There totally is something called a reluctant reader and I totally understand where they’re coming from because some of the books, there are some books out there that just aren’t particularly interesting. And I think there are people that don’t get anything out reading descriptions and so there is a well meaning teacher who’s like — who’s read a book that’s full of beautiful descriptions and it really moves the teacher so they want this kid to read it. And the kid picks it up and he tries to read it and it’s like oh the — there’s a bunch of stuff in here — it was like a meadow full of — I don’t know — and it gets so boring.
Meanwhile, you can pick-up a cool graphic novel like, Smile by Raina Telgemeier or Fangbone, the novel I was excited about and instead of reading the description you just see a picture of it. And instead of reading three paragraphs about what this kid’s house is like, you just see a picture of the kid’s house and now you can dive right into the action. You can find out what the kids going to do.
And I think there are a lot of people that want to read a book about people doing stuff and there are other people that like to read books about people thinking stuff and oh this is what this kid thinks about their life and there are great books out there about them. There are some amazing authors that write stuff like that, but there are other kids that want to read about what’s this guy going to do.
So you pick up a book about Fangbone, what’s this guy going to do? He’s going to pull out a sword. Awesome! And I, I just think that — I’ve met a lot of great librarians in the last couple of years and there are librarians out there that understand this.
But I tell you if you go in the library and you maybe ask the librarian where the awesome shelf is, they’ve got an awesome shelf and they’ll, they’ll be so happy if you go over there and read the book.
Maybe I can make that my thing. Get an awesome shelf. Maybe put my books on it. No, I’m not sure I would make the cut on the awesome shelf. It would be chalked full of, of, of great stuff, with lots of pictures, lots of excitement. Sharks. That kind of stuff.
