What I would say to a kid who’s a struggling reader or defines themselves as a reluctant reader, I would just say, you just have to follow your curiosity. So for me, I started to read biographies about basketball players because that’s sort of like how I viewed myself, right? If you love videogames, you read Ready Player One, you read books about videogames. If you love dancing, then you find books about dancers and sort of their life. So, follow your intellectual curiosity and you’re going to be more likely to enjoy the reading experience.
But then, I always tell young readers that are maybe not experienced readers, give every book you read 50 pages, and here’s why. What you don’t know when you’re an inexperienced reader is that some of the best books you will ever read start off feeling uncomfortable. Maybe this writer has an interesting style or the syntax of their sentences is slightly uncomfortable for you at first, or it doesn’t make sense.
Well, by page 50 you’re either going to fall into it and it’s going to feel like breathing to read those sentences, or the book didn’t work for you. So, I always say, give a book 50 pages. Experienced readers, what we know, is that you know we’re probably eventually going to figure out the rhythm of that book and then we’re going to see if it’s good or not. Inexperienced readers don’t know that that could happen, that you could get over that hump in a book. And so that’s what I often say, is like, you know, give it a chance and then you’ll find out if it’s worth your time or not.
