Children of the book A memoir of reading together

Translator Kurshan (If All the Seas Were Ink) reflects in this moving personal history on reading stories with her children. As an observant Jew, Kurshan and her family hear the Torah read in full on an annual cycle, and the bulk of her account masterfully links the books she reads with her children to the themes of the Torah. For instance, she connects the six-day creation story in Genesis to The Very Hungry Caterpillar's six days of constant consumption followed by a day of rest. Elsewhere, Fern's intervention to rescue Wilbur in Charlotte's Web is compared to the retrieval of the baby Moses from the Nile; both were newborns destined for death, Kurshan notes. The author movingly details how reading made parenting easier (she went well beyond the typical book at bedtime, reading to her children during walks or in waiting rooms), and the parallels she draws are delightfully unexpected. The result is a striking literary survey "about taking our children as far as we can until we recognize that the time has come for us to let go, and for them to move ahead--­and read onward--­independently." It's a stunning testament to the power of the written word. Agent: Deborah Harris, Deborah Harris Agency. (Aug.)

Reading and redemption. Reading to the young builds character. It establishes a unique intimacy between parent and child. It can be the space of the imagination, a world of dreaming before bedtime. Books are adventures. They are places of escape. For American Israeli writer Kurshan, books are sites of personal growth. And the first book, the five books of Moses in the Old Testament, becomes a model for the birth, growth, departure, and return that shape a parent's and a child's heroic adventure. In a series of brief, evocative chapters, Kurshan tells stories of the books that mattered to her and her children. She selects books that are designed to "expand my children's range of associations and broaden their imaginations" but also ones that "make it easier to parent." She creates a personal canon of such books, and at this memoir's end, she catalogs her recommendations, from Eric Carle'sThe Very Hungry Caterpillar to Louisa May Alcott'sLittle Women, from William Steig to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Behind it all, however, is the sacred book of the Torah. Using the sequence of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Kurshan tells a progressive story of reading together, moving from the simplest beginnings to the most complex, symbolic tales. "From paradise to the promised land, the story of my family's reading life has unfolded against the backdrop of the Bible's narratives. It is a story about beginnings--the first books we read as parents, the books that create our world. It is a story about an exodus and a journey to freedom that our kids undertake when they learn to read on their own." Through this powerful conceit--parenting as holy journey--Kurshan takes us, with her family, into a place of reading freedom, a true release through word and picture. In the end, we are all children of the book. An exquisitely written account of mother and children reading together, framed as a tale of biblical redemption. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.