I was lucky enough to have a mother who took me to the library - the public library - twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. And also bought me books. And also read aloud to me.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of parental support in fostering a love for reading and learning.
Kate DiCamillo reflects on her fortunate upbringing, where her mother played a crucial role in her literary development by taking her to the library regularly, purchasing books, and reading to her. This nurturing environment not only instilled a passion for reading but also emphasizes the transformative power of access to literature and parental involvement in education.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, I quoted Kate DiCamillo to illustrate how vital parental involvement is in developing a love for reading.
If you sit down and read with your kid, either having your child read to you or you reading to your child at a regular time each day, it deepens the relationship. You don't have to talk about stuff; the story will do that work for you.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.
There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. You have to find your own way. You can get your idea from listening, looking, or imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.
Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.
I have no talents. But I do have hope. And wonder. And love. Maybe those are talents?
Thank you to the children whose innocent words encouraged me.
PowerPoint is like being trapped in the style of early Egyptian flatland cartoons rather than using the more effective tools of Renaissance visual representation.
Experiment! Meet new people. That’s better than any college education . . . By adventuring; about, you become accustomed to the unexpected. The unexpected then becomes what it really is . . . the inevitable.
Being really good at 'learning how to learn,' as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.
Nu shu means women's writing. And it was a secret writing system that was invented by women, used by women and kept a secret by women in one very remote county in China for a thousand years. It's the only language that was invented and used by women to have been found anywhere in the world.
I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child's obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.
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