Quick, Join the Slow Movement

Every parent knows that children like bedtime stories read at a gentle pace. But I used to be too fast to slow down with the Brothers Grimm. I zoomed through the classic fairy tales, skipping lines, paragraphs, sometimes whole pages. My version of Snow White was so fast it had just three dwarves in it. “What happened to Grumpy?” my son would ask.

Then, one day, I caught myself eyeing up a collection of one-minute bedtime stories—yes, Snow White boiled down to 60 seconds. My first thought was Wow, what a great idea. I need to get that book right now from Amazon, with drone delivery!

But then I had a second reaction that stopped me in my tracks. I thought, Whoa, has it really come to this? Am I really in such a hurry that I’m prepared to fob off my little boy with a sound byte instead of a story at the end of the day?