Transcripts For CSPAN2 Pamela Paul How To Raise A Reader 20240713

Maria rousseau. So much of raising children these days seems to be about what we dont want them to do, keeping them away from dangers, both real and virtual, no dout this is a feature, perhaps and a bug of our helicopter in age but this attitude often fails to promote a sense independence in kids. Not only do they not know how to walk down the street by themselves but theyre also much and incapable of editing themselves completes without a device in hand. So for reasons both selfish, parents need a break, and selfless, we know this is important life skill for them, i think the Current Situation is untenable, our kids have trouble with any kind of unstructured activity that reading for pleasure is perhaps the activity i think a suffered the most, according to recent analysis of the american study, the share of americans who read for pleasure has actually fallen more than 30 since 2004. If there is way to reverse this trend i think it 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 than pamela. Before rising to her current position she was a Childrens Book editor at the New York Times. Just three children herself, it is also the author of six books and a host of the book review podcast. After pamela talks about her research under book, she and i going to have a conversation and then well open it up to questions from the audience. With that im going turn over to pamela. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I will start by telling a story that kind of runs against my instincts and temperament, which is its a kind of boastful strut about my kids. Im more of a type that generally really something terrible and embarrassing that my kids have done, but im telling for a reason. First of all this is something happen my 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 a reader, and took the train done with my three kids, my husband. We were on the train and we got seated separately. So they were kind of scattered around but we were passing things to them, stacks and whatnot. It was clear they were mine but as i got up to leave the train and was gathering my family, there was an older couple behind me and the man stopped me and said, excuse me. Are those your children . Usually that fills me with there. What have they done . I said yes, a little bit attentively. And he said, i just have to say that i am so heartened to see that they were all reading their hallway down here, and they were reading actual books. So i kind of thought, okay. Then his wife chimed in and said, i was just reading the most interesting article in the New York Times about this very subject, and she pointed to a piece, you know when youre of a book coming out you will often write a piece to launch it and this is my piece for the oped section of the times called, i think its called noble store for reading, about not rewarding reading, but reading in and of itself as a reward and to reward reading is counterproductive. I couldnt resist. It was my kind of i have Marshall Mcluhan writer moment. I said i actually wrote that piece. So it is, in fact, true, my kids are all readers. They are now ten, 13 and 14. The reason i tell the story is not especially to show up about them but because i want to relate what i think naomi alluded to, which is people are really panicked about kids reading. A are freaked out, and i think the reason why people are so afraid of kids reading is because, not only the value of books but what it signifies both for themselves and for our culture and for society. For themselves, for kids themselves, i think it is unquestioned that reading is important. Theres a lot of research around it. We know reading is important to cognitive developers. We know it is high to academic success. We also research that shows reading improves executive function, that it is closely tied to a child social and emotional development, and my personal opinion is that it also just makes us better human beings. So now people are very eager to have the kids become readers. This really wasnt the case, i want to say in the 70s and 80s when i was coming of age. No one trotted out the kid and said she such a reader. If you think about the word bookworm, its not exactly a massive compliment. People were more inclined to show up about a gymnast or a violin player or someone was sort of basic court native skills on a playing field. None of which i had. But do people really do want the kids to be readers. There are all kinds of efforts on the local level to get kids to read, and yet as naomi suggested, the research isnt necessarily that strongly supporting that it has succeeded. I will talk about how mccain to write this book and then some of how i came so this book started off as a Digital Guide for the new times. When i was demoted as my kids sit from Childrens Books editor to address book review in 2013 and hired a new Childrens Book editor, maria russo. I was asked by a group at the time to create a guide for the website. We had done guides, other people have done guides on things like how to meditate, i guide i read several times in the dark yet to try to meditate. Other guys about now to live a better life, and they came to me and said what kind of guide can we do for reading and books . To me this was an obvious answer. How to raise a reader because its something i always wanted to do and do something in my position as Childrens Books editor and just as a parent of three kids under many parents wanted to do. Maria and i got together and created a Digital Guide and it went online and it went viral, as they say. The questions and comments from parents flowed in, and one of the most common was how do i print this out and turn it into a booklet you think a a guide about how to