Transcripts For CSPAN2 Pamela Paul How To Raise A Reader 20240713

Her recent book how to raise our leader. She coauthored her colleague. So much of raising children these days seems to be about what we dont want them to do, keeping them away from dangerous both real and virtual, no doubt this is a feature, about our helicopter age but this attitude often fails to promote a sense of independence in kids. Not only do they not know how to walk the street by themselves but they are also pretty much incapable of entertaining themselves at least without a device in hand. So for reasons both selfish, parents need a break in his office, we know its an important life skill for them, i think the Current Situation is untenable, they have trouble with the kind of unstructured activity but reading for pleasure is perhaps the activity that has suffered the most according to a recent analysis of the american timing study, share of americans who read for pleasure has fallen by more than 30 2004. So if theres a way to reverse this trend from i think i will have to start with our children and i can think of no one who can help us better to learn how to share the joy of reading with children and pamela. Before rising to her current position, she was the Childrens Book editor of the New York Times, she has three children herself. Shes also the author of six books and a host of the book review podcast. She talks about her books a little bit, she and i are going to have a conversation and then will open up to questions from the audience. But, i will turn it over to pamela. Thank you. I will start by telling a story that runs against my instincts and temperament which is story about my kids and i more of a type that generally relates to terrible embarrassing things my kids have done but im telling it for a reason. First of all, this happened the last time in d. C. , i came down for the National Book festival over Labor Day Weekend to help launch this book, how to raise our reader. The came down with my three kids and my husband and we were on the train and we got seated separately so they were scattered around but we were sort of passing things to them, snacks and whatnot so i think it was clear they were mine but as i got up to leave, my family, there is an older couple behind me and the man stopped me and said excuse me, are those your children . Usually that fills me with fear like zero no, what have they done . So i said yes, a little bit tentatively and he said i just have to stay, i am so heartened to see that they were all reading the whole way down here and they were reading actual books. I thought okay, his wife chimed in and said i was just reading the most interesting article in the New York Times about this very subject. She pointed to a piece that, as you know when you have a book coming out, you often write a piece, this was the case for the section of the times called i think its called dark reading about rewarding reading, reading and end up its out is the reward and that to reward reading is counterproductive. So i couldnt resist, it wasnt kind of my i have marshall book one from its i said i actually wrote that piece. So it is true, my kids are all reasons, there ten, 13 and 14. I wanted to relay what i think she alluded to, people are really panicked about kids reading. They are freaked out. I think the reason why people are so afraid of kids reading is because only the value of books but what it signifies both for themselves and are culture and society. For themselves, forget themselves i think that it is unquestioned at this time that reading is important, because a lot of research around, we know reading is important for cognitive development, its tied to academic success, we also have researched now that shows reading improves executive function, its closely tied to us child social and Emotional Development in my personal opinion is that it makes us better human beings. So now people are very eager to have the kids become readers. This wasnt the case in the 70s and 80s when i was coming of age, nobody said they are such a reader, if you think about the work performed, its not exactly massive complement, people were more inclined to show off about a gymnast or violent player or someone with basic coordinated skills on a playing field. None of which i had but now, people really do want their kids to be readers, they are having reading contests, theres all kinds of things on the local level to get kids to read and yes, as naomi suggested, the research isnt necessarily about the fact that it has succeeded. Ill talk about how i came to write this book and some of the findings. This book started off as a Digital Guide for the New York Times when i was demoted, as i kids see it, i knew editor, i was asked by a group at the time to create guide for the website, we had done things like how to meditate from even though i have yet to try to meditate and others that live a better life and it came to me and said what can you do for reading and books . To me this was the obvious answer. How to raise our reader because of something ive always wanted to do and its something in my position as Childrens Books editor, this is a parent of three kids, i knew many times its something i wanted to do. Maria and i got together and we created a Digital Guide and went online and i went viral and the questions and comments from parents vote and in one of the comments were, how to print this out and turn it into a book . You would think guide about how to raise our reader is a book so that what we did. It expands on all of the research we had done and the advice we had and recommendations for books. So we had that, we turned into a book in short order. When i was a Childrens Book editor and even ongoing in this job now, i got a lot of questions from parents and a lot of what we want to do in the book was to address those questions. The questions were very basic a lot of times parents just come to me and say, my kid is into puppies but not stories, he likes graphic novels but he doesnt like text and hate photographs, or should he read . Very specific