Jun 9, 2020
"Reading to babies and toddlers is not just a gift for them, it is a huge gift to parents." – Meghan Cox Gurdon
In this episode, Dr. Bob has the pleasure of speaking with
Meghan Cox Gurdon, author of The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous
Power
of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. Meghan is also the
children's book critic for the Wall Street Journal. You will
absolutely love listening to Meghan talk about her life long love
for reading, the importance of reading to your children and so much
more.
Meghan Cox Gurdon is an internationally-known children’s
book
critic and the author of The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power
of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. Her influential weekly
column in the Wall Street Journal, which began running in 2005,
reaches more than 2 million readers every week. A mother of five,
Gurdon is a sophisticated, eloquent and joyful advocate for reading
aloud and the social, emotional, cultural, and literary pleasures
and benefits that it offers. (Well, that’s one way of putting it.
Another is: She’s a zealot. Meghan Gurdon has been reading aloud
every evening since the first of her five children arrived 24 years
ago and she not only refuses to stop, but she also hopes to
persuade you to do the same!) In the lively, authoritative pages of
the Enchanted Hour, she draws on the latest brain science and
behavioral research, as well as from literature and personal
anecdote, to explore the multifaceted power of a practice that has
origins in antiquity and amazing relevance for today’s tech-addled
families. Amid the depleting distractions of screens and devices,
she writes: “A miraculous alchemy takes place when one person reads
to another, one that converts the ordinary stuff of life — a book,
a voice, a place to sit, and a bit of time — into astonishing fuel
for the heart, the mind, and the imagination.”
Gurdon graduated Magna cum Laude from Bowdoin College in
1986, and after a stint in as a television producer in New
York, moved overseas to marry the English journalist, Hugo Gurdon,
and begin work as a freelance foreign correspondent. Based first in
Hong Kong, and later in Tokyo, London, Washington, and Toronto,
Gurdon reported from dozens of international hot-spots (and cooler
ones), including Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines,
Somalia, Singapore, France, Germany and Israel. Her print and radio
work has run in numerous outlets, such as the Christian Science
Monitor, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, National
Review, Monitor Radio, and the public radio show, “Marketplace.”
After 9/11, having had four children in three different countries,
Gurdon and her husband decided to relocate one last time, to
Washington DC, where they welcomed their fifth child a few short
weeks after she began writing her column for the Wall Street
Journal.
How to contact Meghan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meghancoxgurdon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeghanGurdon
How to contact Dr. Bob:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChztMVtPCLJkiXvv7H5tpDQ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drroberthamilton/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bob.hamilton.1656
Seven Secrets Of The Newborn website: https://7secretsofthenewborn.com/
Website: https://roberthamiltonmd.com/
Pacific Ocean Pediatrics: http://www.pacificoceanpediatrics.com/