A Conversation with Meghan Cox Gurdon, author of The Enchanted Hour and Children's Book Critic For The Wall Street Journal.

"Reading to babies and toddlers is not just a gift for them, it is a huge gift to parents." – Meghan Cox Gurdon In this episode, Dr. Bob has the pleasure of speaking with Meghan Cox Gurdon, author of The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. Meghan is also the children's book critic for the Wall Street Journal. You will absolutely love listening to Meghan talk about her life long love for reading, the importance of reading to your children and so much more. Meghan Cox Gurdon is an internationally-known children’s book critic and the author of The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. Her influential weekly column in the Wall Street Journal, which began running in 2005, reaches more than 2 million readers every week. A mother of five, Gurdon is a sophisticated, eloquent and joyful advocate for reading aloud and the social, emotional, cultural, and literary pleasures and benefits that it offers. (Well, that’s one way of putting it. Another is: She’s a zealot. Meghan Gurdon has been reading aloud every evening since the first of her five children arrived 24 years ago and she not only refuses to stop, but she also hopes to persuade you to do the same!) In the lively, authoritative pages of the Enchanted Hour, she draws on the latest brain science and behavioral research, as well as from literature and personal anecdote, to explore the multifaceted power of a practice that has origins in antiquity and amazing relevance for today’s tech-addled families. Amid the depleting distractions of screens and devices, she writes: “A miraculous alchemy takes place when one person reads to another, one that converts the ordinary stuff of life — a book, a voice, a place to sit, and a bit of time — into astonishing fuel for the heart, the mind, and the imagination.” Gurdon graduated Magna cum Laude from Bowdoin College in 1986, and after a stint in as a television producer in New York, moved overseas to marry the English journalist, Hugo Gurdon, and begin work as a freelance foreign correspondent. Based first in Hong Kong, and later in Tokyo, London, Washington, and Toronto, Gurdon reported from dozens of international hot-spots (and cooler ones), including Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Somalia, Singapore, France, Germany and Israel. Her print and radio work has run in numerous outlets, such as the Christian Science Monitor, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, National Review, Monitor Radio, and the public radio show, “Marketplace.” After 9/11, having had four children in three different countries, Gurdon and her husband decided to relocate one last time, to Washington DC, where they welcomed their fifth child a few short weeks after she began writing her column for the Wall Street Journal. How to contact Meghan: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meghancoxgurdon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeghanGurdon How to contact Dr. Bob: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChztMVtPCLJkiXvv7H5tpDQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drroberthamilton/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bob.hamilton.1656 Seven Secrets Of The Newborn website: https://7secretsofthenewborn.com/ Website: https://roberthamiltonmd.com/ Pacific Ocean Pediatrics: http://www.pacificoceanpediatrics.com/