raise a reader would be a book and, in fact, thats what we did which was to expand on all of the research we had done and the advice we had and the recommendations for books. So we had for kids. We turn it into a book in short order. When i was a Childrens Books editor and even ongoing in this job now, i got a lot of questions from parents and a lot of what we wanted to do in the book was to address those questions. The questions can be very basic. A lot of times parents come to me and say my kid is into puppies but not sad stories, and he likes graphic novels and doesnt likes lots of tax and he hates photographed at what she read . Very specific request for suggestions but then there are big existential questions like what do i do if my kid doesnt like to read . Or when should my kid start reading . Or my childs Kindergarten Teacher says my child is two levels behind what is supposed to be and i dont know what to do. And once kids learn to read they worry about what my child is in choosing to read. What if he is a reading enough . What if she said reading is born . What if she only wants to be graphics novel . So what we perceived in these questions was the robot of myths out there around reading, about what makes a reader, there were a lot of myths yes, i will move to the slide shortly. Talk about some of those myths, and i will now do with a visual aid. First myth. Nothing as important to raising a reader as reading aloud to your child. This is the thing Everybody Knows they are supposed to do. And fact it is true. You should read aloud to your child and theres lots of ways in which, the dos and donts had a were read aloud to a child but another interesting statistic that is just as powerful as reading aloud to your child is a number of books in your home. This is important. Its not necessarily immediately obvious but is not hide income or education levels. This isnt just something people of lots of money and, therefore, lots of books in their home have in advance. This is something anyone can do because as we all know books, special use books, are incredibly easy to our online. Whats interesting is when you books in your home you are saying something about your family, about your family culture which is reading is prized. Its very hard and anyone here know who has children know one of the most of annoying things to her from a child is on board. Its hard to be bored if theyre constantly books around you. Books not only in a library in the home but books for each child if it are the own room, bookshelf in a shared room. Kids are inquisitive creatures. They like to collect and own things. They. They should have placement on books that they manage on their own. Book should also be throughout the house. Book should be in the parlor. They should be wherever the television is can wear the computers are. They should be in the kitchen, where cookbooks can be another books about food. They should be in the bathroom where everyone does a lot of reading if and not on the ipad. The former is better than the latter, so its really important to keep books in the home to show the books or something that matters to you and to give kids the opportunity to read. If you dont own the books come if you go to the library and take out 20 or 30 books week make sure if a constant rotating books in the. Kids dont always know what they want to read your they are still developing their interests so think about you and usher might interest them. Take a terracotta books, or visual, books that are subject that they may not be familiar with 2000 turn to a book. Earlier a child learns to read in findley, the better reader to be for life. This is a easy to believe because all parents think in terms of milestones. Its natural to think earlier them to something the benefit will be but then ill just like to think of his shoelaces. If a child learns to tighter shoelaces at the age of four illinois maker better shoelace tire at the age of 25 than if she did learn until she was ten. The same thing goes for reading. The age your 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 dont even begin teaching reading until age seven or eight and they dont do that because the Research Supports it because kids brains are not necessarily all able to do the kind of complicated decoding reading requires. Moreover, if you do start to teach reading at a very early age, at three or four or five when a child isnt ready they become frustrated, i know what, it has negative feelings. They think this is just something im not good at. This is for me. Elites, many years of anxiety and frustration that again dont correlate well with the child who grows up and says this is something i want to do with my free time. There is zero correlation. I can say even just some personal experience of my three kids, the one whose reading the latest is a most ambitious and voracious reader of the three. Heres another myth. Reading the same book over and over means your child is stuck. I can tell it the number of parents who first it was harry potter was a guilty thing my kid just will not stop reading harry potter. She doesnt want to read anything else. Not which a document which peoe say its even worse. Terrible graphic novels. I have some reassurance on that front. There is a lot of good to reading over and over, and theres a reason kid to do it. It changes for every age but its true for adults. With babies and toddlers the benefit from your reading those books over and over again. They learn to recognize the words. Word recognition is a big part of reading. They learn to memorize the techs come another big part of reading. If your child is memorize board books, this goes to attend bos around, a family culture, when you go out and human error and you talk board books and you back so when in