Dr. Sayantani DasGupta
When I was in practice as a pediatrician, I wrote daily prescriptions for reading. I had an actual notepad to help me prescribe books to families of young infants and toddlers. On that pad, I would write things like "read to your baby for 20 minutes," and along with that prescription I'd give that family an age- and language-appropriate book to read together. I did this because I knew, as pediatricians and family practitioners who continue this practice across the country know, that stories are good medicine.
Reading aloud, or being read to, bonds families together—it promotes attachment. Children who are read to produce and understand language better and become better readers later in life. Reading to young children can also help them develop attention, deal with difficult emotions, and control behavior like aggression. But more than that, books help build young people's imagination—in fact, they help build radical imagination. Think about it: in children's and YA fiction, mice talk and fight with swords, little girls have big red dogs as best friends, witches and wizards fly on brooms, and young people overthrow corrupt and unjust governments through grit and wit and a belief in themselves and each other. So in a sense, children's and YA fiction are roadmaps to the future, they are blueprints for tomorrow, because it is in their pages that young people get the tools and the imaginative practice to envision what they want their world to look like.
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