Tim Ellsworth

Good column by author Ridley Pearson, who recounts his childhood memories of his father reading to the family at the dinner table.

But it was the evening dining table reading that connected the family. Usually no more than a paragraph or two was read, sometimes a page or more. And it wasn’t intended as a jumping-off point of discussion (although it often had that effect); it was read because the subject matter was something my dad had been thinking about, or he’d stumbled onto a page that was just too good not to share.

That, I think, was the underlying message that I came away with: Reading is to be shared. Like a good meal. Reading is what connects the dots between the forty-somethings and the 6-year-olds. Reading is for everyone.