the inevitable moment that happens all parents with kids aboard a waiting around whether its on the line to the Grocery Store or at a doctors office, rather than do the easy thing apple of a phone and editor child can you take out some board books. Even if youre occupied if it memorize that book they can read it to themselves. That builds confidence and the feeling that i am a reader from a very early age. Older children benefit emotionally and cognitively from rereading books. For kids and i can say this from personal experience, having been a very bookish child myself, when you read the characters become your friends. They are your social life because of people youre familiar with. The world you live in whether they are realistic or fantastical, are places you want to be. Their comfort zones, places or a fantasy but also a feeling of belonging. Its good for kids to reread, and as any adult knows when you reread a book as an adult you get Something Different from it each time. If you reread at age 25 age 25u reread it at 41 she she had ben through many of the things thomas describes in the book, you actually have experienced some of that yourself. Parenthood and loss and the passing of generations that you might not appreciate when you were 25 and you get more out of it. If you think about a child who is developing at every moment, what they read six months of not if theyre rereading something were read in a different way than theyve privacy read it. They would get more out of the story, they will see new things and because theyre not only getting to know better but theyre in a different place themselves. Its really good for kids to reread and not worry that they are stuck. Another myth, parents should work with the children starting preschool to teach them out hoo read and help them progress yearbyyear. This again feels like an obvious, of course, is all here about parent involvement. We are supposed be our childs education and all that is true. We should be doing those things but school is where children learn to read. Home is where children learn to love to read. That is a very different job for parents. If you think about trying to get your kids to do something, to get them the mechanics to do something, thats different from getting your child want to do something, to choose to do something, to enjoy something. If your child is struggling to learn how to read in school, the last thing hes going to want to do is have that experience replicated at home. If hes feeling bad about the fact hes in group k and everyone else is constantly in group in and youre forcing him to go through those leveled readers at home, at again, its continue what might be a negative experience. While hes struggled strugglinn how to read at school, trust your teacher to do that job. If you have doubts about it you can always consult your reading specialist. What your job as a parent to do, you can offset is that the negative experience. You to make sure books are pleasurable, that is pleasure not pressure in your home. That when youre with your child at night, rather than have him read and struggle through those early leveled readers when youre trying to pronounce and so connect the dots in phonics, you can read a lot of picture to them. One thing thats important we will get to this and the next one, and a couple of minutes, children enjoy books in many different ways at the same time. I get to that in a moment before someone to talk about harry potter. A lot of people think one of the milestones of childhood is reading harry potter allowed to your kids. This is not your job. Its not the parents job. For a number of reasons. First of all not everyone loves harry potter. I happen to love it but a lot of kids dont like fantasy or the find the books frightening. Jk rowling wrote the first four books as middle grade books which means there for ages 812. The last three books in the series offer 12 and up. She decide to grow this year along with the readers ashes writing in realtime. Theres a turning point at the edge of book for one of the main characters i hope no spoilers here, guys and that the traumatizing thing for some children to process and thats the transition from Childrens Books to get an adult book. Not every child is ready for it. When my kids were little everyone was showing up like my kid read all seven harry potters in kindergarten and that was the big thing that people just want to show off about. If your kid wasnt there yet what do parents do . They read it aloud to make the kids felt like there were not being left behind. But harry potter is the desert. You do not have to feed harry potter to your kids. That is a goal, something to aspire, that is again without reading being the reward. If a child wants to read harry potter, wait until shes ready to read those books and lighter read them herself. That is again why would you give that away . Thats a motivator for her. There are a lot of series that are really not great reading for parents, and i dont know how many parents of Young Children that are in this room but if you are a parent of girl you probably know rainbow fairies that this is a great series for little kids. Its a terrible series for adults. There are about 70,000 of them, written by a nonperson named daisy meadows. She doesnt exist. Like girls who are four, five, six, seven, eight love them. Our torture for parent to read aloud. The magic treehouse similar to huge a long series. Kids them. Most parents have to read them aloud what to kill himself after the fourth but because they all start with simple look. I missing anything up bad about these books. They serve a function and the function they serve his kids love them and so they want to read in order to read this book. Those netbooks you need to read aloud