Book Review: Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf

I picked up this book expecting an exploration of the neuroscience and physiology of the effects of reading on the brain, and how reading in print and digital formats differ. I got that, and so much more.

Wolf presents a balanced account of the different effects of different mediums, both negative and positive, and how we might use this knowledge to do better for our children and ourselves. It’s a welcome perspective.

It’s also a deeply humanist and moral meditation of the capacities of the human mind and the importance of storytelling. It’s a clarion call to fulfill the responsibility we all bear toward our fellow human beings and to the future. This is a work of tremendous empathy and passion.

It may well be one of the most important works of our age.

It also includes the following passage, which brought me up short. I believe in the crucial role public libraries play in bridging the digital divide. But this is something we need to consider: Providing access without active guidance might do more harm than good.