Through the miracle of Facebook, I’ve enjoyed the great pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with an old friend of my sister’s, Bruce Donnola. No, my sister’s name is “Bruce Donnola,” but I’m too tired to get myself out of that messy sentence construction. “Bruce Donnola” is actually the name of . . . nevermind. Growing up, Bruce was once very much my long-haired elder, but I’ve closed the gap over the years. He recently sent to me a brief essay that was intended for my defunct but most awesome blog, FATHERSREAD.com, which, alas, died on the vine. The blog didn’t get the response I’d hoped for, but more importantly I learned that I just didn’t have the time to give yet another free site the energy it needed to succeed. Disappointing, but lessons learned. I still care deeply about the gender gap in reading, about boys and reading.
Here’s the father’s story that Bruce sent. I scanned it quickly upon first reading, the way hurried people read emails, and thought it was good. Then I reread it, taking my time, and just now reread it again with deepening appreciation. I gradually recognized how many deep, important truths about boys and reading were contained in this subtle narrative. The comic books, the reading for information, the parental disappointment (and, at times, disaprroval), and the boy himself — an alert, active mind picking his way curiously through the pages and statistics and cereal boxes.
My wife often says that our eleven-year-old son doesn’t read. This has been going on for a few years now. It started in second grade when we bought him easy readers like Danny and the Dinosaur. We read that to him many times, imagining that he eventually enjoy finding a quiet time to sit and reread it on his own, just like us grownups. But Cisco never had the slighted interest. He enjoyed having us read to him (thankfully, he still does). But he would not read books from cover to cover on his own. “He won’t even read Danny and the Dinosaur,” my wife despaired.
That disinclination has remained unchanged over the last three-plus years. But my response to my wife has always been the same: he does read — he just doesn’t read books from start to finish, unless they’re assigned in school. He pulls books out on things he’s interested in — Star Wars, Leggos, dogs. What he does on an almost daily basis is open a book, flip through the pages looking at photos, stop when something grabs him, read a caption, maybe a paragraph or two, then move on. He does this with books, with comic books, with toy catalogs and most recently with newspapers.
My son is totally hyperactive, with little patience or desire to sit still. The way my son reads is part of the way he is. But the truth is that I was not hyperactive as a kid, yet my reading habits were much the same as his. Despite growing up in a highly literate household where everyone read constantly, much of it heavy literature (my mom’s favorite author was William Faulkner, my oldest brother loved James Joyce), the truth is that I barely read any books from start to finish unless they were assigned in school. Just like my son.
Yet I read constantly.
I read comic books the way some people eat potato chips. I cou
I was recently asked to contribute a guest blog to the BookPig April Newsletter.
No, I didn’t know who they were, either. Something about “children’s books, Netflix style.” Which I kind of maybe understand.
Okay, I don’t. No clue. I think you mail them a book . . . and they turn it into a movie? Something like that.
Click on the link above if you’re so damn curious!
Here’s the brief blog I wrote for the BookPig Team . . .
Read, Dad, Read
Ninety-five percent of parenting is showing up. It’s not epic trips to Disneyland or tickets to a fancy show. It’s about being there. It’s about the small things. And if you believe in the importance of reading, then your children need to see you reading. This is particularly true for fathers, because these days boys are increasingly getting the message that reading is a girl thing.
It’s instructive to recognize the strangeness of reading from a boy perspective. To read means to be silent, to sit still, isolated. It’s shutting one’s self off from the world, at a time when many boys desire noise, and activity, and interaction with others. Reading, in that context, is downright weird.
Why don’t more boys read? Is it in their DNA? Are the books to blame? The way the school day is structured? Is it the video games? Perhaps it’s partly all of those things. Who knows. But this we do know: Boys look up to their fathers. Just observe a little boy as Dad shaves in front of the bathroom mirror, face covered with foam.
Now imagine that same boy as he spies his father in a chair with a book — or newspaper, or magazine, or e-reader — in his lap. Dad reads. It’s a powerful, transformative message that goes to the core of a young man’s self-image. Dad reads. Now listen as father and son talk about books, perhaps debating what might happen next with a certain character; or maybe together they pore over a box score from last night’s ballgame; or they look up facts on the computer to settle an disagreement. Dad reads. Because he enjoys it. Because it’s a guy thing. Guys like finding out stuff, figuring out the world a little bit. Getting smart.
Chances are good that boy will think, “And I read, too. Just like Dad.”
Well, there it is, the concept in a nutshell. A boy will imitate what he sees.
Laura Ludwig Hamor writes:
Here is a picture of my husband, John Hamor, reading with our son, Brian.
Laura happens to be a talented illustrator who often uses clay. Check it out below . . . and click insanely on this link. I don’t believe that Laura has ever illustrated a children’s book, but she should.
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“5 Things About Me as a Young Reader”
by Michael Northrop
1) As a young reader, I wasn’t much of a young reader. I am dyslexic and got off to a slow start. I repeated second-grade and spent the second year in a small special ed. class where they had me read the same few Dick and Jane books over and over again. It wasn’t exactly thrilling reading, but it worked well. I’m pretty sure it took advantage of the high degree of brain plasticity at that age to retrain my neural pathways. Though if you asked my teacher, she just would have said, ‘Practice makes perfect.’
2) And that may be, but the first thing I wanted to practice was the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. This was way before World of Warcraft or other advanced computer versions. D&D was made entirely of words, either spoken or written, and as I became more immersed in the game, I began reading the books. I poured over The Player’s Handbook, The Monster Manual, and though it was technically forbidden for a mere player like me, the impressive, tome-like Dungeon Master’s Guide. I wasn’t reading for the fun of reading, exactly. I was looking for shortcuts and clues and information, anything that could make me a better player and my characters more powerful. Nonetheless, I found myself spellbound (so to speak) by those books for hours at a time.
3) The first book I remember reading for fun was also largely because of D&D. My brother, Matt, was a voracious reader and had named his top character after a character from a book. It was the ultimate compliment in our world (I’d named my top character after a Norse god!), and I had to know how a mere book—like the ones they made us read in school—could be cool enough to cross over into the game that dominated our own fiercely guarded after-school hours. The book was The Book of Three, the first installment in Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydian series, and after reading and enjoying it, I understood why Matt named his ranger Gwydion.
4) The next big book for me actually was assigned in school: Watership Down
Ann sent in this photo of her determined husband, along with this comment:
“After I read your blog post I thought of this photo that I took of my husband years ago. I have always really liked the way it looked with him reading by campfire. He is not a father, but he reads . . . and was enjoying a Piers Anthony Xanth novel when this photo was taken while camping in the Canadian Rockies.”
Author Michael Northrop takes a quiet moment in Columbus Circle, NYC, to read from his new young adult novel, Trapped.
Boy, was I surprised to get this image in an email from NYC ad man, Don Draper. I didn’t even know he owned a computer. Obviously “Don,” as we’ll call him, believes in the cause: If we want our boys to grow up to become enthusiastic readers, if we want to help close the literacy gap, perhaps the most powerful image to instill in the minds of boys is to see adult males . . . reading. Because it’s a guy thing.
Thanks, Don! I mean, Richard. Or Don! Whatever, it’s cool.