tickets. This gets to the point which is once they are reading on their own, move on from picture books. This is not true. Picture books should stay in the picture all throughout childhood and beyond. Sure books have their own beauty and 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 be able to absorb artwork, visuals visualo understand how to read pictures to follow that sequence of events through the art of visual storytelling here if your child is working on a book at school that says pat and the cat sat on the mat, chances are his or her brain is well beyond that in terms of what theyre interested in with storytelling. If you say as soon as youre reading this book on your own unbuckling reading more to come you are essentially punishing them for becoming an independent reader. For many give the special if ift grown up any home or reading about your child is a cherished them have it and pleasure, to sort of pull that out from underneath the method moment there reading on their own is really punitive. Moreover, it denies them the opportunity to enjoy books that have a richer vocabulary that a more visually interesting to them than early readers theyre getting at school. In a in a similar way at the sae time they are struggling through those leveled early readers you should continue to read aloud nonfiction books to them. If youre reading the hobbit allowed by betsy or low house on the prairie, to continue to do that because kids are like adults. The enjoy storytelling and all of its sort of various ways. Just as many of us while we might enjoy reading edith horton or Colson Whitehead for fun, we might also occasionally like to read a domestic thriller or a spy novel. We might like to listen to books on audio. We all like to enjoy books of different kinds at any given moment and kids are the same way. The best Childrens Books are te classics. This is kind of a myth. There are great classic books for kids. If you look at the sales of Childrens Books in this country, you will find the books they continue to outsell all of the new books sorted in aggregate are the classics. Theres a reason why interest because all of us become new parents or new grandparent we think i cant wait to share blueberry or dr. Seuss are richard scary i am a bunny a whatever our own cherished favorite are from childhood. Theres nothing wrong with that but the reason people go back to that is because they dont know the whole world that is out there. We are really living in a new golden age for Childrens Books and i dont just say that because i work at the book review edited and you save as Childrens Books editor. I was so shocked by how good Childrens Books had become when i was the Children Books editor, i asked at the time was not editor i asked for more pages. When i got more pages they were still were books they deserved attention and i continue to write until i started writing one Online Review a week, 52 additional books just to cover a small sliver of the greatness that out there. The books have improved at every age and in every format. Even with Something Like borders books which are the books kids can chew on, they are now available in many of the formats, books called indestructible, books that are delivered a critter to go in the bathtub. Theyre all kinds of board books and also because the production has improved so much, the ways in which these books can be created has improved so much. Theres things they can do with cutouts. There are things they can do be used after a bridge a picture book to adopt into a board book format because of board book could hold as many pages. Now theyve improved the production to the point where the dont have to abridge richard books so theyre better than ever. With picture books i cannot describe to you, its such a shame the book review has to be printed on newsprint because the glorious illustration and the quality of the stories is truly phenomenal. I have to say also the diversity of the Childrens Books in terms of the kinds of experiences and the children who are depicted in the pages has improved enormously. They reflect the reality of our world today. You cannot publish a picture book today with thats good that only for children of color to see himself reflected in the pages of the book they read but its also good for children who are white and who do not necessarily encounter those experiences in their everyday life because they will pick thats the world they are coming into an books are one of the most powerful paths for fostering empathy. The way in which we can see through other peoples eyes. We can see their stories. We can learn about other expenses and that something now with picture books that all children can do. They are also much more global so we have incredible childrens picture books come from europe, from latin america, now starting more and more from asia, china did not have a tradition of picture books and they have now started into producing really incredible work. All of that is coming over here so its really a world theyre opening up to your kids. In terms of nonfiction, Childrens Books have gotten incredible. When i was a kid i was obsessed with biography and there was a wall in the library of the Childrens Library of biography and i would go alphabetical looking for the girls. I would go from Abigail Adams to clara barton to Dolley Madison and essentially was all first ladies and nurses, and that was great. I like reading about them. Helen keller was one exception, but now there are childrens biographies of everyone you can imagine, from artists to entrepreneurs, to writers, to politicians, the Public Service people who have excelled in Public Service, just sports heroes really across the spectrum. They are highly illustrated and beautifully produced and they run from