Transcripts For CSPAN2 Pamela Paul How To Raise A Reader 20240713

On behalf of the american in enter enterprise, we will hear about her recent book how to raise a reader. She authored it with her colleague maria russo. So much of raising children these days seems to be about what we do not want them to do, keeping them away from dangers, real in virtual, no doubt this is a feature, perhaps a bug of her helicopter and age and i think this attitude fails to promote a sense of independence and kids. Not only do they not know how to walk down the street by themselves but they are also pretty much incapable of entertaining themselves at least without a device in hand. So for reasons both selfish, parents need a break and selfless, we know this is an important life skill for them, i think the Current Situation is pretty untenable. Our kids have trouble with any kind of unstructured activity but reading for pleasure is perhaps activity that has suffered the most. According to a recent analysis of the American Time study, the share of americans to read for pleasure have actually fallen by more than 30 since 2004. If there is a way to reverse the trend i think it will have to start with her children and i can think of no one who can help us better than to share the joy of reading with children then pamela before rising to her current position, she was the Childrens Book editor at the New York Times and she had three children herself. She is also the author of six books in the host of the book review podcast. After pamela talks about her research and the book for a little bit, she and i will have a conversation and then we will open it up to questions from the audience. With that i will turn over to pamela. Thank you so much. I will start by telling a story that runs against my instinct and temperament which is the story about my kids and a more of a type that generally something terrible and embarrassing that my kids have done but im telling it for a reason, first of all this happened 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 down with my three kids, my husband and we were on the train and we got seated separately so they were scattered around. So we were passing things to them, snacks and whatnot so i think it was clear that they were in mind but as i got up to leave the train and gathering my family, there was an older couple behind me and the man stopped and said excuse me, are those your children. Usually that fills me with fear. Oh no, what have they done. So i said, yes, tentatively and he said i just have to say, i am so heartened that they were all reading the whole way down here and they were reading actual books armored and his wife chimed in and i was reading the most interesting article about the same subject. And she pointed to a piece, as you know we have a book coming out, you write a piece to go with it and this is my piece for the oped section for the piece called noble star for reading. About not rewarding reading in the reading of itself as a reward and that in fact to reward reading is counterproductive. And so i cannot resist, i have Marshall Mcluhan here who i said i actually wrote the piece, so it is in fact true, my kids are all readers, there ten, 15 and 14 and the reason i tell the story because i wanted to relay what i think naomi alluded to is that people are really panicked about kids reading, they are freaked out. 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 society. So for themselves, kids themselves, i think it is unquestioned at this point that reading is important, theres a lot of research around it, we know that reading is important for this development, and academic success, we also have research that shows that reading improves executive function that is closely tied to a childs social and Emotional Development in my personal opinion is that it makes us better human beings and so now people are very eager to have their kids become readers, this is really not the case in the 70s and the 80s when i was comingofage, at that point no one looked at the cadence of your such a reader, if you think of the word bookworm it is not exactly a massive complement. People were more inclined to show off about a gymnast or a violin player or someone that has quorum needed skills on the playing field. None of which i had. But now people really do want their kids to be readers, their reading contacts and theres all kinds of efforts and if you get kids to read naomi suggested the researchers necessarily that it succeeded so i talked a little bit about how i came came to write the book and some of the findings. So this book started off as a Digital Guide for the New York Times when i was demoted as my kids see it from Childrens Book editor to the editor of the book review in 2013 and hired a new Childrens Book editor maria russo, i was asked by the group at the time to create a guide for the website we had done guides or other people to time addend guides on how to meditate and its a guide i read several times even though i had yet to try to meditate and other guides about how to live a better life, they came to me and said what kind of guides can we do for reading and books. To me this was the obvious answer, how to raise a reader because it was something i wanted to do and something in my position a Childrens Book editor and a pair of three kids i knew many parents wanted to do. So maria and i got together and created a Digital Guide and it went online and went viral and the questions and comments quoted in in the most common was how do i. This out and ride into a book. In fact that is what we did to really