Australia’s National Reading Hour is fast approaching: 6 pm on Tuesday August 19: a time when we celebrate the act of reading with children. Reading is one of the most important things in my life. Stories take us into new worlds and teach us something more about ourselves, all at the same time. 
But reading to a child is an even greater gift than this. Sharing the story enhances the enjoyment; undoubtedly it deepens the child’s understanding of a more difficult text – and most importantly, it’s an expression of caring. Most of us lucky enough to have grown up with bedtime stories remember them as a time of warmth, safety and love; most of us who read bedtime stories to our children will remember them in the same way. What better way to lay down the association between pleasure and learning; to give your child a resource for difficult times?
As an author who grew up with those feelings for bedtime stories, and attempted to pass them on in the same way to my children, it’s very special to me to hear of my own books being part of this interaction.
So if you would like to celebrate the National Reading Hour by having me read a pre-bedtime story to your child or children, over Skype or phone if you don’t live next door, just comment on this blog, email or tweet. Tell me why you’d like it, or what reading means to you, because that’s fun for me to hear, though I’ll choose the winner by random drawing, because it would be just too hard to choose the best reason for sharing a story! Here’s what some author friends and I said about reading a couple of years ago:
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