really very, quite young, lots of board books. You mightve seen these hero books for very Young Children, going up through picture books for all the kids come for kids are more visual readers who appreciate same rich photography. The photography that is produced in these books again because of the lower printing costs and production in asia, its gotten much better so book of photographs they used to be not affordable for most kids in the 70s and 80s, now your place Like National geographic in washington producing incredible photography books for kids. There are 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 did exist. You went from sweet valley high and then you would leapfrog into sidney sheldon, flowers in attic which is about incest. It were no books for teenagers, and now theres a whole category that has arisen a books for teenagers that in all their incarnation really reflect kids 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 tiktok, up against fortnight, up against instagram. So these writers go for your heartstrings. If you as an adult have not read john green, about to make Cancer Patients fall above and dont reckon you basically do not have a heart. These books tap into the immediacy and the intensity of adolescent emotion in the way the books just didnt do at all what i was growing up. In terms of fantasy, these are plodding driven comfort plot driven books because the writers know if they dont grab you by page two theyve lost you to the internet or hulu or netflix or amazon or wherever else kids will go and spend their free time. So what does a parent do to raise the reader . I will run through some quick tips that covered some of them here but just to give you some sort of big ideas and then specific things you can do. Reading should be fun. It should not be a chore. Reading is a pleasure. We have the abbreviated version. I have many tips for all of these but again what i want to say quickly about reading should be fun, is that youre not their teacher so dont treat reading in the home like like a chore. Treat it like something that is special. I will give you one example of practical tip that we use in my home, which is we told our kids when they were going up that, theyre still going up, they have a ways to go but when they were younger we would set a bedtime, thats a 7 00, but then we would say to want to stay up in bed quietly reading you can stay up until 7 30. What that tells them is reading is a a privilege. Reading is something you get to do because you are older. When 7 30 comes long they dont say can i say it like what they say can i just finished this chapter, this page . Im almost done with the book. You are training them in a way to want to read, to be reading in that positive light. Another big idea. Everyone learns to read. Again, everyone learns to read. You are not there as their taskmaster. You could do a lot to help a child or to read but remember the more theyre reading at home, the more that will ultimately help them read at school, especially if you stat it early on. So do trust teachers to the nuts and bolts of reading. Let kids go its own pace. Let the make mistakes. You dont have to correct them when theyre reading. If you make a mistake, thats a good thing. Its good for them to see this is an imperfect process. Frankly a lot of pairs after a long day working in the office are exhausted. Kids appreciate same adults make mistakes. Create the family culture around reading. This is important so when youre at the family table for dinner, you can talk about the books youre reading. Not just which are watching the netflix. You can watch movies based on books together. You can show off your own reading. Its a very strong message to kids when they all say were going to watch a movie now. If you say im really into my book, id rather finish what im reading. That sends a message to them. Its important if you set rules around screens in your home, if you say all screens away in a public area at 8 p. M. , that you follow them yourself, what you know can be very hard for adults. If youre sitting there saying its time to read and are scrolled wonderful, that sending a mixed message so its important for parents to be part of this. Shall books respect. One thing above and the whole area the book chapter in a book on this is ways in which to incorporate books as part of your family culture. One thing that grand parents can do is rather anything frank the most parents would welcome this, i then get your child a big toy or gift card, when its their the birthday, give them a book personally inscribe it to them for the moment they are born, create a library of books thats just books they got from grandma for grandpa becomes the library from zero onward. Donate books, inscribe books to your kids, teach them to treat them with respect. Teach them to donate them to the library, to donate them to schools, book fairs then let them show how books are made, whats behind it. Taken to readings, allow them to see the process handbook. When does that the National Book festival i was really worried because that is one big room for the largest greatest authors, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a speaker and she had like a full house with Something Like 7000 people on the waiting list and one of the other people is going to be in that row was a very popular graphic novelist and a worry she wouldnt fill up room. I didnt need to worry because the latest book which is called gas which deals with childrens excite hit number one on amazon for came out and was number one on amazon for like a week after that. A huge success with kids in the room was filled overflow. One of the things she did in that session was to show a slight chill of the books and the artwork she created as a child and