"Stories are an imaginary playground"
Why Do Books Matter? An Interview with Sri Juneja
Welcome back to A Wonderful Mess. I have a wonderful interview for you, the first in what will (hopefully) be an ongoing series.
No audio this week because it feels odd about my voice taking over the words of another and these are such great words!
Why do books matter?
It’s just a tiny question (please pick up on the sarcasm here).
Reading is important to me. You may have picked up on that if you have been reading along for a bit. And I imagine that reading and story are important to others, too. To help with this “tiny” question and provide some wonderful perspective on reading with family, we have,
, author of the newsletter. I appreciate Sri’s newsletter for the practical kids’ book recommendations, but she offers so much more with her thoughtful approach on topics like diversity, climate change and fostering a love of art . And because flexibility is a cornerstone here atA Wonderful Mess, I love Sri’s realistic and down-to-earth approach to reading---like you don’t have to read at bedtime. What? Read on friends—you are in for a treat.Note: The interview occurred through email and has been lightly edited.
Tell us a little bit about you and your family.
Sri: I’m Sri and I live with my husband and toddler daughter in the NYC suburbs. I moved to the US as a young kid and grew up in a small town in Connecticut (much like the Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow but with fewer eccentric personalities--but let the record show we did have some). We didn’t know much about what it meant to live in America and be American but we were fortunate to meet some incredible people who helped us navigate our new life. Someone informed my mom about these things called a public library and the rest, as they say, is history. Any question, adventure, or escape I needed to make could be found in the library. If I could pass along just one legacy to my kid it would be a deep appreciation for books
What brought you to write Readable Moments? Are there particular moments of your newsletter journey that have stood out? What has been your favorite topic(s) to explore in your newsletter?
Sri: I’d been looking for a creative outlet for a while and I was trying to figure out how I could engage my kid’s interest in books. That the two could be combined didn’t cross my mind until one night (on my birthday), I had a dream about it and it made total, perfect sense. To pair writing with my love for reading and getting to help others find meaningful reads? It felt like it was “fated.”
While the bread-and-butter of the newsletter is my book recommendations, my favorites are when I discuss reading-related topics. I love to read the conversations it sparks amongst readers and learn different approaches or thoughts about the subject at hand. Having said that, my favorite newsletter--the one that felt liberating--was the one I wrote about what diversity looks like in children’s books and what it means to me.
You write a newsletter about books and their power to support learning and connection, so I am going to take a leap and assume you agree that books matter. In your opinion, what is it about reading a book that is important? Where does the power or magic come from? How have books shown up significantly in your life?
Sri: Books are life-changing. Full stop. I’ve written a piece on this in collaboration with the wonderful Beck Delahoy in our piece on Why Raising Readers Matters. There are so many–honestly, crazy–benefits on why reading is critical to our wellbeing. But what matters to me the most is the simple recognition that books can transform the way we feel, the way we dream, and the way we show up in the world.
That is the magic of books. It can completely transform us. If you’ve ever read a book and resonated with a certain character, story, or even just a passage, you’ve felt seen. It doesn’t feel like you’re alone in the world. It feels like someone, even if it’s a fictional someone found in the pages of a book, knows you. Books are kinship and belonging.
How do you approach reading in your home? What have you found most helpful to support reading with your child?
Sri: This might be surprising but we don’t do bedtime reading. At all. It is the absolute last thing I want to do at that hour so we just don't do it. Maybe one day we’ll do it, but it isn’t right now in the toddler years.
Reading in our home is pretty casual. We read a lot at the dinner table. It’s a way to keep my constantly in-motion toddler to settle down enough to eat. We read whenever I get bored of playing with her. We read when there have been a lot of feelings and we need to hit reset. We read in waiting rooms, on shopping trips, or whenever there is any “waiting” time. My goal is to show her that reading can happen anywhere and everywhere.
Shocker: sometimes we go days without reading too! It’s not very often but it does happen and it’s not something I stress about. My focus and primary goal are to foster a love of reading and I’m willing to play the long game to get there.
Curious minds want to know, what are the logistics around books in your home, do you have special books in a home collection? Do you use the library? Does your child participate in any of the book selections? Any hot tips on book management?
