Brussels Sprouts & Barbies

Years ago when my four children were small, I was adamant that the first books in their hands were “good” books, the classics, preferably. Call it the Brussels sprouts approach to reading: It’s good for you. Finish the icky green stuff and you get a Popsicle. I believed that if you consistently put quality reading material in front of children, over time they would recognize its inherent literary value and intuitively reject the junk, sort of like a jeweler who easily spots a fake because he’s handled so many samples of the genuine.

Likely my thinking was influenced by many factors, but I think of my father, who deplored the consumption of comic books (I surreptitiously read my coveted Betty and Veronica “trash” at my Cousin Margie’s house). Never mind that as a high school, college, and graduate student I deplored nearly all my required reading titles―they were classics! Like the Brussels sprouts, surely they supplied some literary nutrition. And even if they didn’t, reading the great masters made me feel righteous, and more important, dropping their titles into dinner conversation made me sound educated.

I desperately wanted my kids to be big-time book readers, so in typical type-A fashion I devised a strategy. I researched age-appropriate lists of classics. I sought out the public library’s summer reading recommendations. I picked up used books—whatever looked righteous and educated—at garage sales and flea markets. The Welches weren’t a normal family. For a season our refrigerator wasn’t covered with magnets like all our neighbors. There was no room. Our poster board chart, a weekly reading list with little foil stars affixed for short books, a Barbie doll or some other incentive for so many chapter books—took up the whole frig door.

Then one day as I watched my youngest son search for books in the children’s section of our local library, it hit me that all my strategies were wrong headed. My approach was way too complex. I had focused entirely on getting my kids to like particular titles. I was steering them when I should have been gently leading them, working with the desires of their hearts instead of imposing my own. I could have made all our lives much easier by simply focusing on introducing them to the love of reading, not necessarily lofty titles.

What changed my mind? On that day of revelation I watched my little boy pass over many titles until he came to the love of his life: big, manly trucks. My son would pick up a book, any book, if there were trucks on the cover. Light bulb moment! Kids will pick up a book if they’re interested in its subject. Reading: A magic door that leads to more good times with the things they love. More times with trucks.

As years pass and kids mature, one subject is cast aside to make way for another; chapter books replace easy readers, novels replace chapter books, newspapers become a daily must. The love of reading has been established. It starts with trucks. Or ballerinas. Or bugs. Or dinosaurs.

Summary: You don’t have to push a “good” book into your child’s hands. Start with age-appropriate books on subjects they find fascinating and they’ll start turning the pages on their own. You do have to get them to the library. But if you’re reading a book blog, indubitably a trip to the library sounds more like the Barbie doll prize than the Brussels sprouts.