In Which Graphic Novels Make My Kid Into a Bookworm (And Count As Real Books)

Over three years ago, I wrote a post lamenting the fact that I was unable to turn my kids into bookworms despite the fact that I did everything the experts say you should do to turn kids into reading. That includes reading to them, modeling reading, taking them to the library often, owning a lot of books, letting them choose books they read, and more.

Since that post, Squirrelboy, who is now a senior in high school, has basically stopped reading or listening to books for pleasure. I think a large part of the reason for this is that he is now taking dual credit classes at the local community college and he has to do a lot of reading for school. His dyslexic brain doesn't have a lot of energy left to read for pleasure after that. He doesn't listen to audiobooks much anymore, either. He prefers short form listening, he says. He listens to a lot of podcasts. I'm hoping he'll rediscover reading or listening to books for pleasure at some point during adulthood. 

Kittygirl, meanwhile, has turned into a regular bookworm. She does still prefer spending time with people, but she doesn't have to exhaust every other option before turning to a book. When we go to the library, she usually comes out with a huge pile of books and reads one of them on the way home. She sometimes even chooses reading a book over interacting with people.

So what turned the tide for her? Graphic novels are what did it. She is obsessed with graphic novels. She's still a picky reader. With a few notable exceptions, she reads realistic fiction graphic novels. Every once in awhile she crosses into fantasy, but she doesn't like most fantasy graphic novels. She's also picky about the style of art. She's turned down some books I thought she would like because she doesn't like the style of art.

There are a lot of graphic novels of the style she likes, but she would have run out of reading material long ago if she weren't a re-reader. She's read many of her favorite books dozens of times. This year, for Christmas she asked mostly for graphic novels.

As you can see, her Christmas wishes came true.

Kittygirl is still classed as an advanced reader. On tests, her reading level is past high school. Her teachers encourage her to read closer to her grade level, and she'll do it if she has to, but she prefers to read the graphic novels that she loves. Since her reading level goes up on every test, it doesn't seem to be hurting her.

Kittygirl has a lot of friends whose parents don't think graphic novels are "real books". I can understand their hesitation in a way. It did take me awhile to warm up to graphic novels. But when you tell your kids they can't read the books they want to read, what you usually end up with is not a kid who loves to read high quality literature but rather a kid who hates reading. I've seen this happen to quite a few kids in my circle now that my youngest has reached middle school.

So what's the lesson here? Let your kids read what they want to read, even if they're books you don't like. This is much more likely to result in the loving books long term. But also, if you do everything right, it's not a foolproof formula to "raise a reader".  

In Which Dyslexia Has, Ironically, Made My Son More "Well-Read"

If you're old enough to remember when Alanis Morissette's song "Isn't It Ironic" was a hit, you  may also remember that the large majority of things referenced in the song are not, in fact, ironic but merely unfortunate. The definition of the word irony is frequently stretched in popular culture, and I can't say with absolute certainty that what I'm posting about is true irony or just a somewhat unexpected turn of events, but I decided that, if a hit singer/songwriter can misuse the word with impunity, I can take the risk :).

I was blessed to have a wonderful model in a mother who read to us frequently, well past the age when many parents stop reading to their children. In fact, in the case of my younger brother, who has no official diagnosis but fits all the criteria for dyslexia, she read nearly all his school material out loud to him all the way through 8th grade. I'm not sure whether he switched over on his own in high or she decreed it, since I wasn't living at home during his high school years. Even my typical older brother and I benefited from many years of listening to great books. This includes a readaloud of The Swiss Family Robinson, which I speculate she may have edited, because I discovered upon reading it as an adult that it is in the running for most boring book in the history of boring books.

When it became clear that it would be a long time before Squirrelboy was reading independently, I doubled down on my commitment to read aloud to him. I read him most of the Magic Treehouse books that were out at that point (seriously, how does Mary Pope Osborne keep cranking those things out?), and I have to confess I actually enjoyed them. I read him quite a few other silly, easy series books that his peers were reading. However, I also read him books that a child of his age who was only reading on his own would be unlikely to encounter. When Tonight on the Titanic led Squirrelboy into a Titanic obsession, for instance, we read our way through most of the Titanic books in our library's collection, including a few from the adult section.

Squirrelboy also discovered the pleasure of listening to audiobooks. He started devouring the Percy Jackson series via audiobook the summer after 3rd grade, and also listened to the follow up Heroes of  Olympus series, though, to my chagrin, he never really got into the books about Egyptian or Norse myths.

I had the opportunity to fully indulge in my readaloud obsession during the three years I was homeschooling Squirrelboy. In November of his 6th grade year we put our regular history curriculum aside and spent a month doing a unit study on the Pilgrims (whom we learned, as an aside, did not actually call themselves that). If he had been a typical kid who was reading well by second grade and had gotten used to doing most reading independently, I might have stuck with the curriculum, had him read a chapter book about Squanto, read aloud a few picture books, and called it good. However, because I had accustomed him to hearing books officially "above his level," I was able to add in a lot of nonfiction that gave a more balanced and nuanced view of the Plymouth colony and the Native Americans with whom they forged a tentative and, ultimately, temporary peace.

Most recently, Squirrelboy has been listening his way through most of the work of Agatha Christie via the Libby app on his phone. I went through a brief Agatha Christie phase in high school, but I only made my way through about half a dozen of her books before I turned away to other interests. I also continue to read aloud to him when we can fit it into our busy schedule, occasionally something for school but most often something for pleasure. Just last night I introduced him to one of my favorite, and, sadly, little known, books: L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle, my copy of which is pictured below in all of the glory of the early 1990's editions of the author's work.

Not very many teenage boys would be interested in a love story taking place in early 20th century Canada, but, because I have conditioned Squirrelboy to enjoy good books of all kinds, he's eating it up.

