It’s wild to think that every night, families around the world are bonding over a chapter that I wrote. And I hear from families who read my books before bed. I hear from teachers who use my stories in their classrooms. I hear from kids who love my books even though they don’t usually like to read. One of the coolest things that happens to me as an author is getting notes from readers. Most days, I’m so busy trying to keep my kids alive and at peace with each other that I don’t have the energy to worry about their future cognitive skills.

Does that make me a bad children’s author? Um…maybe? But I’m just being honest. And sometimes, with that crew, we don’t get to all the things on the pediatric waiting room posters.ĭoes that make me a bad dad? I dunno. Here’s the thing: my wife and I have a 6-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 1-year-old. I may not have all the citations and numbers down, but I’ve seen enough posters in pediatric waiting rooms to get the idea. Like you, I know that I need to read to my kids more regularly. Did you know that a study by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research found that reading to children early in life significantly impacts their cognitive skills many years later?ĭid you know that a study published in Developmental Psychology found the quantity of parent-child reading interactions predicts children’s later receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read?ĭid you know that it takes way, way, WAY too long to get a 5-year-old to bed without adding one more thing to the routine?

Books by dustin brady