Dear Reader,
Sarah Mackenzie lives in Washington state and often finds herself needing gifts for loved ones, as she and her husband have half a dozen kids. Finding books for her children, in fact, is one of her favorite pastimes. In Sarah's new book, The Read-Aloud Family, she helps parents make meaningful and lasting connections with their kids (toddler to teen) through books. In the book, you'll find out why reading aloud to kids of all ages matters, practical strategies for making it happen, and which books are most enjoyable to read aloud.
Need a gift? Enter to win one of 10 copies of Sarah's new book, The Read-Aloud Family. Say hello, welcome Sarah to the book club and you'll also be entered in the book giveaway. Email: [email protected]
Please welcome author Sarah Mackenzie...
I am not a great gift-giver by any stretch. I wish I was. What an art, to give someone just the right thing--a token that says, "I've been thinking about you," or "You matter so much to me."
I, however, can never find a gift that seems to match the amount of affection I have for the people in my life, young and old alike. I used to wrack my brain and try desperately to drum up an idea that was heartfelt.
Not anymore.
Now, I give books. We're readers, you and I--so we know this is the best kind of gift, anyhow, regardless of whether we're celebrating a happy occasion or trying to get through a difficult one.
When I can't figure out how to show someone how much they matter to me--how deeply I care, how my heart sings with happiness at their mere existence, I reach for a novel or a collection of essays.
When a friend is suffering heartache and I want them to know that I see them and hear them, even when I can't fix it, I handpick a book. "This one is for you," I'll say. It's an act of love, really. But only a reader would know it for what it is.
Books reach.
Books nourish.
Books lift us out of dailiness, out of the frank and ordinary moments we inhabit day in and day out, and they help us to see. They're not an escape from life as much as they are an escape into it. When we give them to our loved ones, we offer them an opportunity to fully live. To be loved through language. To come alive through the magical power of ink on paper.
Stories care for the tender spots, the tired spots. When we don't know how to reach our loved ones because the words seem beyond our grasp, when an embrace can't quite communicate what we long to say, a book connects. A book does the heavy lifting for us. A book reaches where we otherwise cannot.
We may or may not write a card or tie the book with ribbon, but the real gift is tucked in the pages beneath the cover, anyway.
For we know, you and I, that reading is gift enough.
-- Sarah Mackenzie
To be entered in the drawing for a copy of Sarah's new book, The Read-Aloud Family, email [email protected]
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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