laughter got me laughing and shaking free of the stress of my day, and brought Maya into his doorway, paci and two blankets in toe to see what all fun was about.

Lately, one of those intergenerational connections has been reading through CS Lewis' Narnia books with James, who is just barely old enough to hang in there with the story lines, and often falls asleep mid-read, but all in all is hooked like I remember being hooked myself as my dad reading those stories to me thirty plus years ago.

Neither James not Maya can read on their own yet. But now and then I catch them faking it (see photo), and I so look forward to all the stories we will share together through the years."

Thanks for reading! In case you missed it, here is Part One. Part Three will be posted shortly!