about how her process worked as a graphic novelist drawing and writing the text for her book, and kids were wrapped to see what the process was like. Let your child take charge. You want to make sure your child is allowed to maintain control over his or her own bookshelf, let them reread them. Dont judge with the reading. Dont you save that book again . Even if thats what youre really thinking. Allow them to feel your enthusiasm and support and respect for the own choices. I will end with an image, this is actually the bookshelf of one of my coauthor who also has three kids, one of her sons bookshelves which he has arranged very deliberately according to his own interests and she is not allowed to touch them. Which is as it should be. Thank you so much, and i welcome questions. Great. Thank you. That was wonderful, and you can find many more tips in the book. What i think they like as the parent of three to myself is a lot of the book has recommendations for sort of your role as a book concierge. If your child is obsessed with harry potter they might also like this here its helpful in that way. But i wanted to talk about maybe a couple minutes on the question of the competing things. Our kids to have a lot of free time and so it feels very difficult to set aside reading time. Theres so many other, you have, whether its structured sports activities or school work or other obligations that kids have. How you create that time in home and make that a priority for kids when it seems like Everything Else comes first. Its a challenge for everyone because there are extracurricular activities, lots of homework and all the myriad of distraction, many of them on freedoms that tug at her childrens time and attention. Thats why i stress the making books become something that kids want to do because ultimately a lot of this is going to come down to their choice, particularly as they get older and thats when you start to see a lot of falloff. Thats would also the messaging are we as parents and our schools syndicates is really important here one thing i find distressing is when you look at childrens libraries in school, the librarys in Elementary Schools will be incredibly rich and then Come Middle School there turn into meatiest centers and computer take a lot of the libraries be let go which is a mistake because what we try to do is encourage enthusiasm. To set it aside again creates this idea of a task, something that has to be done. The reading logs. Yes. 20 minutes a night. Again, thats a a very differet kind of mindset and so it urge parents to really think about this. I hate to say but insane minute the way parents think about keys and violin practices. How do i create motivation is supposed to extrinsic reward, punishments or inducements because ultimately its going to be that kids choice. From an early age i would say even if you have a set time routine we are reading to them before bed every night, make sure thats not the only time. Its good for kids to affect practice because its also especially good for kids to wind down to a book and to stay off the screen, keep screens out of the bedroom. You also want to make sure their reading in the morning when you wake up, that the reading in doing other things. Its things like always carrying books with you. Its when youre going on vacation as a family ask evelyn what books are you bringing . Again little mindset twists of being like we are not buying books on this trip so if you dont bring enough books and you right now, its on you. We have the opposite problem. I always given at the bookstore so thats my family policy is i dont necessarily spoil them with Everything Else but i usually walk out of the bookstore with quite a big deal. I do, too. Again thats another thing to do, look, we not buying souvenirs but weve always get you a book from another country. Ill let you each pick up three books. That kind of thing where that becomes part of what your family does. There are ways in which to arrange travel around that. Again, that your kid need a battery pack for iphone . Maybe not. Maybe let it run out of battery make sure everyone brings a book to them every time they leave the house. No. Like step stuff scattered in back of the car speakers better in the books sitting in the back of the car than a bunch of random plastic toys they have gotten. I think ideally you dont want to have a set time for reading. You want to create an atmosphere which they are looking for that time. I can sense because not the editor of book review to i encourage my kids to read book reviews now. The 12 and 10yearold i encourage them to read the wall street journal and the New York Times as Children Books section so they can come if theres a book their interest in and want to order and they can get into almost being a professional reviewer. I think thats a great way to empower kids. Ive had moments where it said, most what felt like my kids did know what to be. I might say here are six books you might like your why dont you pick the one you want to choose . Let him take the lead and give me a review. I had a professional advantage when as a Childrens Books editor because i bring home a bunch of books from work and i would say let me know if these are any good. So i know whether we should cover them or not. I i wanted to opened up for questions if there are any either unspecific book issues or on the culture of bringing reading into your home. Who is your favorite Childrens Book illustrator . That is not an easy one. Thats a very difficult one. I had so many, its really hard to choose. I will just mention one person who is a really versatile illustrator, and he is also a comic books artist. His name is patrick mcdonnell, editing my Favorite Book by him is called me that that that change. Of a child of jane