Three Cheers for Reading
Teach your children well:
It will come as no surprise to my readers that I am a reader – and a writer. I love books. I love reading them. And I love writing about them. I happen to have some 8500 books in my personal library. And there are well over 900 partial or full book reviews on my site.
A large library has its good and bad points. The plus side is having all those volumes at your fingertips – you need not head out to a public library or bookstore all that often. But the downside is when you spend a half hour looking for one particular book, as I just now did. And I still have not found it – grr!
Some twenty centuries ago the Apostle Paul wrote this: “Give attendance to reading” (1 Timothy 4:13). If he was alive today I think he would still be saying the same. I do not think he would instead say, “Give attendance to surfing the web” or “Give attendance to watching videos” or “Give attendance to viewing podcasts”.
There is a place for that, but there is something special about reading. I have written on this often and quoted from many great minds about it. For example, I have discussed Mortimer Adler’s How To Read a Book (Touchstone, 1940, 2014). See here for example: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/04/29/adler-on-how-to-read-a-book/
I have quoted from the 1985 work Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/05/07/neil-postman-the-written-word-and-christian-revivalism/
And I have looked at more recent volumes such as The Vanishing Word: The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World by Arthur Hunt (Crossway, 2003): https://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/12/14/books-reading-tyranny-postmodern-world/
Since I just wrote a piece on how technology is not neutral, let me tie that in with what Hunt said in the Introduction to his book:
Contrary to popular thinking, technology is not neutral. It has the propensity to change our beliefs and behavior. For example, any historian will tell you that the printing press hurled Europe out of the Middle Ages and into the Protestant Reformation. When Johann Gutenberg introduced movable type in the fifteenth century, a whole new world opened up—liberty, freedom, discovery, democracy. The Bible became available to the people. Martin Luther called the invention of the printing press the “supreme act of grace by which the gospel can be driven forward.” Europe was set on fire. People were thinking, arguing, creating, and reflecting. The printing press allowed ideas to be put in black and white so that anyone could analyze or criticize them. To a great extent, America was born out of a print-oriented culture.
My article on technology can be found here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/07/21/is-technology-neutral/
Plenty of folks today are still urging us not to abandon reading and the written word. Many more experts can be cited. But since just hours ago a new article on this appeared on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Restoring the West” Substack page, let me share that with you.
The piece by Jenna A. Robinson is titled “Teach Your Children to Love Reading: Why It Matters More than Ever”. The subtitle is this: “In a world of declining attention spans and intensifying media competition, maintaining our written culture depends on instilling a love of reading.”
It opens by answering the question, why does it matter? Robinson notes that kids today – and adults as well – are swamped by all things visual and digital. Reading a book seems to pale in comparison with all the whistles and bells of modern technology.
So it is up to parents to cultivate a love of reading and a love of books in their children. She gives us some of the worrying statistics on this:
Too few Americans of any age read consistently. The 2023-24 National Survey of Children’s Health found that only 59.7% of U.S. children ages 0–5 had a family member read, sing, or tell stories to them every day during the past week. Reading habits are established early in life, making childhood exposure to books one of the strongest predictors of lifelong reading. The trend extends well beyond early childhood. The New York Times reported that “From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend.” A recent article in The Atlantic lamented that “the end of reading is here.”
This decline in reading has real consequences. The written word remains the best medium for careful reasoning and the preservation of knowledge. In his 2011 bestseller, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that “media aren’t just the channels of information…they also shape the process of thought.” Books are best, he argues, for concentration and contemplation. They demand mental discipline, cultivate sustained attention, and allow for clearer, more sustained lines of argument. Carr contends that the transition from oral to literate culture laid “the foundation for the achievements of the Western world.” The invention of the printing press around 1440 democratized literacy, making the written word accessible to far more people.
She continues:
A love of reading also yields significant academic benefits. According to the UK’s National Literacy Trust, “twice as many children and young people who enjoy reading in their free time have above average reading skills than children who don’t enjoy it (34.2% vs 15.7%).” Frequent readers develop stronger critical thinking, vocabulary, writing, and cognitive processes, according to the 95 Percent Group. Reading builds background knowledge, enhances memory, and improves comprehension, spelling, concentration, and sustained attention. Together, these benefits contribute to higher academic achievement and better prepare students for lifelong learning.
The written word is one of the foundations of Western civilization. As Nicholas Carr observes, “The linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science, and society…it’s been the imaginative mind of the Renaissance, the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the inventive mind of the Industrial Revolution.” Moreover, the habits created by the disciplined, deliberate reasoning of the written word prepare citizens for responsible self-government. In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman argues that reading cultivates rationality, the ability to weigh competing ideas, and to make sound generalizations. In short, literary culture elevates public discourse and deliberation. It is a prerequisite for independence and self-government.
The bottom line for Robinson is this:
The hallmarks of our civilization—analytical reasoning, historical consciousness, philosophy, science, systematic law, theology, and individual reflection—depend on a literate society. It is up to parents to ensure that the next generation loves and embraces the written word. Without that foundation, the broader cultural achievements sustained by a literate society cannot endure. https://substack.com/home/post/p-207943289
Robinson stands in a long line of those who know the value of books and the value of reading. A few closing quotes by others on the value of good books – for children and adults alike – are worth offering here:
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for.” Socrates
“One book is enough, but a thousand books is not too many!” Martin Luther
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.” Descartes
“Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who will get me a book I have not read.” Abraham Lincoln
“Reading Christians are growing Christians. When Christians cease to read, they cease to grow.” John Wesley
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” G. K. Chesterton
“What can be better than to get out a book on Saturday afternoon and thrust all mundane considerations away till next week?” C. S. Lewis
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.” Mortimer Adler
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I wonder how many criminals in jail are not readers. If they had had someone to read to them when a toddler at bedtime and then taught to read at school, would have helped keep them on the right track in life.
Thanks Lynette.
I often think that the most valuable thing I have done for my children is read aloud to them- always above their own reading level.
Approximately 2 hours a day is given to this, spread throughout the day, many different books at a time. For instance, right now we are reading Penguin’s Book of World War One poetry, Sinclair Ferguson’s ‘In the Year of our Lord’, The Hobbit, Ralph Moody’s ‘The Fields of Home’, and we are also in the book of Judges.
I started out reading aloud a good deal to keep toddlers out of mischief while I was feeding the baby (we have six children, so there almost always was a baby for about a decade)
But we found that reading a good book together was like a family holiday- we build shared memories and many books become part of the family vernacular- references are always flying about.
And the children have ended up reading to themselves such assorted books as I would never have considered when I was their ages.
Well done Lauren – keep up the great work!