Podcast

Reach Out and Read is On the Air

Engaging conversations with experts in childhood health and literacy.

An award-winning podcast centered on the belief that children’s books build better brains, better family relationships, and happier, healthier children and societies. Join us as host Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician with a children’s librarianship degree dives into a wealth of varied early childhood health and literacy topics with expert guests examining the many facets of supporting the parent-child relationship as key to early success.

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Latest Episode

“Thinking Developmentally” | October 16, 2025

We continue to learn so much about the development of our brains in the first 1,000 days of life, and how the social world around those young brains matters deeply. What can parents and caregivers do in those early days to allow healthy and strong brain growth? Dr. Andrew Garner, pediatrician and coauthor of “Thinking Developmentally: Nurturing Wellness in Childhood to Promote Lifelong Health,” joins us to talk about how the science behind healthy childhood experiences helps us build healthy children, nurturing families, and communities that care. View the transcript here.

  • Dr. Andrew Garner

    Dr. Andrew Garner is a primary care pediatrician with University Hospitals Medical Practices in Cleveland, Ohio; a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; and a faculty associate with the Schubert Center for Child Studies. Dr. Garner has written extensively on children’s health and cowritten several policy statements for the American Academy of Pediatrics, including their statement on Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress. His latest book, coauthored with fellow pediatrician Dr. Robert Saul, is “Thinking Developmentally: Nurturing Wellness in Childhood to Promote Lifelong Health.” 

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Research shows reading physical books together brings the strongest benefits to children. That’s why we’re happy to have Boise Paper – a responsible paper manufacturer – as founding sponsor of this podcast. Through their Paper with Purpose promise, Boise Paper looks for ways to make a difference in local communities. Thank you to Boise Paper for investing in our Reach Out and Read community.

Award Winning
Two-time winner of an Anthem Award in the Health category.
> Complete list of winners
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Meet the Host

To the best of our knowledge, there is only one pediatrician anywhere who got a master’s in library science in the middle of his medical training, all to learn more about children’s literature. That is our host, Dr. Dipesh Navsaria. A practicing pediatrician in Wisconsin, Dr. Navsaria is the Medical Director of Reach Out and Read Wisconsin, Chair of the Early Literacy Subcommittee of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Early Childhood, and many other initiatives involving the psychosocial world of children, their families, and society, from policy to parenting support. A professor of pediatrics and of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, he lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, two children, two cats, a dog, and backyard chickens. He has a deep-seated dependence on wearing bowties, of which he owns far too many…but all of which he can tie without a mirror, in under a minute!

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Meet the host of the ROR Podcast