Of course, all of this is possible if your kid isn't dyslexic. However, I can testify from my experience so far with Kittygirl that it's more difficult. Because she reads well, she's more likely to want to read on her own in the evening than to have me read to her. She does love listening to audiobooks in the care, however (we just finished the Harry Potter series, which we started over the summer), so all hope is not lost.

In Which It Is Okay That My Dyslexic Has Not Read All the Classics

I am a bookworm. I had read my way through most of the children's section at the library by middle school, and, while I sometimes took to reading rather questionable novels (V.C. Andrews, anyone?) I often picked up classic novels in my teens. I was one of the few people in high school English class who truly enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I went on to read a good deal of Fitzgerald's work. Sometime in about 7th grade, as I remember, I read A Christmas Carol for the first time. I'd seen movie versions, of course, but the book pulled me in, and I actually listed Charles Dickens as my favorite author on some kind of survey I filled out at school. I read my way through much of the work of Dickens, though I must admit I didn't always understand it. I fell in love with Hemingway after reading The Old Man and the Sea for English class and made my way through most of his work in high school as well. I'm not sure how it took me so long, but in college I started on Jane Austen, who introduced me to another side of Britain and cemented my identity as an anglophile.

Despite my occasional forays into questionable literature, I always presumed I would introduce my children to the classics at a young age and they would also devour them. As you may remember if you've read my first post on the subject of books, my children are not exactly bookworms. However, I have reconciled myself to that fact for the most part, and have tried to give Squirrelboy especially (because I still have some hope that Kittygirl will get over her graphic novel phase and pick up a copy of Jane Austen at the least in her teens) exposure to what I learned from the classics in other ways. I handed him a few graphic novel versions of classic novels when I was homeschooling him in middle school. I found others on audio, and surprisingly, he occasionally did too. He actually willingly listened to Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped of his own free will when he was about ten years old. It was so full of Jacobite politics that I barely understood a word, but for some weird reason he ate it up.

He also managed to become an anglophile as I did in early adolescence, first through the British car show Top Gear (to this day he refers to the windscreen instead of the windshield of a car), and later through Downtown Abbey. I introduced him to Agatha Christie a couple years ago and read Murder on the Orient Express to him before taking him to see the latest movie version. Now he's obsessed with Agatha Christie audiobooks and checks them out regularly to listen to on his phone. We went to see the Downtown Abbey movie at the theater tonight, and, as in several movies we've seen together, he managed to lower the median age by at least a decade. He understood and laughed at all the right places, and we both loved the movie. All that while closely analyzing the cinematography, which was apparently perfect.

Despite not being exposed to the classics in the same way I was, my son has managed to grow up with a taste for high culture and for things not of the present moment, while still being very much a 21st century teenager. I only hope I can manage the same for my daughter.

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.

In Which I Tell You What I Miss Most About Homeschooling (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Doing School in Pajamas)

Squirrelboy attended our local elementary school and is now in his first year of public high school, but in between those two I spent three years homeschooling. Our reasons for choosing homeschool for middle school were myriad and aren't directly related to this post, but I'm likely to cover them some other time.

There were many things I loved about homeschooling. The relaxed schedule was great. The ability to teach to my child's learning style was great. The lack of the social pressure that most middle schoolers seem to experience was great. For the record, since people ask Squirrelboy about this all the time, I always  made him change into regular clothes for school, except for an occasional previously schedule pajama day, so there's nothing to miss in that realm.What we both really miss is the way we started almost every day of homeschool: Storytime.

When I started homeschooling him I had all sorts of grand plans based on my many years of reading and posting on a homeschooling forum. One of those plans was having a daily "morning time." This time was going to include scripture reading, poetry reading, musical appreciation, and readalouds. Consistent scripture reading, to my chagrin, quickly went out the window, though we did manage to keep a short devotional reading. Poetry reading never really took off and it got moved to occasional poetry teas (more about that some other time). Musical appreciation never happened. However, reading aloud was a huge hit. I tried vainly to keep the name "morning time" for awhile despite the failure of my initial plans, but Squirrelboy insisted on calling it storytime and eventually I gave in.

We usually had two books going: one related to one of our school subjects (usually history, occasionally science) and one just for fun. We traveled through time and around the world with the books we experienced together. Because Squirrelboy has a particular fascination with the world wars, I now know more about them, from the perspectives of many countries, than almost anyone who isn't a historian of that period. I also made a concentrated effort to read books written by or at least chronically the experience of people outside of our white, Christian, middle class bubble. Through that, he has come to recognize his privilege and think about how his life would be different if he had been born into a different place, a different time, a different culture, or a different family.

Thanks to many years of after school tutoring, Squirrelboy can read well despite his dyslexia. However, reading is not and never will be a natural activity for him. His brain has to work significantly harder than mine to decode print. I always set aside a time for him to read silently, but I knew that that time was not what was going to get him to fall in love with books. Even without all the historical and cultural knowledge he gained through storytime, it would have been worth my time because it helped him fall in love with books. He already enjoyed books and being read to, but three years of daily storytime brought that love to a new level. I don't think he'll ever relax with a book in his hand the way I do, but he's discovered digital audiobooks, and one of his favorite ways to wind down is listening to a favorite audiobook. He prefers to fall asleep while listening to a book. He has practically memorized most of the Anne of Green Gables series, and is working his way through all the Agatha Christie ebooks available through our library.

The best news of all: even now that he's back in school, Squirrelboy wants to keep storytime going. We haven't been able to establish a routine so far, unfortunately, but we've squeezed in a few storytime sessions. Our current read: Fatherland by Robert Harris. At our current rate, it may be Thanksgiving before we finish this, but that's okay. I'll keep up this special time with my teen as long as he'll let me do it.