In Which I Lament the Fact That My Kids Love Books but Not Reading

I adore books. Like, really, really adore them. Before I started letting my smartphone take over some of my free time, it was not unusual for me to read 200+ books a year. Books were my escape and my salvation in a shy, somewhat lonely, childhood. It wasn't so bad that I had few friends because the characters became my friends. I always assumed that my kids would share my love of reading, despite the fact that I married a man who doesn't share that love.

I read to my kids regularly from the time I brought them home from the hospital. I read favorite books over and over again (I can still recite the entire text of IS YOUR MAMA A LLAMA?). I did everything the experts say you should do to raise readers. I read to them. I filled our house with books. I read a lot myself and they observed me reading. I bought books for them and took them to the library regularly. I encouraged them to choose books that were interesting to them and didn't force them to read particular classic books. Still, I have somehow failed to raise even one voracious reader.

Squirrelboy kind of has an excuse. His brain isn't naturally built for reading. For me, reading is relaxing. For him, reading is hard work. He only chooses to read if it's something that's really interesting to him. Most of the time it's an article about technology as opposed to a book. He does love audiobooks and still asks me to read to him, so I don't feel like a complete failure. It seems likely he'll be like his dad as an adult, who only reads books if they're about something really important to him. I really didn't understand that until I watched Squirrelboy painfully learn to read and realized that his dad's brain works in a very similar way. For most dyslexics, reading something you're not very interested in is simply more trouble than it's worth. I do still have a little bit of hope. My dyslexic brother turned a corner in his view of pleasure reading sometime in high school and really enjoys reading as an adult, so it could still happen for Squirrelboy.

Kittygirl is only 8, so I'm hoping against hope that there's still time for her to turn into a bookworm. She's a natural reader and can read well above grade level. She is, however, drastically different from me when it comes to the way she relates to people. She prefers spending time with people over anything else. I would come home from school and lose myself in a book. Her philosophy is, "Why bother with books when there are people on hand to play with or talk to?" She would seriously rather sit in the kitchen and talk to me while I make dinner than read a book. She only reads on days off or over the assigned number of minutes for reading log if she has literally exhausted every single other option. The one exception is the rare occasion she discovers a book she really loves. A couple weeks ago she devoured the graphic novel REAL FRIENDS by Shannon Hale. She carried it everywhere with her and it was actually hard to tear her away from it. If I could discover a few thousand more books she loved that much, I might be able to shoehorn her into the bookworm club after all :).

In the meantime, I'll keep buying books for my kids, making trips to the library, playing audiobooks in the van, and inviting them into the world I love so much.