Sri: We don’t have a huge book collection at home. Nearly 80% of our reads are from the library (our librarians joke that we’re singlehandedly keeping their funding alive). I’ve written a series about how to create a home book collection and we only buy the books that we have loved the most and always want on hand. We gladly cherish books that have been gifted to us but our purchases are usually the books that we turn to again and again and sometimes don’t want to keep pulling out of the library system.
Since my kid is a toddler, I select what we read. Usually, when we go to the library, she’ll pull out a handful of books and we might read one of them but most of the books coming home with us are ones I’ve selected. When she’s older, I’m looking forward to seeing which books she selects for herself but for now, I’m enjoying picking the books that I think she would like and ones I know I want to read!
For book management, I’m a huge proponent of book rotation–just like you would do with toys. Every month or so, I’ll swap out the books in the current rotation with ones we haven’t read in a while. That’s been key to helping us cull our collection: we donate any book it’s clear she’s outgrown or is no longer interested in and also helps keep the collection well-read. Of course, library books are essential to us for new, fresh reads. I do have to be careful with her handling of them. In a moment of pure, ironic poetry, my toddler let her wrath loose on a book called “Tessa Tiger’s Terrible Tantrums.” It was one of those moments where you had to choose to laugh (and pay up).
Recently, you launched two series about revisiting classics and reading popular parenting books. I would love to hear your process for approaching these series. You are doing a wonderful job of balancing appreciation and critique. Has there been anything difficult or surprising in the process?
Sri: Thank you, that has honestly been my biggest challenge: trying to be balanced in my appreciation and critique. There are certain books that I struggled to appreciate. It took me a very long time to write a few of those reviews because I had to step away and process my feelings before returning to it and trying to be balanced. I know that I’m handling a lot of nostalgia with the Classics Corner series and I do want to honor the things we liked about it as kids. But, even so, sometimes it’s really hard!
I was quite uncertain about the Parenting Books series. I was worried it would be too off-brand but I was pleasantly surprised at the positive response. I love reading parenting books. Not to overhaul my parenting style but to find little nuggets to add to my toolkit or to learn something new that stretches my understanding. It’s all in the spirit of finding something that clicks for you and is natural for you to do “in the wild.” That was always the intent of that series and since parents and caregivers are so busy, I hope I can help them find the parenting book that suits their needs and interests.
How do you see books as supporting parenthood?
Sri: It’s so immensely critical. Stories are powerhouses of support in communicating ideas to our kids. If a partner told you what to do and why it would be in your best interest to do it that way, you’d probably roll your eyes. But if that same idea is presented to you in a story, you’d be more likely to adopt it. The same holds true for our young humans.
As adults, we talk a lot about how good it feels to see yourself reflected in the media you consume and kids feel the same way about children’s books. Here are stories where they are the main characters–their adventures, worries, and triumphs are reflected in them.
Stories are an imaginary playground for children. Kids, especially with their vivid imaginations, can exist in the reality of a story. It gives them agency and control and a quest (which is a pretty irresistible thing). It let’s them live in the creativity of their minds and play with ideas that are new to them. Children’s books liberate our kids.
I had a reader inquire about ideas about building community, what are your thoughts on how we can build community around/through books?
Sri: Oh, what a great topic and question! This is something I’ve been really trying to focus on in my personal life and it was one of my New Year’s resolutions for this year. I’m generally an introverted person so I find it hard to approach people and try to befriend them that way. I also struggle with small talk–I’d much rather get to know the real person instead of circling the niceties. Knowing all this about myself, I knew one topic that would fire me up, that I would absolutely approach a random person to discuss, is books. So I started a neighborhood book club.
We meet almost every 6 weeks and it’s this incredible group of people with whom I have such a fun time and have loved getting to know. Some were acquaintances when I started, and most were strangers but, a year later, I’ve gotten to know them so well and know I could count on them to help me in a bind. I think the trick to growing a community is to figure out how to expand your comfort zone. I don’t think of this book club as venturing out of my comfort zone. Rather, I’m letting people in and engaging them in a way that feels natural to me.
Thank you so much to Sri for her time and thoughtful answers. And please go subscribe to right now. Let’s us know about your family life with books….
Also, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Sri in past about the representation of neurodiversity in children’s books. You can check that out here:
Thank you so much for having me, Kathryn! It’s pretty clear I can talk endlessly about all the books 📚
This was wonderful and the best way to start my morning!