(To hear this reflection, read by Ever, click below.)
As temperatures spike, family budgets contract, and every family wrestles with screen time, we’re eager to share a strategy that arguably addresses all three issues in one fell swoop. But first, the backstory.
While recently re-reading the memoir of Soren’s grandmother, we came across a great story. Henrietta, one of six children born to Dutch immigrants in Chicago in 1918, did not have an easy childhood. Mired in poverty due to her father’s alcoholism and eventual abandonment of the family in the early Depression years, she would later share only one happy memory from her childhood.
Each week, Henrietta’s mom would take her and her siblings on a walk to the local library. Henrietta would pull her red wagon and fill it to the brim with a new stack of books—quite literally, the only “new” things she had access to in her poverty. The next week, she’d pull the wagon back to the library, having read all of the books, eager to discover a new trove.
Self-taught, she never went to college, but those library runs fed her curious mind and voracious intellect. Alongside Sunday School—where she won awards for her memory of Scripture—her library visits set the foundation for an inspiring life as a mother, businesswoman, author, and as outlined in this remembrance by Soren, a foster mother to unwed women who lived with her as they brought their babies to term. And throughout her life, she always had a stack of library books at her bedside.
Fast-forward to today. The other week, our 8th-grade daughter—who, as some of you will recall from this post, kicked off 2022 with a reading challenge to our family—led a lobbying effort to get us back to regular library trips. She’s dominating the family with 27 books completed so far this year and seems eager to maintain her lead. (She’s currently rereading Betty Smith’s masterpiece, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn).
In the fourth week of the month, we turn our focus to how you can build Level 4—Family Culture—of your Trinity House. So many aspects of reading—from storytelling and reading aloud to kids, to encouraging our kids to read widely—allow your family culture to flourish. “In the beginning was the Word.” In our homes, our love of Jesus—the Word, the Logos of God—can be deepened through reading. And in our media-saturated age, our families need a proactive strategy in order to instill a love of reading.
As you consider how regular library visits might figure into your family’s strategy, here are a few suggestions:
- Make your library trip extra special by treating your kids to ice cream too. Who knows but that the association may help them love reading a bit more?
- Stroll through the rows of books with them, making suggestions along the way.
- Read aloud to your kids.
- Celebrate little victories such as when your child finishes a book, and lead conversations about books around the dinner table.
With prices climbing everywhere, an armful or wagonful of free books certainly doesn’t hurt the family budget. The hazards of screen time—from anxiety to loneliness and depression—are more well-documented with every passing month. And the lifelong benefits of reading are obvious. Arguably, our kids’ growth in reading can translate into growth in their life in Christ: in prayer, contemplation, capacity for solitude with the Word, and in reading the Word.
“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading,” Betty Smith writes in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, describing the young protagonist, Francie Nolan. It’s such an easy, healthy way to open doors for our kids. We hope you’ll join us in hitting the local library this week!
> “Why We Should Embrace Boredom” (Axios) suggests “Filling our brains with the constant flood of junk food from our phones — tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, tabloid gossip — leaves little room for creative and original ideas, studies show.”
> Here are some lists: “Best Catholic Books of All Time” (Brandon Vogt of The Word on Fire); “26 Catholic Books You Should be Reading” (Catholic Link); “The Great Books” (Wyoming Catholic College); “Building a Catholic Library for Kids” (Blessed is She); and “Good Catholic Books for Kids.”
> “The Benefits of Reading Out Loud to Your Kids” by Jeremy Anderberg at the AOM blog includes a good summary of the research. He writes, “Create a book club culture at home. Rather than making reading simply another assignment, or forcing your kids to sit calmly while you read to them and explain the story, work to create a book club culture in your home.” Anderberg suggests a baseline: read aloud “~10 minutes a day, ~3 times a week.”
> We were so blessed to speak on the call to marriage to 88 high school girls last week at the Arlington Diocese’s FIAT Summer Camp 2022 (pictured here)! After casting a vision for a flourishing faith-filled home, we fielded about a dozen questions on topics including technology limits, discipline, conveying the faith with joy (vs. a sense of duty), compromise in marriage, and our favorite, “How did you know you had met the right person?” Bravo to the diocesan Office of Vocations and to the 20+ religious sisters who participated in the camp! We were inspired by the vibrant faith of the young women who attended. 
> Stay tuned for details…we’re looking forward to partnering with Father John Riley on a retreat for newly-married couples on the weekend of Sept. 16-18 at San Damiano Diocesan Retreat Center in White Post, VA.
> Our fall schedule is quickly taking shape. If your parish, school, or ministry is interested in hosting a Heaven in Your Home Workshop: How to Build a Flourishing Catholic Household (ranging from 90 min. to 3 hours), date night talk, retreat, morning/evening of recollection, or other kind of testimony on the joys and challenges of family life, drop us a line!
“Ever and Soren Johnson want people to feel the love of God, one cup of coffee at a time.”
– Inés San Martin, Rome Bureau Chief, Crux News
