The Reach Out and Read Podcast

Winner of the 2023 Webby/Anthem Award for Awareness and Media in Health, the Reach Out and Read Podcast is centered on the belief that children’s books build better brains, better family relationships, and happier, healthier children and societies. Host Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician with a children’s librarianship degree, dives into a wealth of varied early childhood health and literacy topics with expert guests examining the many facets of supporting the parent-child relationship as key to early success.

A sample selection of episodes is below. For the full podcast library, click here,

Jason Reynolds, novelist, poet, and the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, joins us in a far-ranging, sublime, and deeply honest conversation about the power of imagination, literature, and storytelling to allow America’s youth to grow, to strive, and to reverse the ills of racism and beyond.

Jason Reynolds is Crazy About Stories

The human brain doesn’t come wired to read. Dr Maryanne Wolf, Dir. of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA breaks down the science of the reading brain — from the neuroscientific importance of oral language, to recognizing the alphabet, reading words, and ultimately, the experience of novel thought while reading.

How the Human Brain Learned to Read

Pulitzer prize winning journalist Nicholas Kristof has covered neglected social and economic welfare topics all over the world, but his most recent book, “Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope” is an exploration of poverty in America seen through a very personal lens – the community in which Nick grew up.

Nicolas Kristof: Equity in America        

Today we dive in deeper with one of literature’s most beloved ‘quirky’ kids, with a discussion of how Harriet and Louise broke the mold of children’s literature. Guest host Dr Perri Klass speaks with Leslie Brody, author of the highly acclaimed new biography “Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy”

Sometimes You Have to Lie

It’s easy to think that the way we think about children and parenting is the way it’s always been — the birth of a child is accompanied by the expectation that that baby will grow up happy, healthy, and become an adult. But that wasn’t always the case. Dr. Perri Klass, author of the new book "A Good Time to Be Born", joins us to talk about the social, and medical, events that transformed childhood and parenting.

A Good Time to Be Born                 

Dr Jamie Campbell Naidoo, professor at the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies discusses how to evaluate LGBTQ+ books for kids, common portrayals of ‘rainbow families’ in children’s books, balancing accessibility and privacy issues for books around these topics, and, of course why, year after year, LGBTQ+ children’s books continue to be the most challenged genre.

LGBTQIA+ Children's Books

Next

43cc, Dr. Wendy Dean and Dr. Matt Ramsey