About the Author

Maryanne Wolf, the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, was the director of the Tufts Center for Reading and Language Research. She currently directs the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA, and is working with the Dyslexia Center at the UCSF School of Medicine and with Curious Learning: A Global Literacy Project, which she co-founded. She is the recipient of multiple research and teaching honors, including the highest awards by the International Dyslexia Association and the Australian Learning Disabilities Association. She is the author of Proust and the Squid (HarperCollins), Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (Oxford University Press), and more than 160 scientific publications.

Reviews

"[Reader, Come Home] is an elegant and insightful analysis of how deep reading is under threat, and of how this particular form of attention is being eroded by the digital universe in which we now live. For an English teacher, the book is essential reading. For me, it is one of the most important books of recent years. Wolf expresses with increasing forcefulness what is by now a common anxiety: that digital devices are challenging all of us (certainly not just children) in entirely new ways." - Julian Girdham, teacher at the English Department of St. Columbia's College
"A tour de force." - Claremont Review of Books
"Maryanne Wolf has done it again. She has written another seminal book destined to become a dog-eared, well-thumbed, often-referenced treasure on your bookshelf.... Reader Come Home conveys a cautionary message, but it also will rekindle your heart and help illuminate promising paths ahead." - International Dyslexia Association
"Wolf (Tufts, Proust and the Squid) provides a mix of reassurance and caution in this latest look at how we read today. . . . A hopeful look at the future of reading that will resonate with those who worry that we are losing our ability to think in the digital age. Accessible to general readers and experts alike." - Library Journal (starred review)
"[A] gentle manifesto.... [Wolf] affirms and celebrates the power of reading for the formation of our moral imaginations, and a lifetime of bookish devotion bubbles to the surface of her lovely prose in allusion and quotation." - Washington Free Beacon
"Wolf is a lovely prose writer who draws not only on research but also on a broad range of literary references, historical examples, and personal anecdotes. The strongest parts of Reader, Come Home are her moving accounts of why reading matters, and her deeply detailed exploration of how the reading brain is being changed by screens.... Wolf makes a strong case for what we lose when we lose reading." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Wolf wields her pen with equal parts wisdom and wonder. The result is a joy to read and reread, a love letter to literature, literacy, and progress." - Shelf Awareness
"Wolf offers a persuasive catalog of the cognitive and social good created by deep reading.... She's right that digital media doesn't automatically doom deep reading and can even enhance it. She's also correct that we have a lot to lose if we don't pay attention to what we're doing with technology and what it's doing to us." - Washington Post
"[T]imely and important.... if you love reading and the ways it has enriched your life and our world, Reader, Come Home is essential, arriving at a crucial juncture in history." - BookPage
"This rich study by cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf tackles an urgent question: how do digital devices affect the reading brain? Wolf explores the "cognitive strata below the surface of words", the demotivation of children saturated in on-screen stimulation, and the power of 'deep reading' and challenging texts in building nous and ethical responses such as empathy.... An antidote for today's critical-thinking deficit." - Nature
"Scholar, storyteller, and humanist, Wolf brings her laser sharp eye to the science of reading in a seminal book about what it means to be literate in our digital and global age. Informed by a review of research from neuroscience to Socratic philosophy, and wittily crafted with true affection for her audience, Reader Come Home charts a compelling case for a new approach to lifelong literacy that could truly affect the course of human history." - Michael H. Levine, co-author of Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in A World of Screens
"A love song to the written word, a brilliant introduction to the science of the reading brain and a powerful call to action. With each page, Wolf shows us why we must preserve deep reading for ourselves and sow desire for it within our kids. Otherwise we risk losing the critical benefits for humanity that come with reading deeply to understand our world." - Lisa Guernsey, co-author of Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in A World of Screens
"An accessible, well-researched analysis of the impact of literacy." - Kirkus
"Wolf stays firmly grounded in reality when presenting suggestions... for how to teach young children to be competent, curious, and contemplative in a world awash in digital stimulus. [Reader, Come Home] is a clarion call for parents, educators, and technology developers to work to retain the benefits of reading independent of digital media." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Wolf has a profound respect for the beauty and power of the reading brain as well as a great curiosity about the digital brain that may soon displace it." - Boston Globe
"In this profound and well-researched study of our changing reading patterns, Wolf presents lucid arguments for teaching our brain to become all-embracing in the age of electronic technology. If you call yourself a reader and want to keep on being one, this extraordinary book is for you." - Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading