You may recognize that line from the most quotable movie ever. (If not, the clip below may refresh your memory.)
The worst thing I’ve heard today is, well, the worst thing I’ve heard since someone in Hollywood had the bright idea to remake that movie. (Thankfully, it hasn’t happened. Yet.)
There is a new audiobook of the Harry Potter series, with a (new) cast full of actors, excellent narration by Cush Jumbo, and – most of all – sound effects for every single action in the books.
It cost millions to make these books. Which is nothing compared to the real cost they will impose on our children.
To be clear, I love these stories. They’re clever, well-written, and a valuable allegory about Nazism (as well as a serious borrowing from Lord of the Rings).
But….
When my daughter was about five, I began reading her Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a few pages every night. She’d sit with me and follow along in the book as I read. By the end of second book, she could read them on her own, but we read together for at least another year. It was a terrific bonding experience, and a great way to expand her reading capabilities as well, not that she needed a lot of help from me.
Maybe three years later, I began the same process with my son (who was then three). He listened for the first book, read along for the second and part of the third, except that by then my daughter was doing some of the reading to him as well. By age six, he was reading them for himself.
I suspect both kids would have been great readers in any case, but the Harry Potter books were a terrific on-ramp to their own skills. (And yes, I did the voices. My Snape actually anticipated Alan Rickman, but Rowling’s description was so clear that I think every other parent likely could have managed the same.)
We talked about the books, too. About good and evil, for example, and about bullying.
But all that happened because we were in the room together, me reading, them listening and following along and asking questions.
I’m sure the new audiobooks are wonderful. I’ve heard bits and pieces, including Dallas Taylor’s story about how the sounds were assembled (from his invaluable podcast 20,000 Hertz). They sound good.
But they don’t carry one-thousandth the weight of a parent reading to a child.
And that, to me, is incredibly sad. Yes, war and crushing poverty and climate weirding and other real-world issues are sadder, yes, but those are buckets we can begin to drain only a single drop at a time. Giving children the love of reading, though, that’s available in full to most every parent.
If you’ve got kids or grandkids or help out with a school reading program, do the kids a solid. Read these books with them, aloud. You be the wonder, the voice, the joy-bringer, and most of all the model of why we read.