For Librarians

“What’s your favorite book?“

That’s one question that often gets asked to authors during author visits or events.

That is a tough question for me.

To some, though, it’s an easy question, and many of the authors list their favorite book titles without hesitation. I’ve always been envious of the people who express such resolution and love for a book or books, especially when it comes to naming the books from one’s childhood.

I had a tough time learning to read. It was a struggle. I’d look at the page of text and see an overwhelming mishmash of words and letters. I’m sure that now I would have been diagnosed early and prescribed a program for my reading disorder, but those things were rare in early 1970s education. Especially in a lower-middle-class Catholic school, and even more so for an early elementary school kid who seemed to keep his head above water in class.

I was lucky, though. I had parents and a few teachers who noticed my problem and put me on the road to reading. My most vivid, non-recess, non-field trip, non-playday memories of first and second grade are when my teacher or a volunteer aide would pull me aside to another room and work with me on the Controlled Reader projector.

In a dark, quiet, and empty classroom, I learned to focus on the left word of a sentence and move slowly to the right. I practiced and practiced from one filmstrip to the next on moving my eyes from left to right. I worked on image strips to practice moving my eyes right to left. I practiced all this without moving my head. And guess what?

Things got better!

Reading was possible.

(There’s a really cool 2018 Wired story by writer Lisa Wood Shapiro on how she works to overcome her dyslexia and how technology is helping people become readers.) 

We didn’t have a boatload of books around the house when I was growing up. I learned to be a better reader through the assistance of my teachers and parents, but still struggled through the middle grades to be a bonafide reader. I loved The Jungle Book. The Disney movie captivated me from a very early age. We had a series of illustrated classics with about twenty pages of text per illustration. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Treasure Island, a few other titles I can’t remember, and The Jungle Book.

I loved that book.

But I never read that book.

I picked the book off the shelf a thousand times. I looked at the pictures a thousand times. Each time I tried to read that book but I reverted to seeing each page as an intimidating blob of letters and words. Frustration would set in, and I’d snap the book shut and return it to the shelf.

I know I should have said something to my parents or teachers. I should have sought help. But I was a big, shy kid and didn’t want to trouble anyone with this embarrassing problem.

Then something wonderful happened. A salesman came around the house and convinced my parents to buy a set of the World Book encyclopedia. My parents made a difficult decision to spend money we didn’t have on this set of books. They even splurged on the annual yearbook!

I found my reading life in those encyclopedias. Schoolwork forced me to open them, but the magic of information given in short bursts of text and pictures contained within was pure magic. Something clicked in my reader-brain. I figured it out.

I slowly became a better reader and a smarter kid. The set of World Book encyclopedias led to the Guinness Book of World Records, which led to comics, which led to the Hardy Boys, which led to eventually reading The Jungle Book. And you know what? It was as fantastic as the story I held in my head all those years.  

So next time I’m asked at an author event what my favorite book was, I have an answer.

The World Book.

Hands down.

After my Dad died and my Mom was preparing to move out of their house, she called and asked me what I wanted of their stuff. I know her idea of “stuff” meant furniture, dishes, etc., but without hesitation, I said I would like to have the World Book encyclopedias and yearbooks they’d used for the previous twenty years as a decoration on top of their kitchen cabinets.

My Mom laughed and thought I was joking, and she thought that until her eventual death. She’ll never know how important those books were to me and how huge a role they played in making me who I am today. I probably never really knew how much of a sacrifice it was for my parents to invest in buying this set of encyclopedias and the annual yearbook every year. These books are history. Part of our history.

I’m a firm believer in letting kids read what works for them. I’ve cut my reading teeth on baseball box scores, cereal boxes, baseball cards, etc. 

Reading is reading is reading is reading.

Reading is indeed a superpower.