Rather accidentally I started reading aloud the opening lines of the Aeneid to my ten-year-old, and after two lines he was transfixed. This is a child who adores hero stories and spends considerable time wallowing in Greek and Norse mythology, so neither the story nor the characters were entirely new. But watching him reel back at the physical impact of the language, watching the story leap off the page and attack him . . . that was a heart-wrenching miracle.