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A review by srividyaupp
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf
5.0
Dear Fellow Readers,
I feel its only appropriate to share my thoughts as a dialogue, since this epistolary collection was a dialogue, too. When I was young I read to travel. When I entered high school, I felt as though I needed to read to find answers. But in college, I have rediscovered my love of reading to ask questions. Every question in “Reader, Come Home” has given me something more to seek.
Wolf’s letters encompass all my favorite aspects of reading. The linguist in me thrilled over every reference to neurolinguistics and language acquisition. The bilingual daughter of immigrants felt as though each letter was written to me because finally here is someone who understood when I said we never had much money, but our true wealth has always been in our bookshelves. The social justice warrior craved more dialogue on the conversation of access to literacy in oppressed and impoverished communities that are kept beneath white, elitist thumbs by keeping them from education and travel. And lastly, the science policy analyst that I am becoming saw a path forward in her call to action for research and funding on literacy, technological equity and access and research.
These letters, filled with Wolf’s warmth and wit and passion, filled me with the desire to have these conversations with everyone I know - my young cousins who are discovering books but also have never lived without their trusty iPads, my aunts and uncles who ask me to tell my cousins to read and in the same breath set up an iPhone playing a YouTube video while we eat lunch, my mother who teaches English to neurodiverse learners who have been told their whole lives that reading isn’t for them, my friends because soon we will be having and raising our children, and many of us are becoming teachers who will influence how students learn through media and learn from media.
I agree with the criticism that Wolf’s book is written to an erudite, privileged population. I wish the letters would be more accessible and engaging for those of our communities who didn’t grow up with books, or haven’t read all the white male philosophers and authors Wolf has been raised to recognize as classics. But what I take from her letters is an impetus to make these letters accessible by talking about them with people I interact with. Wolf didn’t mean for this book to be an end, but rather a careful and hopeful foundation for an informed beginning in our coming age of integrated technology. So, while this book grounded me and I felt like I had come home, like every beautiful book I’ve read, it has also inspired a wanderlust to travel with the content. I am off on my reading journeys, more aware of how my reading and absorption impact me, and of how the children around me will be impacted by our decisions.
Sincerely,
Sri Vidya
I feel its only appropriate to share my thoughts as a dialogue, since this epistolary collection was a dialogue, too. When I was young I read to travel. When I entered high school, I felt as though I needed to read to find answers. But in college, I have rediscovered my love of reading to ask questions. Every question in “Reader, Come Home” has given me something more to seek.
Wolf’s letters encompass all my favorite aspects of reading. The linguist in me thrilled over every reference to neurolinguistics and language acquisition. The bilingual daughter of immigrants felt as though each letter was written to me because finally here is someone who understood when I said we never had much money, but our true wealth has always been in our bookshelves. The social justice warrior craved more dialogue on the conversation of access to literacy in oppressed and impoverished communities that are kept beneath white, elitist thumbs by keeping them from education and travel. And lastly, the science policy analyst that I am becoming saw a path forward in her call to action for research and funding on literacy, technological equity and access and research.
These letters, filled with Wolf’s warmth and wit and passion, filled me with the desire to have these conversations with everyone I know - my young cousins who are discovering books but also have never lived without their trusty iPads, my aunts and uncles who ask me to tell my cousins to read and in the same breath set up an iPhone playing a YouTube video while we eat lunch, my mother who teaches English to neurodiverse learners who have been told their whole lives that reading isn’t for them, my friends because soon we will be having and raising our children, and many of us are becoming teachers who will influence how students learn through media and learn from media.
I agree with the criticism that Wolf’s book is written to an erudite, privileged population. I wish the letters would be more accessible and engaging for those of our communities who didn’t grow up with books, or haven’t read all the white male philosophers and authors Wolf has been raised to recognize as classics. But what I take from her letters is an impetus to make these letters accessible by talking about them with people I interact with. Wolf didn’t mean for this book to be an end, but rather a careful and hopeful foundation for an informed beginning in our coming age of integrated technology. So, while this book grounded me and I felt like I had come home, like every beautiful book I’ve read, it has also inspired a wanderlust to travel with the content. I am off on my reading journeys, more aware of how my reading and absorption impact me, and of how the children around me will be impacted by our decisions.
Sincerely,
Sri Vidya