It’s been too long since I was around little children. There’s great pleasure in sharing your love of words, story and books, especially with children. Some of the many benefits include:

• It’s fun
• Calm a child down, even put them to sleep
• Excite your own and the child’s imaginations
• Deepen your relationship
• Spend quality time together
• Open up subjects which might otherwise be difficult to discuss
• Develop physical and emotional closeness
• Make all kinds of strange noises with impunity
• Read wonderful, magical stories
• Develop your skill at reading aloud
• Exercise your brain and encourage the child to exercise theirs
• Learn about the world and things in it
• Teach necessary life lessons with subtlety
• Improve vocabulary and language skills
• Increase level of concentration
• Develop a love of story and reading
• Learn empathy for others
• Practice reading skills to perfection
• Readers learn to keep themselves amused, never bored