Reading With Your Kids Podcast · Jedlie Circus Productions, Inc

Reading, Rhythm, and Resilience

·59 min·3 clips

Glory Be follows an 11-year-old in New Orleans who searches for a lost dog while questioning her father.

Reading begins as a family mission. Jed Lee opens from Readville with the easy warmth of a show about kids, books, and families getting closer through reading. Jamie Sumner gives the episode its heart. She remembers how her son reacted when he saw a story inspired by him become a real book on a real shelf. The memory still has a charge. He wanted to show everybody, including the bus ladies, and it clearly stayed with both of them. Jed meets the story with real delight. The conversation keeps returning to what happens when a child finds some piece of themselves in a book. Charlie becomes part of that same thread. Jamie recalls presenting a book written for him at his elementary school, and she calls the experience unforgettable and worth everything. Then A Fish Like Me comes in. The book follows a child in a pool imagining starfish, motion, and a wide-open kind of possibility. The reveal stays soft. A wheelchair sits beside the pool, and the story moves into swim therapy without making the child feel like a lesson. That is the best part of the conversation: it is tender, but also practical. Jamie talks about bodies moving freely, therapy equipment in the water, and a book her son asks for again and again. Jed brings in his own past working in human services at a school for children with severe developmental and mental disabilities. That memory gives the exchange more weight. What could have been a simple book announcement turns into a warm talk about acceptance, pride, and children being welcomed as they are. Teacher Terrell also gets welcomed in. The close points listeners toward Glory B and the Once Upon a Dance books, keeping the episode tied to children’s literature as care, play, and encouragement.

As heard by us

A warm children's-book conversation about being seen, family reading, and a picture book centered on swim therapy.

Reading with Your Kids starts warm and conversational, then settles into Jamie Sumner's turn on Glory Bee. The strongest moment lands on the child seeing his story on a bookshelf and wanting to show everyone, which fits the show's focus on family reading without forcing the…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a book chat that turns disability, family pride, and school memories into something concrete.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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