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I am currently reading three different chapter books with three different groups of children. I am reading The Naturals series with my oldest daughter, and we are still trying to convince her brother to join us. I am reading The Storm Keeper’s Island with a group of fourth graders and When You Reach Me with a group of fifth graders.

To be clear, none of these are books I would have chosen on my own.

The Naturals is about teenage savants helping the FBI track serial killers, which is well outside my normal comfort zone. The Storm Keeper’s Island is a fantasy novel filled with island magic, mystery, and characters coming into themselves. When You Reach Me is a time-traveling mystery. My personal happy place is historical fiction, so not one of these books really checks my usual box.

And yet, this has been one of my best choices of the year.

I am flying through these books, not because every plot line feels made for me, though I am getting quite attached to a few characters, but because I cannot wait to talk about them with my kids and your kids. Their excitement is contagious. Their predictions are wild and wonderful. Their theories get more sophisticated by the day. The lightbulb moments that happen when one child builds on another child’s idea are enough to make any reading-loving educator feel a little emotional.

The conversations are easy. The check-ins between our scheduled meetings are joyful. My teenage daughter, who could absolutely make it through an entire day saying only what is strictly necessary to me, now gets in the car and immediately asks, “Did you get to read today?” “Where are you?” “Did that one part happen yet?” She has even asked me to sit down and read next to her.

Read next to her.

Parents of older children, you know that is not small.

And the beautiful thing is that what I am feeling is not just weepy happiness that my daughter likes me again. Research backs it up. When children have a choice in what they read, motivation and comprehension both grow. Talking about books also matters. Rich discussion helps children think more deeply, make meaning, and strengthen comprehension over time. Motivation itself is no small thing either. Children who are motivated to read tend to read more, and that reading volume helps build vocabulary, knowledge, and confidence.

That is part of what makes this kind of reading so powerful. It is not just about finishing a book. It is about building a relationship around a book. It is about shared language, inside jokes, predictions, debates, and those little moments when a child realizes an adult is genuinely interested in what they are thinking. Book clubs and shared reading experiences can also help foster belonging and connection, which makes so much sense when you have lived it firsthand.

So I want to encourage you to try this with your child.

Not your usual bedtime story.
Not listening while they read a page to you from their school book.
Not quizzing them to make sure they understood the chapter.

I mean, really, reading a book together. You each have your own copy, or you share one. You read separately. You come back together and talk about it. Let them choose. Even if the cover makes you sigh internally. Even if the genre is not your thing. Even if you suspect there will be dragons, dystopias, or deeply troubling FBI plot lines.

Let them pick anyway.

Choice matters. Ownership matters. And sometimes the magic is not even in the book itself. Sometimes the magic is in who you get to become together while reading it.

You may end up pleasantly surprised by how much you enjoy the story. But even more than that, I hope you are surprised by your child. By what they notice. By what they wonder. By how eager they are to keep talking once a book has given you something to hold together.

Because long after they stop asking us to tie their shoes, or sit on the edge of the bed, or walk them into school, there are still these quiet little doorways into connection. Sometimes one of them looks like a paperback in the carpool line. Sometimes it sounds like, “Wait, do not read ahead without me.” And sometimes, if you are very lucky, it sounds like, “Mom, come sit by me and read.”

And for a parent, that feels a little like being handed time back.