You can begin teaching your kids to love reading by sharing the experience with them, all the way from picking books to building a reading environment to exploring new worlds on the page. Let two veteran language arts teachers guide you through this process in clear, sensible prose.

Many of us who were read to as children remember those memories with fondness, and those of us who still love to read oftentimes cite such family rituals as formative experiences. Yet with thousands of new books hitting shelves every single year, it can be hard for us to know where and how to start reading to our own children. Peng Yu-Liang and Chen Pin-Hsuan, a duo of veteran language arts teachers and writing coaches, are here to show us the way.

One of the great beauties of reading together is that the practice itself is an exploration of its own myriad capabilities. Reading can be a form of problem-solving, of storytelling, or of natural and cultural discovery. It can enrich both our imaginative and our everyday, practical lives, and doesn’t have to be a chore or a spiritual calling. When Chen and Peng note that “if you can eat, you can read,” they’re reminding us that reading does not have to feel like an assignment.

Chen Pin-Hsuan and Peng Yu-Liang approach a complex and ideologically loaded question with the cool and practiced eye of experienced teachers. Committed to taking nothing and no one for granted, they help us face simple questions about reading (Why read? What happens if I don’t?) from a practical perspective, and guide us toward useful – if sometimes uncomfortable – conclusions. They walk with you through the endless gallery of possibilities that reading presents so that you may one day show it to your children.