requests or suggestions but then there are bigger questions like what right do if my kid doesnt like to read . When should my kid start reading . My child inadvertent teacher says my child is to levels behind where hes supposed to be and i dont know what to do about it. Then once kids learn to read, they worry about what is my one of my child is not choosing to read or what if they say its burning her for not reading enough, what if they only read graphic novels, shes got instagram from she doesnt want to do anything else. What we perceived in these questions, there are a lot of myths out there around reading, about what makes a reader yes, i will allude to that shortly. Ill talk about some of the myths, i will now do it from a visual aid. Nothing is as important to raising our reader is reading aloud to their child. So think that Everybody Knows they are supposed to do and in fact, it is true. You should read aloud to your child and there are lots of ways in which you can do or dont another interesting think that is powerful is the number of books in your home. This is really important, its not necessarily immediately obvious but its not tied to income or education level. It isnt just something people who have lots of money and therefore thought of books in the home have an advantage, this is something anyone can do because as we all know, books, especially used book are easy to acquire online and you can go to the library. Whats interesting about it is that when you have in your home, your saying something about your family, your family culture which is that reading is prized. Its also very hard and im sure anyone here who has children nurse at one of the most annoying things to hear from a child, im bored. Its hard to be bored if their costly books around you. Not only the library in the home but books for each child if they dont have their own room, a bookshelf in a shared room from kids are closed if they should have a place for their own books. That they manage on their own but books should also be throughout the house. Books should be in the parlor, where the television is, however the computers are what they should be in the kitchen where cookbooks can be and other books about food, they should be in the bathroom for everyone does a lot of reading if they are not on the ipad. The former is better than the latter. Its really important to keep books in the home from official books are something that matters to you to give kids the opportunity to read. If you dont own the books, you go to library to cap 20 or 30 books a week, constant rotating stack of books, kids dont always know what they want to read. Theyre still developing their interest. Check out books youre not sure if they might be interested in. Books with subjects they are not familiar with, allow them the opportunity to always turn to a book. A child learns early, the better reader, its natural for us to think earlier they do something from the better they will be but the analogy i like to think of the child learns to tie their shoelaces at the edge of four, is not going to make her about her shoelace tire when she 25 then if she didnt learn until she was ten. The age a child learns to read is not related to future reading or cognitive ability. This is something many countries in europe know very well. Germany, scandinavian countries, they dont even begin teaching reading until seven or eight. They dont do that because the Research Support it because kids brains arent necessarily able to do the kind of comfort gated decoding reading requires. Moreover, if you do teach reading at an early age at three or four or five when a child isnt ready, they become frustrated, annoyed, they have negative feelings about reading, they think its just something im not good at, its not for me. It leads to a lot of years of anxiety and frustration that again doesnt correlate well with child who grows up in it something they want to do with my free time. So if theres a correlation, even just from personal experience of my three kids, the one who was reading the latest is the most ambitious and voracious leader reader of the three. Reading the same book over and over into your child is stuck. I cant tell you the number of times who, for there was harry potter, my kid would just not cap reading harry potter, she doesnt want to read anything else. Now it dog, they think zero no, its even worse. I have reassurance on that. Theres actually a lot of good to reading over and over. Theres a reason kids do it. It changes every age but its true for adults, too. The babies and toddlers, they benefit from you reading those books over and over again. They learn to recognize a word, recognition is a big part of reading. They learn to memorize. If your child has memorized books, this goes back to always having books around when you go out and run errands, you have to get board books and so when you end up in the inevitable moment, it happens to all parents, kids are born whether its in line at the Grocery Store or doctors office, rather than doing the easy thing and pulling out a phone, you take out board books. And if youre occupied, if they memorize that book, they can read it to themselves. Again, the link that i am a reader at a very early age and older children benefit emotionally and cognitively from three reading books. For kids, and i can say from personal experience, when you read, the characters become your friends. They are your social life. There are people who are familiar with. The world they live and whether they are realistic or fantastical, places you want to be. Their comfort zone. Fantasy but also a feeling of belonging. Its good for kids to. Reporter . I think is any auto knows, when you. Reporter a book as an adult, you get Something Different from each time. If you read it at 25 and three reading at 40 when youve been through the things that were in the book, you have experienced some of that yourself. The passing of generations that you might not have appreciated when you are 25 and you get more out of it. If you think about a child developing at every moment, what