I just thought I’d be making comics, or writing books. I never thought that I’d also be going to schools and talking to kids. Like, why would that happen? My whole job is, my core job is sitting in a room by myself, doing my work, talking to no one basically. Like I need to be really good at being anti-social, kind of.
And then, but now to go, you know talk about the books and everything to kids, I have this whole other side of my personality I have to sort of conjure up. So, that’s been personally interesting to learn what I can and can’t do in that realm. But it’s also been exciting with the kids to see what they respond to, the kinds of reactions they have.
Things like, so many kids are excited that they can read an entire book, you know they’re like, I read a whole Babymouse book, or a whole Squish book, and it’s a hundred pages long, and I never finished a book before. Like that’s a big deal to kids. Like that was never anything that occurred to me, that like, they would need to feel a sense of accomplishment from being able to finish a book.
And then there are a lot of kids who are struggling readers who, you know if they’re not reading a book like Babymouse or Squish, which is kind of appropriate for a pretty broad range of ages, from you know kind of K up through 6 and even a little higher, and that’s totally fine, if you’re a 6th grader still reading a Squish book that’s cool, but if you’re a 6th grader reading at a 1st grade level and you’re reading a picture book that is not cool in any way shape or form. And so those kids would just stop reading.
So, it’s kind of interesting to see that those kids feel like, ok, this is subject matter, and it’s appropriate, and it’s ok with my peers that I’m reading this book, even if my reading level is a little bit lower.
And so it can help them boost things up, and still give them confidence to keep reading.