goodall and about how she grew up and incorporates drawings of jane goodall, that jane goodall did for my own notebooks a child. How she grew up observing the world around her and how that led her to become a scientist and it ends with the reproduction of that famous image of june, that photograph of her reaching out to baby chimpanzee in the chimpanzee reaching back to her to touch her hand. Like, i cry every time i get to that final spread. But what i think its a beautiful about the book is its for very Young Children and really gets to what the language children think about the world around them. It starts off with a famous story of jane going into the chicken coop to see a cow do the eggs come to be, the kind of questions that all children ask. What also think is really beautiful about that book is its about nature and close observation and direct experience. Its very offscreen. What patrick does on other end of the spectrum he does incredible funny books because book called a perfectly messed up story and a little i dont know i didnt have a creature if its a dog or cat or a bear, monitoring along and being, its told in this very nice upbeat way like jack is a having a wonderful day and is going along and anything everything was sud bright and all of a sudden a plot of jelly lands on the page, breaks the wall and the characters really upset to the fact this splotch of jelly is interrupting his story and ruining it. Im a big fan of books that make kids laugh. For any kind of what we call reluctant reader i think theres a lot of concern about boys and reading. I can understand why because my sons are readers not a lot of boys are. Statistics are alarming. One great way for boys patient is humor. Im really, respond well to indie book that makes the kids left. Why do you think, i was curious, the golden age of Childrens Books, seems paradoxical were experiencing fewer and fewer kids want to read for pleasure. Simply reading for pleasure but seems to be so much out there for the wide use this golden age . Let me continue to talk about the boys for once i could because think its important that added in touch on it earlier, which is when you look around, statistics of voice and reading and the socom rent to answer your question, boys read far less than girls. They are less likely and National Surveys say that reading is a favorite activity for them. They read fewer books over the summer. Many of them dont read a single book over the summer. I want to couple statistics with a couple other things. One, kids of both genders say that are less likely to see their fathers reading than their mothers reading. Again this gets back to role models. Its important that role models, both parents are role models to the kids. Secondly, both parents, both mothers and fathers are less likely to read to their son and to the daughter. I want to get back to answer your question. One of the things people have observed this and there are lot more books for boys because theres a a wider recognition f the many different ways in which kids read and some kids are more genetic readers, more visual readers. A lot of parents of young boys will say my kid cant still wanted reading. Okay, there are great interactive books. There are popup books, books with tabs and things to do. Talk about electronic embedded in books. There are books that allow kids to get in there. I also say to them, its okay kids are one around the room wide reading. If you want to see within the picture they will come back. Mostly they do because the pictures are telling their own story. Graphic novels are another way to get boys. When you talk about this National Geographic books, a lot of them are 100 wacky facts about animals. Those of books and its important if your child gravitates towards those books and many boys do, and girls, boys talking about now, not to judge them, not to say thats just a graphic novel or those are just comics. Many of us, when you look at the great office, asking this question and the times regularly, what did you read going up . Many great novelist grew up reading superhero comics, reading the peanuts, reading calvin and hobbes. Everyone can still enjoy those books and then go to appreciate tolstoy and Edith Wharton in adulthood. Theres a lot more books out there for those i think graphic novels, again you might look down at dog man in captain underpants, and i did before look into them, and i dont look down on those books. I looked up to the books. Those books are doing something really incredible which is those books, the wimpy kid books are giving kids to read to probably otherwise wouldnt read. If those kids love those books, they will then move on to other books. I think theres a recognition and tailoring to a greater variety of readers. Another question likes. One of the other things i want to pick your brain about, you mentioned the new wish y. A. Category. My older to have gotten more into the y. A. Category now and some of them material feels to me totally inappropriate for even kids who are ostensibly the target for. Im trying to figure out like what makes a book i y. A. Book, and how we can figure out what is maybe we need two y. A. Categories or something if a parent is not going to read every y. A. Book before handing them over to a child. I think a lot about whats appropriate and not. I fear towards allowing him 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 a special teenager more than to say that book is an appropriate for you. If you really want your teenager to readable, tell them they cant they will read that book. I have to say again if theyre going to learn about something dangerous, something unknown, something you think thats beyond their years in my kids at them all and i can share kind of semihorrifying stories, the