Best-selling Mystic Author’s New Books Help Children Learn to Read

By Tish Rabe

There are three things I’ll always do

Love you, hug you, read to you.

I’ll hold you close we’ll share a book

And read together- take a look.

From “Love You, Hug You, Read to You” and “Te amo, te abrazo, leo contigo!”

There are few places more inspiring for a writer than the beautiful views that surround us in Mystic. My husband and I moved here in 2011 and split our time between here and the busy streets of New York, but I love being able to write my books and watch the water flowing past and smell the sweet salt air.

Though I started out to be a professional singer, I have been writing children’s books for over 30 years and have written over 160 so far! I am especially excited about my newest books “Love You, Hug You, Read to You!” and the bi-lingual Spanish/English version “Te amo, te abrazo, leo contigo!”

I wrote these books when I joined the Advisory Board of Reach Out and Read Connecticut. Reach Out and Read is a non-profit organization that gives free books to low-income children when they visit their pediatricians. The amazing doctors behind this effort firmly believe that reading to a child and helping them learn to read is as important as good nutrition and exercise but… some of the caregivers who were receiving these books were struggling to read themselves.

I immediately decided to create new, sturdy board books with few words on each page and add interactive questions to promote “dialogic reading”, a form of reading that sets up a dialogue between the caregiver and a child and has been proven to help children learn to read faster than if they just sit and listen to a story. I initially self-published the books through my own company Tish Rabe Books, LLC, but I was thrilled when Penguin Random House acquired the rights and is now able to get them out to a broader audience.

In my new Golden Book “I Love You Grandma!” I wrote a page that was inspired by watching the trains go by our house on the water.

We like to wave at all the trains.

They swoosh when they go by.

We feel the soft sand on our toes

And watch the seagulls fly.

From “I Love You Grandma!” by Tish Rabe

When Dr. Seuss died in 1991 I was selected to write a new line of science books for early readers called “The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library”. My new book “High? Low? Where Did They Go?” is all about animal camouflage. All these books are approved by experts and I learn something new while writing every book.

Some animals change color

when danger is near.

Predators may not

even know they are here.

So as I look out my window at the beauty around us I know I will keep writing for the children I love helping learn to read. Now in Mystic life for us has come full circle in another way – though I set out to be a full-time singer I became instead a full-time children’s book author, but now I am singing again in my own band “Tish Rabe and Friends“. Look for us at Mystic’s own Steak Loft and other venues.

All of my books can be purchased at Bank Square Books in Mystic and the most important thing for me is encouraging everyone to “keep reading and writing! (and singing!)”

VIEW TISH RABE’S BOOKS

To learn more go to: tishrabe.com