they read six months from now, theyre going to read it in a different way six months later. Theyre going to get more out of the story, they will see new things in it because theyre not only getting to know better but they are in different places themselves. Its really good for kids to. Reporter and not worry they are stuck. Another myth, parents work with her children starting appraisal to teach them how to read and progress your funkier so this again is like an obvious thing because we care about parent involvement, we are supposed to be supporting our childs education and all that is in fact true, we should do those things but school is not where they learn to read, children learn to love to read at home. If you think about trying to get your kids to do something to learn how to do something, its different from getting your child to want to do something, to do choose to do something and enjoying something. If your child is struggling to learn how to read in school, the last thing is going to want to do is have the experience replicated at home. If hes given thought about the fact that hes in group k and everyone else in his class is in group and in your forcing him to go through those readers at home, that again is continuing what might be a negative experience so while he has struggling to learn how to read at school, trust your teacher to do that job. You can always consult a Reading Specialist but what your job as a pensioner, if you can offset the negative extremes, you can make sure books are something that are pleasurable, its pleasure not pressure in your home. When youre with your child at night, rather than have him read and struggle through bob books or early readers, trying to pronounce and connect the dots and phonics, you can read picture books to them. When think thats important, we are get to this in the next one, and a couple of minutes, children enjoy books in many different ways at the same time. Ill get to that in a moment but i want to talk about harry potter. A lot of people think one of the milestones now is reading harry potter aloud to your kids. This is not your job. Its not a parents job for a number of reasons. First of all, not everyone loves harry potter. I love it but a lot of kids dont, they find thats frightening. Importantly, jk rowling wrote the first four books for ages eight to 12. The last three books in the series are 412 and up. She decided to grow the series along with her readers as she was riding in realtime. One of the main characters, cedric, i hope im not being a spoiler here, he dies and feta traumatizing thing for children to process. Thats the transition from Childrens Book to young adult books. Not every child is ready for that. When my kids were little, everyone was showing off that my kids read all seven harry potter books and can a garden and that was the thing that people want to show off so if your kid wasnt there yet, they were allowed to make sure their kids felt like they were being left behind but harry potter is the desert. You do not have to feed harry potter to your kids. That is a goal for them, its something to aspire. Thats about reading think the report. If your child wants to read harry potter, wait until shes ready to read those books and read her read themselves. Why would you give that away . Similarly, there are a lot of theories that are not great reading for parents. I know how many parents of Young Children there are in this room but if youre a parent of girls, you probably know rainbow fairies, its a great series for little kids. Its a terrible series for adults. Theres about 70000 of them written by a nonperson named daisy, she doesnt exist. Girls were four to eight love them. They are torture for a parent to read aloud. The magic treehouse, similar. Acute lung series, kids love them. Most parents who read them aloud they want to kill themselves because they start the same prologue. Im not saying anything bad about these books, these are the function. The function they serve as i kids love them so they want to read. Those not books you need to read aloud to kids. Then it gets to the. , once they are feeding on their own, picture books, this is not true. Picture books should stay in the picture all throughout childhood and beyond. Picture books have their own beauty into their own function and if people didnt like looking at pictures well into adulthood, there would be no instagram. What picture books allow for a child to do is to appreciate a richer vocabulary, to absorb artwork and visuals and understand how to read pictures from the art of visual storytelling and if your child is working on a book high school buses hat the cat sat on the m mat, chances are, his or her brain is well beyond that in terms of what they are interested in and storytelling and if you say as soon as youre reading them on your own, im not going to read anymore to go, youre essentially becoming punishing them. If you grow up in homes where reading aloud to your child is a cherished family habit and pleasure, pulled out from underneath them the moment they are feeding on their own, it is punitive. Moreover, it denies them the opportunity to enjoy books that have a richer vocabulary that are more visually distinct to them than the early readers that are getting at school. In a similar way, at the same time from they are struggling through those you should continue to read aloud none picture books but if youre reading aloud to them betsy casey or little house on the prairie or whatever this race might be, continue to do that because kids are like adults. They enjoy storytelling in all of its various ways and just as many of us, while we might enjoy reading is important, we might also occasionally like to read a domestic trailer novel might like to listen to books on audio. We all like to enjoy books of different kinds at any given moment in kids in the same way. The best Childrens Books are the classics. This is kind of a mess, there are great cassock books out there for kids. If you look at Childrens Books in this country, he will find books continue to outsell new