Faust on Family Reading Rituals

Yesterday's Boston Globe asked Drew Gilpin Faust, Civil War historian and president of Harvard, about her reading. At the end, after name-checking Nancy Drew, she offered a provocative take on a beloved family tradition:

...in my family there were ritual occasions of adults reading to children. For example, my grandmother wanted to develop one-on-one relationships with us by inviting a single child to be read to.

I hated it. I wanted to read to myself. I didn’t want anybody between me and the magical world of the book. My brothers have these memories of sitting with my grandmother and drinking hot chocolate as they disappeared into King Arthur. I would have none of it.