What Do I Do – When My Child Says “Why Should I Read?”

 

Oh, the horror!

"Because I told you so", "Because it’s good for you" or "Because your teacher said you’d better" probably won’t cut it.

Try, saying these instead:

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“Because It Makes You Laugh.”

Reading is nothing like schoolwork. Instead, reading novels can be so insanely fun.

Imagine reading a story of:

A primary school where good and bad fairy tale characters have recess together (Don’t Cook Cinderella by Francesca Simon) A family with the hoity-toity title of the Cheeseman Clan with their sprightly psychic hairless dog running away from crazy spies (A Whole Nother Story by Dr Cuthbert Soup). What about a story about your brother’s uncontrollable bottom (My Brother’s Famous Bottom by Jeremy Strong)?

“Because It Can Be Exhilarating.”

We know, how can anything be more exciting than the TV and an adrenaline-pumping video game?

What about a series that counts down the 100 days before the end of the world and every chapter ticks days off an ever-shortening calendar (The Phoenix Files by Chris Morphew)? Or a novel of Clankers fighting Darwinists (Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath by Scott Westerfeld) or a trilogy in which grown-ups turn into zombies (The Enemy by Charlie Higson)?

Besides, so many movies today are pale imitations of fantastically exciting books - Tintin, I Am Number Four, Twilight, Percy Jackson, Bridge to Terabithia, His Dark Materials (the movie was called The Golden Compass), and the Series of Unfortunate Events.

Even with the crazy pyrotechnics and big celebrity names, a carefully constructed novel together with the wild visual imagination of a child will certainly be infinitely more explosive than a movie.

“Because You Get to Read About What You Love.”

And it’s not always we get to spend all our time pursuing our hobbies, being an astronaut, a princess or a crime-fighting teenager. We have school and homework, and the best way to indulge is to read about it.

Authors spend such a lot of time researching the subjects they write about and chances are, if the story is about a soccer star, archaeologist or the Second World War, there would be a ton of details in the story to have you feeling as if you were right there.

“Because These Are Stories For and About You.”

The powerful thing about books is the myriad of perspectives they offer. They help you feel part of something bigger and they also help you through things you might not feel particularly enthused about discussing with others (hello, adolescence and puberty!).

And when you’re trying to find your footing in this big and scary world, you don’t need a didactic sit-down-in-front-of-a-stern-grown-up lesson. You need a fantasy story about a boy who helps a grown-up realise what he’s forgotten in the process of growing up (Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones) and an ominously exciting story of a girl who feels powerless in a society that looks at her differently (The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester).

“Because You Get to Build Your Own Worlds.”

When you open a book, you unleash the magic that is hidden within each chapter, paragraph, and sentence. When you read, "you take the words and build them into worlds", says the inimitable Mr Neil Gaiman – and this is why you should read!