books. Theres a reason why it needs because when all of us become new parents, grandparents, would think i cant wait to share doctor seuss or richards i am a bunny or whatever the favorites are from childhood. Theres nothing wrong with us but i think the reason people go back to that is because they dont know that world thats out there. We are reliving a new golden age for Childrens Books. Not just say that because i work with the book review and i didnt just say that as a Childrens Book editor, i was so shocked by how could Childrens Books have become as Childrens Books editor i asked of the time are not the editor, i asked for more pages. When i got more pages, there were still four books that deserved attention that continued to write as i wrote one on my review a book, 52 books to be able to cover a small sliver of the greatness thats out there in the books have improved at every age and in every format. The books that kids can chew on, they are not available and many other formats, indestructible, they are created to go in the bathtub, all kinds of port books and they are also because of production improving so much, a lot of printing is done in china in the way that can be an created growth are things they can do with correct and used to be would have to adapt it into a workbook, they couldnt hold as many pages, they improved the production related have to have picture book, so they are better. The picture books, i cannot even describe to you, its a shame a book review has to be printed on newsprint because glorious illustration and the quality of the story is truly phenomenal. The kinds of experiences and children were depicted in the pages has improved enormously, they reflect the reality of our world today, you cannot publish a picture book today with all the spaces. Thats good not only for children of color, even so reflected in the pages of the book they read but also good for children who are white and do not necessarily encounter those experiences in their everyday life because they will. The work they are coming into books are one of the most powerful paths towards fostering empathy, a way in which we can see through other peoples eyes, we can see their stories and learn about other experiences in fact something now that all children can do. There are much more trouble so we have incredible childrens picture books coming from euro europe, latin america and former from asia, china did not have a tradition of picture books and they have not started in producing an incredible work. All that is coming over here so its a world they are opening up to your kids in terms of nonfiction, Childrens Books have gotten incredible. I was a kid, i was obsessed with biography and there was a wall in the library in the Childrens Library and i would go off medical, looking for the girls so i would go from africa atoms to clara barton to madison and essentially, is all first ladies and nurses and that was great, i liked reading about them. Helen keller was another exception but now there are childrens biographies of everyone you can imagine from artists to entrepreneurs to writers, politicians, public service, its across the spectrum. They run from quite young, lots of board books you might have seen in these hero books for Young Children growing up through picture books for older kids, kids who are more visual readers and appreciate seeing which photography. The photography produced in all these books because of the lower cost and production in asia has gone much better so a book of photographs that used to be unaffordable for most kids in the 70s or 80s, not places Like National geographic here in washington producing incredible photography books for kids and lots of books in terms of middle grade that really reflect the world in which kids are living now, another category i want to talk about his young adult books, when i was a kid, young adult didnt invest. Sheldon and flowers in the att attic, there were no books for teenagers and now theres a whole category of books for teenagers in all their incarnations really reflect his experiences and desires and the way in which these writers work is truly remarkable because they know what theyre up against. They are up against talk, fortnight, instagram so these writers go for your heartstrings, if you have not read john cleaned book, its about two Cancer Patients who fall in love if they do not have a heart, they tap into the immediacy and intensity of adolescent emotions. In a way that books didnt do at all when i was growing up. In terms of fantasy, these are part driven books because the writers know if they dont grab you by page two, theyve lost you. The internet or hulu or netflix or amazon or whatever else kids will go and spend their free time. So what is a parent to raise our reader . Im going to run through quick tips, ive covered some of them here but to give you a big idea specific things you can do, reading should be fun. It should not be a tour, reading is a pleasure. We have the abbreviated version. Have many tips for all of these but again, i was a quickly about reading, it should be fun, youre not there teacher. Dont treat reading in the home like a tour. Treat it like something special. I will give you one example that we used in my home which is not we told our kids when they were growing up that, they are still growing up, there ten, 13 and 14 so they have a ways to go but when they were younger, we would set up a time from 7 00 but then we would say if you want to stay up in bed quietly reading, you can stay up until 7 30 p. M. What that tells him his art reading is a privilege. Reading is something you get to do because youre older. When 7 30 p. M. Comes, they dont say can i stay up late . They say can i just finish this chapter . Can i just finish this page . Im almost done with the book. Your training them in a way, to want to read. Another big idea everyone learns to read. You are not there taskmaster. You can do a lot to help a child learn to read but more therapy at home, the more i will ultimately help them read at school, especially if you start early on. Trust