I suscribe to Ryan Holiday’s once a month book list. If you don’t know who Ryan Holiday is, I wrote about two of my favorite books he wrote, The Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle is the Way. He has a new book out, Stillness Is the Key. It was released in October and it debuted at #1 on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal book lists. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

I thought I would share this paragraph from his monthly email.

“My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George I spent the last couple weeks reading this to my three year old, which was awesome. It was a gift from Jeff Waldman, who helped me build this tree fort earlier in the summer. Somewhat of a dark premise–overlooked, unwanted kid runs away from his family to live in the woods and off the land–but overall the book is really positive, empowering and beautiful. This has just enough pictures to keep a young kids’ attention and it’s filled with all sorts of action and lessons and interesting observations. Worth reading for adults too. Up next is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, though I am sure we will re-read both many times.” 

What is interesting to me is both of these books are for 6th-8th graders! That would never occur to me to do that. Wow. Ryan Holiday loves reading so much–as evidenced in his huge book list sent to me every month–that he can’t wait to launch his child into advanced action books. That’s a great way to hook your child!

Greg McKeown says “Read to be different.” This is really different for a father to be doing this. Kudos to Ryan Holiday for taking the time to read out loud and helping his three-year-old build many mental models for when he plays in his newly built tree fort.