Michelle Obama Will Read Books to Your Quarantined Children

Semi-isolating in your home or apartment is hard. Semi-isolating in your home or apartment with small children is a nightmare, or so I’m hearing from my friends with small children, all of whom now recommend I stay childless forever. (Considering what the pandemic has done to my dating life, I imagine this will not be difficult.) Luckily, Michelle Obama has heard the pleas of put-upon parents nationwide, and has come up with a (small) solution.

Variety reports that every Monday at noon, Obama will read aloud from a different children’s book via livestream, which you can access on YouTube or on PBS Kids’ and Penguin Random House’s Facebook pages. She’s starting on April 20 with The Gruffalo and on May 11 with Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Per Variety:

“As a little kid, I loved to read aloud,” Michelle Obama said in a statement. “And when I became a parent, I found such joy in sharing the magic of storytelling with my own children — and then later, as First Lady, with kids everywhere.”

She continued, “At this time when so many families are under so much stress, I’m excited to give kids a chance to practice their reading and hear some wonderful stories (and to give parents and caretakers a much-needed break).”

I would also like Michelle Obama to read to me, as my eyes have gotten very tired from looking at a computer all day, and I find her voice lovely and soothing. Some books I would suggest: Gone Girl, The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, Americanah, and War and Peace, which I will never bother to read on my own). Still, I understand that she is busy, and should therefore direct her limited time towards real children and their tired adult parents, instead of an adult child like myself. Guess I’ll just buy Becoming on Audiobook instead.