Reach Out and Read

In early November 2025, nearly 300 people from the Reach Out and Read and Nurture Connection worlds — comprising clinicians, staff, community leaders, funders, and parents — gathered in Washington, DC for the National Summit. This event convened a coalition of innovative organizations representing the nation's early childhood community, child health systems, and networks of public and private investments to share progress, ideas, hopes, and dreams. Voices heard in this episode include: 00:00: Mark Del Monte 02:06: Dr. Lynette Fraga 07:11: Dr. Robert Needleman 07:30: Dr. Mary Ann Woodruff 07:43: Molly Fields 09:16: Dr. Lee Beers 10:31: Mark Del Monte 14:13: Katherine Beckmann and Ira Hillman 25:29: Stephanie Smiley and Dr. John Duby 35:45: Dr. David Willis

We're thankful, all year round, to those who read aloud to young children and who encourage shared reading with others. To celebrate Thanksgiving 2025, we're revisiting a powerful selection of stories from Traci Sorell, Ann Clare LeZotte, and Dr Sayantani DasGupta, three children's authors who joined us share their own stories of thanks.

Over 200,000 children enter foster care each year in the United States. How can we create safe, stable, and nurturing environments for foster children who have, by definition, experienced a rupture of at least one of these elements? Dr. Camille Broussard, Executive Committee member for the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Foster Care, Adoption, and Kinship Care and co-editor in chief of Fostering Health: Health Care for Children and Adolescents in Foster Care, joins us to talk about relational health for children in foster care.

Sometimes called "spirited" or "deeply feeling", highly sensitive children are "more likely to have challenges regulating their big emotions because their brains are wired to process and react to their experiences in the world more deeply than other children." Claire Lerner, a licensed social worker and author of "Big Reactors: Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive Children", join us to talk about how to recognize the temperament traits of highly sensitive children, the pros and cons of various parenting approaches, and how clinicians can support families with highly sensitive kids.

We continue to learn so much about the development of our brains in the first 1,000 days of life, and how the social world around those young brains matter deeply. What can parents and caregivers do in those early days to allow healthy and strong brain growth? Dr. Andrew Garner, pediatrician and co-author of Thinking Developmentally: Nurturing Wellness in Childhood to Promote Lifelong Health, joins us to talk about how the science behind healthy childhood experiences helps us build healthy children, nurturing families, and communities that care.

There are loads of poetry books for children but not too many by children. Sarah Manguso, author and curator of the new book "Questions Without Answers", joins us to talk about children's deep (and often unknowingly) philosophical questions—and that though kids may yet be developing their vocabulary, they have plenty of profound questions."

Dr. Lynette Fraga, Reach Out and Read's new CEO, joins us to talk about the lived experience she brings to this role, and her plans to accelerate our mission, scale impact, advance equity, and, of course, strengthen families.

We don't know what we don't know. And when it comes to relationships, approaching others from the perspective of not knowing can often make those relationships stronger. Dr. Claudia Gold, a pediatrician and writer with over 20 years experience in the field, joins us to talk about humility, listening, "rupture and repair", and a 'willingness to be surprised' can help support not just early relational health, but relationships throughout the lifespan.

Judy Blume is one of the most prolific and beloved writers of our time — but also is at the center of many debates over what is appropriate for children, to the point of being one of the most banned. Rachelle Bergstein, author of the new book The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us, joins us to talk about Blume's life, how the changing social and political ideologies of the 1950's, 60's, and 70's influenced her work, and how Judy came to write 'culture-altering' works for generations of readers.

Junie B. Jones was first introduced to young readers over thirty years ago, but her ability to make children laugh - and some adults angry - hasn't changed. Colleen AF Venable, a seasoned children's author whose graphic novel adaptation of Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus hit shelves earlier this year, joins us to talk about the beloved children's series, its namesake, and the controversies that have followed it from the beginning.