Dori Moody 1974 –

Dori grew up in suburban Maryland in a happy but chaotic household of ten children and two immigrant parents, neither of whom spoke English as a first language. As a child, she found a space for herself in books and, for a short time, computer games. 

Dori traces her love of reading to the second grade, when she witnessed her teacher, who was scanning a bookshelf, come across an old favorite, gasp, and give it a hug. Before long she was devouring everything she could get her hands on, from Madeleine L’Engle to Roald Dahl.

Today an accountant at Danthonia and the mother of four children, Dori is still an insatiable bookworm and blogs about the virtues of reading aloud. At last count, she had read 135 books to her family. She has a ready arsenal of reasons why reading aloud is important: 

It opens your mind. It enhances imagination. It gathers people around a common activity. 

Teaching your children to listen also means teaching them compassion. Our world is torn apart by conflicts and misunderstandings. A lot of it is there simply because we are unwilling to listen to other people’s stories: to walk in their shoes, to discover why they are the way they are. That takes time, and effort. Like a good book, life involves layers of meaning, riddles, mysteries. 

Some audiobooks are fantastic, but they can’t replace reading out loud. For example, if there is a funny passage and everyone is ­collapsing with laughter, a recording will just keep going. Parts of the story will be missed. If somebody is reading, they will stop and enjoy the merriment with their audience, or repeat a line, or allow for someone to go find a dictionary or trace a journey on a map.

Reading aloud instills good listening skills. And as my children grow into adulthood, I can only hope that they will give their full attention to others, especially someone who is lonely or in need of help, and listen with the same intensity as they do now when I read to them.

Dori recalls that computers entered her public school classroom in Maryland in the early 1980s, when she was in the third grade, via spelling games. A few years later, her older brother John convinced her skeptical parents that they needed one at home.

It was an Apple IIe. Within a few short weeks of the arrival of that wonderful white box with its captivating, flickering screen, I was sitting for hours at my brother’s elbow, and addicted to games. We frequently pointed out to our wary parents that they were harmless: that they taught chivalry and bravery, like Tolkien’s Middle Earth sagas. But one night at two in the morning, Mom walked in, interrupting my umpteenth round of Ultima, and simply pulled the plug. Dad sold the computer. I turned back to books.

Today, as an accountant, I use a computer all day long. I am ­probably spoiled by quick results and outcomes, more reliant on technology than my mind. Still, I love the software that interfaces logistics with manufacturing. I love the simplicity of online banking. I love the organizational qualities of email. I am generally thankful that my computer makes work enjoyable rather than tedious.

At the same time, Dori wonders about what she calls “IT creep,” the way we can become too reliant on technology for everything from work to entertainment to social relationships, and the addictive nature of screens: 

I have less willpower than I’d like to admit. If a TV or computer screen is within sight, I cannot stop myself from watching. Even ridiculous advertisements will arrest my attention.

I recently was traveling by train, and it struck me how each of my fellow passengers was in his or her own world, earbuds inserted, eyes glued to screens. I found the silence deadly, almost like a cemetery. Who’s forcing us to sit there like that? No one’s trapped us there or locked us into this state of silent bewitchment. As long as we’re alive, it’s still possible to emerge and embrace the full possibilities of human interaction. There’s a vibrant world out there! But we’ll first have to put down our phones.