Why Adults Should Reread Children's Books

The Atlantic's newsletter The Wonder Reader explores why adults lose their ability to enjoy reading and how children's books can help. Anna Holmes, who moved across the country in 2020, donated adult literary classics but kept her children's books, arguing they preserve a way of engaging with the world that adulthood trains out of us. Children's author Mac Barnett says dismissing children's books fails to recognize the potential of children, and Holmes extends this to adults. Children approach stories with flexibility, tolerating nonsense and strange rules if delighted, while adults replace openness with efficiency and skepticism. Rereading children's books is about recovering curiosity and willingness to be surprised. The newsletter also links to articles on what adults lose when they put down children's books, what rereading childhood books teaches, and 65 essential children's books. It includes a 2022 piece by Tatiana Schlossberg worrying that animals in bedtime stories may disappear, and a piece by Ilana Kurshan on what parents lose when they don't read to kids. Other diversions include 25 books to read this summer and a reader's photo of Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan.