The English Stories, by Cynthia Flood, Biblioasis, 224 pages, $19.95 Amanda, a plucky fifth-grade girl, is uprooted from her familiar Muskoka, Ont., surroundings to a residential hotel, The Green ...

Yet what most parents don’t know is that everyday family stories, like the one that Alex’s dad spun out that night, confer many of the same benefits of reading–and even some new ones.

The most popular authors of the top 100 stories were Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka, with three stories each. In among the recognised classics, there are a few texts less well-known ...