THE BOOKS BABIES READ

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6 NIV)

I venture that the books babies read before they are enrolled in school are probably the most important books that will ever come into their lives. I am speaking of those things which children read in the lives of the people around them. The book of human conduct: there is no other quite like it. The print is large, the lessons are both clear and subtle, the illustrations command attention. Long before a child knows the alphabet, it has begun formulating profound and perhaps lifelong attitudes about God, character, love and human values. The infant may not be able to verbalize those ideas until years later... in fact, some ideas will always be a little beyond verbalization; perhaps that's why we sometimes say, "I really don't know why I feel the way I do" but the ideas are there. A baby has read them in the most persuasive of all books, the conduct of those around her. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Honey in the Lion” from a sermon called "Books That Babies Can Read"

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