teachers to handle the reading the kids go at their own pace. Let them make mistakes, you know how to correct them when they are eating. If you make a mistake, thats a good thing, its good for them to see its an imperfect process. A lot of parents after a long day of working, they are exhausted. I flipped over many words as i was highly leading to my kids from kids appreciate that about make mistakes, two. Create a family culture around reading. This is really important, when youre at the family table for dinner, you can talk about the books youre reading from not just what your Binge Watching on netflix. You can watch movies based on books together. You can show off your own reading. Its a strong message to kids when they say we are going to watch a movie now, if you want to complex if you say no, im into my book, i would rather finish what im reading. I sent a message to them, its also for the important if you set rules around screens in your home, if for example you say a public area at 8 00 p. M. , that you follow that yourself. No can be hard for adults but if youre sitting there saying its time to read and your on your phone, it sending a mixed message. Its important for parents to be part of this, too. One thing i love, we have a whole area in the book, a chapter from weights to incorporate books as part of a family culture. One thing that grandparents can do, i think most parents would work on this, rather than get your child a toy or gift card, ones that birthday, give them a book. The moment they are born, create a library of books, the books they got from grandma or grandpa becomes their library from zero onward. Donate books, teach them to treat them with respect, teach them to donate to the library, to school, book fairs and let them show how books are made, whats behind it, allow them to see the process and books. I was at the National Book festival, i was worried because they have is one for group for the largest greatest authors and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the speaker and she had a full house of like 7000 people on waiting list and one of the other people was going to be in that room, a very popular graphic novelist and i worried she wouldnt fill up the room. I need not worry because her latest book was called grass which deals with childrens anxiety, hit number one on amazon before it came out. There is number one on amazon like a week after that. Huge success with kids. The room was filled to overflowing. One of the things she did and that was to show a slideshow of the books and artwork she created as a child and how her process worked as a graphic novelist drawing and writing thats for her book and get wanted to see what that process was like. What your child takes charge. We want to make sure your child is allowed to maintain control over their own bookshelf, let them. Reporter them, dont judge what they are reading, dont say its that book again even if its what youre secretly thinking. Allow them to feel your enthusiasm and support and respect for their own choices. I will and with an image, this is the bookshelf of one of my coauthors who has three kids also. One of her sons bookshelves, which he arranged deliberately according to his own interest and shes not allowed to touch them. Thank you so much. I welcome any questions. Thank you. That was wonderful. You can find many more tips in the book and what i particularly like is apparent, a lot of the book has recommendations for your role as a concierge, if your child is obsessed with harry potter, they might also like this. Its helpful in that way, too. I wanted to talk about a couple of minutes on the question, the competing things, our kids dont have a lot of free time so it feels difficult to set aside reading time because theres so many other, whether it structured sports activities or school work or other obligations kids have and how you create that time and think that a priority kids when it seems like Everything Else comes first. Is a challenge for everyone because Extracurricular Activities and homework and all the myriad distractions from many tug at our children time and attention. Lets try again from my stress the making books becoming something kids want to do because ultimately, a lot of this is going to come down to their traits. Particularly as i get older and thats when you start to see a lot of fall off. Catherine also the messaging we as parents at our school sent to kids is really important. One thing i find distressing is that when you look at childrens libraries, the librarys in Elementary Schools and companies go from there turn into a Media Centers and commuters take priority and books are being stripped up and my brains are being let go but i think is a mistake. We are trying to encourage enthusiasm but i dont think of it as carving out a time for reading. I do think theres always time to read a book. My kids are always shoving into the nooks and crannies of the moments they have imagery Everything Else. Thats ideally what you want because you set aside, it creates this idea of a task, something that has to be done like oh, 20 minutes a night, again, the different kind of mindset so i urge parents to think about this, the same commitment the way pens think about violin practice, you think about creating motivation as opposed to extrinsic reward, punishment or inducements because ultimately, its going to back his choice. From an early age, i would say even if you have a set bedtime routine, where you read to them before bed every night, make sure its not the only time. Its good for kids to help practice because its also especially good for kids to wind down to a book and stay off the screens. Keep screens out of the bedroom but you also want to make sure they are reading in the morning when they wake up, they are reading between doing other things. Its things like always carry books with you. Its when you go on vacation as a family, ask everyone what books are you bringing . Again, little mind set like you know what . We are not buying books on this trip so you dont you dont bring enough books