Kids and Reading

I was asked recently to write a letter to an elementary school classroom about the value of reading. I'm sure the teacher anticipated the conventional sermon cajoling kids to settle in under a tree and crack open Treasure Island. It took awhile to remember my honest first feelings about reading, that I was intimidated by large gray blocks of type and envious of my friends who could tackle a big book with enthusiasm. Some of my teachers considered my love of comics, the only accessible reading I could handle, a waste of time.

When my own son was young, he struggled with the same issue. If assigned to read a book for class, he invariably chose a Garfield collection. His enlightened teachers recognized a porthole when they saw one and encouraged his interest rather than dismissing it. Dylan saved his allowances and insisted we drive to the bookstore the minute a new Garfield collection was published. When I shared this with Jim Davis, he generously invited Dylan and me to his Muncie compound where we spent a day touring his empire of licensing, publishing and animation and Dylan even got to have lunch with the man himself.

Eventually, my wife and I grew weary of everything Garfield, of course. But by that time Dylan had leaped from Garfield collections directly to Jurassic Park and he never looked back. Years later, he reads dense David Foster Wallace novels and all order of challenging stuff.

I can't help but think the difference in our teachers' attitudes made all the difference. And I feel fondly toward Garfield and Jim Davis for teaching my kid to like reading.


My letter:

Dear Kids,

When I was your age I was afraid of books.

Even though I was a good student, pages full of words intimidated me. I was a slow reader (and still am) and if someone handed me a big thick book my heart sank. It looked like a mountain I had to climb. Some people talked about books like they were treasures, but to me they were huge obstacles.

The one kind of reading I loved was comic strips. There the words were few and the pictures were fun. I could read every comic strip on the newspaper page without feeling any of the resistance I felt toward other writing.

Then I discovered that comic strips were sometimes collected into book form, and in a single enjoyable night I would read an entire collection, cover to cover. It didn’t occur to me that I was probably reading as much as the other kids my age who were reading novels. And it didn’t occur to me that the pictures were becoming my key to reading.

Still today I learn things more fully if I can see them visually instead of just reading words. Some of us are just like that. It took me awhile to not be embarrassed to admit that I was a slow reader. It still takes me a longer time than it would others to read the newspapers I read to do my job, but that’s OK.

I’m sending you some of my favorite cartoon books, and a couple of the ones I made from my comic strip Zits. If you don’t like to read, try one of these. Maybe, like me, they will be your way of discovering books.

Jim Borgman