way i console myself is this. Would you rather than read it in a book that has been carefully looked at, rewritten, written again, edited, overseen by people making sure not to upset, not to offend, to care for the academic market, for the institutional market, or would you rather than go online and google it . Not just that but also the book experience allows them to process it in a way that seeing it on the screen or in a movie or Something Like that takes a lot more time. My kids when it seems something inappropriate, theyre much more likely to have the nightmare about the movie and summit having nightmares because they read something scary in the book that happen. This is a culture readers. It enables you to have a conversation with your kid about it. Remember this, kids of all ages that often find it easier to talk about the difficult situation or emotion or experience when its not about them. Its about someone else. A character in a book, they can talk about that way. If theres something there word about that they cant talk in terms of themselves, theres a character in this book that is cutting himself and i dont know what that means. I remember a nerveracking moment when my daughter was ten. She came downstairs, reading in middle grade book and she said what does this would mean . She pointed to the word and it was heroin. I thought i didnt know weve had that conversation yet. My son reads books about sports figures in sports history so the drug conversation, the history comes up. The reason why it was in that vote is because the character had a a sister who is an opioid addict. Thats an issue that affects a lot of americans. If you think about those american who had the situation in the family lives or in their communities, to see the end of all, to see it handle sensitively and an context that is usually powerful to that child, to see something that might be upsetting or disturbing to them, handled in a way. For my daughter was completely new and had to, well, again i think i would rather learn about it there than in somewhere i have zero control over. Again, shes not going to come to minister as a what is this . If a book is something they know they taught talk to you about y read, thats what your family does, then they are naturally going to come to a parent and asked. One last question for you. I notice you suggested one of the tips in passing was reading should not be competitive. So much of what were trying to induce our kids to do, we use competition as as a way for tho happen among siblings, like who can make the most books or whatever it is. I was wondering why you think that a good harmful in the context of reading . So again its a bit about extrinsic rewards, about, and not about intrinsic rewards. You have three children and so you know this. I had my first child was agoa my second was a point when i was pregnant with my third i thought it to going to be like this one or that one . A totally different child and they are altered really different readers. Really different readers so theres no competition. My daughter reach for comfort. She reach really trashy stuff but she also will read history and right now she was given in school and then she thought im ditching this item want to read the real book. So shes reading an adult book. My middle child loves classic, anything navy seal who wants to read it. Hes 13 come most reading adult books but was interesting with him is that he would read books, he read the jungle book and then he came away with this, tell children to trust his picky came back and said theres a lot of racist up in here. That was interesting. Some people will say then dont give your kids those books, protect them but i think many kids can handle it. You know your child best thing of the kinds of things they can process but my younger child likes to read like encyclopedias which is a a lasting i want to read. My other two would not want to read that. I try to think of it as they are already different. You dont want to set them against each other. What you dont want to do is have one child live, im just not real. So and so, so good, shes the reader. But to say no, you reading all these different kinds of books, reading these fact books and maybe shes reading these long novels but this is what you do. We had the sort of like each kid has different tastes, and so sometimes the argument over whether the other sibling might like such a book because of course they only read that kind of book. The other sibling would get upset and no, i like those kind of books. Another way to empower your kids and to foster more cooperative ways of doing it is at each of my kids as we did books out of the room, you can imagine it given my profession to get a lot of books, they have to go through them and ask them, read out your books. Which ones do you think should go to this kid . Which once you think should go to a cousin because you dont think id of your brothers will be into it with a love that process of thinking on the older brother or sister and i know the younger one better and im going to give these books and then become something anything fosters a different atmosphere around it. Thank you. Please join in thanking pamela paul for joining us today. [applause] come up on cspan2, university of texas professor michael lind talks about his book the new class war on how democracies are changing. You are watching a special edition of booktv airing during the week while members of congress are in there to do the grunt of virus pandemic. Memoirs, first holocaust survivor max reflects on his life and his impressment during world war ii. Booktv now and over the weekend on cspan2. The president s, from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. 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