in your run out, its on you. We have the opposite problem, i always give in at the bookstore. Thats my family policy, i dont necessarily spoil them with Everything Else but i usually walk out of the bookstore with a big bill. I do, too. [laughter] is another think you can do. Look, we are not buying souvenirs but we will always get a book from another country. If youre in the state or an English Speaking country, well get to a bookstore and you can pick up books. That kind of thing where the becomes part of what your family does. There are ways in which to arrange around that. You need a battery pack on vacation . Maybe not. Maybe run out of battery. Make sure everyone brings a book every time they leave the house. Make sure no parent likes things in the back of the car, its better to have books in the back of the car rather than a bunch of random toys. Ideally, you dont have a set time for reading. He create habits in which they are looking for that time. I can say this because im not the editor of the book, encourage my books kids to read Childrens Books reveal. Twelve and the 10yearold, encourage them to read the wall street journal and New York Times so they can tell me if theres a book they are interested in and want to order. They can get into professional book reviewers. Thats awake right way to encourage kids. Moments where i felt like my kids didnt know what to read, i might say okay, here are six books you might like to pick the one you want to choose, letting them take the lead and give me a review. Obviously i had an advantage when i was a Childrens Book editor because i was bring home a bunch of books from work and artsy let me know if these are any good. So i know whether we should promise them or not. Or to open up for questions, if there any on a specific book issue or the culture of burning reading into your home. What is your favorite Childrens Books illustrator . I found an easy one. Thats a difficult one. I have so many, it is hard to choose. I would just mention one person was a versatile illustrator and hes also a comic book artist, his name is Patrick Mcdonnell and my Favorite Book by him is called james about the child James Goodall and how she grew up with drawings from her own notebook as a child, she grew up observing the world around her and how that led her to become a scientist and ends with the production of a image of jane from the photograph of her reaching out to a baby chimpanzee in the chimpanzee reaching back to her to touch her hand and i cry every time i get to that final spread. What i think is so beautiful about the book, for very Young Children, it really gets to the way in which children think about the world around them, it starts out with jane going to the chicken coop to see how the eggs come to be. The questions that all children ask but what i also think is a beautiful about that book, its about close observation into experience, its very screen prior Patrick Mcdonnell does on the other end from he does funny books, perfectly messed up sto story, a little i dont know unmindful creature, wondering along and was nice upbeat way, i cant remember the characters name. A wonderful day and he was going along and everything was sunny and bright and all the sudden a blob of jelly lands on the page and breaks the wall and the character is really upset by the fact that this jelly is interrupting his story and ruining it. Kids love that story. Im a big fan of books that makes kids laugh. For any kind of what we call elected reader, i think theres a lot of concern around reading, mother of two friends, i definitely can understand why because my friends are readers but not a lot of boys are. The statistics are, one way for a boy is humor. I respond well to any books that makes a get. Are you think are serious when i was talking about the golden age of Childrens Books, we are experiencing fewer and fewer kids wanting to read for pleasure, there seems to be so much out there for them. Do you see this golden age . Let me talk about the boys for a second, i think its important. We look around statistics of boys and reading, this will come around to answer your question, boys read far less than gross. They are less likely in National Service say that reading is a favorite activity for them. They read fewer books over the summer, many dont read a single book over the summer. Our decoupled those statistics with a couple of other things we know, one is that kids of both genders say they are less likely to see their fathers reading than their mothers reading. Again, it gets back to role models, its a really Important Role model that both parents set role models reading to the kids. Second, both parents, mothers and fathers are less likely to read to their sons then to their daughters. I want to get back to the to answer your question from one of the things people observed and there are a lot more books for boys because there is a recognition of the many different reads in which its reading and some kids are more kinetic readers than visual readers, a lot of parents will say my kid cant sit still while reading. Okay, then there are great interactive books pop up books, books with tabs and things to do. Im not talking about electronics buttons embedded in books, just books that allow kids to get in there and i also say to them, acute wandering around the room while youre reading, if they want to see the picture in the book, they will come back. The pictures are telling the story. Their graphic novels are a great way to get boys and. I talk about the National Geographic book, many are wacky facts about animals, those are books. Its really important if youre child gravitates towards those books, many boys do not to judge them. Just say its a graphic novel or comics because many of us when you look at the great authors, would you be going up . Many Creighton Allis Group Reading comics so everyone can enjoy those books and grow to appreciate. So there are a lot more books out there. I think graphic novels, he might look down at document in captain underpants, i did before i looked into them and now i dont look down on those books. Look up to those books. They are doing something really incredible, the with peaked books, captain underpants, they are getting kids to read who promptly otherwise wouldnt read. If those kids love those books, they will then move on to other books. Again, i think theres a recognition and catering to a greater variety of readers. One of the other things i wanted to pick your brain about, the new category so my older to have gotten more into that category and some of the material deals to me, totally inappropriate for even kids who are the target for, trying to figure what makes a book of why a book and how it can figure out if maybe we need to or something. If a parent does not want you read every book before handing them over to a child. I think about whats appropriate and not appropriate and are geared toward allowing them to read inappropriate books. I do this for a number of reasons because if youre trying to get kids to read a book, theres nothing to induce, especially a teen more than something is not appropriate. If you want a teenager to bring a book, tell them they cant. They will read that book. After say again, if they are going to learn about something dangerous, if theyre going to learn about something unknown, something you think is beyond their years, and my kids have alternate, the way i consult myself is this, would you rather than read in a book thats been carefully looked at, rewritten, written again, edited, overseen by people making sure not to upset or offend, to cater to the academic market from institutional market or would you rather than go online and google it works. Also just it allows them to process it in a way that seen it on a screen or Something Like that, i think it takes a lot more time. My kids when they have something inappropriate, they are much more likely to have the nightmare about the movie ethan telling me they are having nightmares because they read something scary about. A culture of readers, it enables you to have a conversation with the kid because kids of all ages and easier to talk about a difficult situation or experience thats not about them, it something else. For some think they are right about, they are unable to talk about, is a character in the book will understand what that means. Sports figures saying the growing conversation, but the reason why is because they had a sister who is an opioid addict. That affected a lot of americans and if you think about those americans, you will have that situation in the family lives or in their community to see that in a book, to see it handled sensitively and in context. Thats usually powerful. Just one last question and you suggested in passing that reading should not be competitive in so much what we are trying to induce our kids to do we use Competition Among siblings like who can read the most books or whatever it is im wondering why you think that is particularly harmful in the context of reading. It is about extrinsic rewards so you have three children my first was a girl the second was a boy and i thought will he be like this one or that one. But each is a totally different child they are really different readers and there is no competition my daughter read trashy stuff for comfort she will also read history and she was given a book and then she said i want to read the real book my middle child loves classics he is 13 and mostly reading adult books but what is interesting with him and he read the jungle book and then came away with it because he came back and i thought that is interesting but i think the kids could handle it so the things that they can handle but then my younger child in the encyclopedia but my other two would not want to read that so they are all really different you dont want to pit them against each other but what you want to do is say im just not our reader that soandso is so good she is the reader know. Because you are reading all these different kinds of books maybe she is reading long novels but this is what you do. Each kid has a different taste so sometimes they have arguments if they would like such book. And then i like those kind of books to. And there are more cooperative ways i also read the books out of their room. So they have to go through them and asked them to weed them out which one do you think should go to this kid or this kid or this kid or a cousin and they love that process thinking i am the older brother or sister i know the younger one better and i will give him these books and then it is something that fosters a different atmosphere around it. Thank you for joining us today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] he knows the reporters. He read stories and watches the news coverage. And said tivo was the greatest of not only dvr but the greatest invention of mankind all the shows are on the dvr and he watches and sees how he is being portrayed. So at one point phil rucker with a Washington Post a really good reporter with a press conference the president referenced a story that phil had written before the new york primaries. 2016 about the Staten Island ferry and then to interview people on the Staten Island ferry that people really like donald trump and he wrote the story about it. I didnt even see the story now a couple years old earlier after all he has been through not exactly a household name a great reporter he says yes the story that you wrote that was a wonderful story. It is mind blowing. When you are dealing with the interface of politics and policy and medicine the thing that i have found to be very effective these be totally honest and dont tell people things you think they might want to hear tell them the truth that is based on evidence because even the administration and the congress may not be happy with what you tell them because it disappoints them they will respect you if after a while it is clear to them that you are telling them the truth based on scientific evidence. Good evening i am claire on behalf of harvard book score thank you for joining us with Marian Wilson who was here to discuss her new book reader, home