expand on all of the research that we had done and the advice that we had in the recommendations for a book. So we turned it into a book in short order. When i was a Childrens Book 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 and they can be very basic, a lot of times parents came to me and said my kid is in two puppies but not sad stories and he likes graphic novels and does not like a lot of text indicates photograph, what can he read, very specific request for suggestions and there are essential questions like what do i do if my kid does not like to read or when should my kids start reading or my child kindergarten teachers as my child is to levels behind, i dont know what to do about it. Once kids learn to read, they worry about what if my child is choosing not to reader ready fees not reading enough what if they say its boring, what is she only wants read graphic novels, what if she taught instagram and she doesnt want to do anything else. So what we perceived in these questions was there was a lot of this out there about reading and what makes the reader yes, i will move to the slide shortly. Some of those myths, i will now do it with a visual aid. First myths, nothing as is important to raising a reader is reading aloud to your child. This is the thing that Everybody Knows that they are supposed to do. In fact it is true, you should read aloud to your child and theres lots of ways in which you have dos and donts of how to read aloud to a child but another interesting statistic just as powerful is the number of books in your home. This is really important, not necessarily immediately obvious but its not tied to income or education levels. This is not just something that people have lots of money and have lots of books in their homes have an advantage. This is something that anyone can do because as we all know books especially use books are incredibly easy to acquire online and you can also go to the library. Whats interesting, when you have books in your home, your saying something about your family, about your family culture that reading is a prize. It is also very hard, and anyone who has children knows one of the most annoying things to hear from a child is on board, it is really hard to be bored if their constant books around you. Books not only will vibrate in the home but books for each child if they dont have their own room, a bookshelf in a shared room and they like to collect in own things, they should have a place for their own books that they manage on their own but books should also be throughout the house. Books should be in the parlor, wherever the television is, the computers, the kitchen where cookbooks can be another books about food, they should be in the bathroom where everyone does a lot of reading if theyre not on the ipad. Obviously the former is the better than the latter. Its really important to keep books in the home to show the books or something that matter to you and to give kids the opportunity to read, if you do not own the books and you go to the library and take out 20 or 30 books a week make sure you have a constant rotating path of books. Another thing to remember about kids they dont always know what they want to read, there still developing their interest. Take up books that youre not sure that my interested them, take up books that are not subjects they may not be familiar with to always allow them the opportunity to turn to a book. Another myth, the earlier child learns to read and the more dependent reader beeper life, this is a myth, its a belief because all. Things on terms of milestones it is natural to think the earlier they do something, the better they will be but the analogy is shoelaces, if a child learns to tie her shoelaces at the age of four, it will not make her better shoelace tire at the age of 25 if she did not learn until she was ten. The same thing goes for reading, the agent your child learns to read is not related to future reading or cognitive ability. This is something that many countries in europe no very well, germany, scandinavian countries dont even begin teaching and reading until age of seven or eight and they dont do that because the Research Supports it. Kids brains are not necessarily all able to do the complicated decoding that reading requires. That moreover if you start to teach reading at a very early age at three or four or five when a child is not ready, they become frustrated, they become annoyed and have negative feelings associated with reading, they think its something im not good at, they think its not for me and it leads to many years of anxiety and frustration that dont correlate well with the child who grows up and says this is something that i actually want to do with my free time. So there is 0 correlation. I say even from personal experience of my three kids, the one who is reading the latest is the most ambitious of the three. Reading the same book over and over means your child is stuck, i cannot tell you a number of parents, first it was harry potter saying my kid will not stop reading harry potter, she does not want to read anything else. Now its dog man which people think its worse a graphic novel, every assurance on that front. There is actually a lot of good to reading over and over and theres a reason that kids do it and it changes for every age but is true for adults, babies and toddlers benefit from you reading those books over and over again, they learn to recognize the word, word recognition is a big part of reading, they memorize the test. Another big part of reading, if your child memorizes board books, this goes back to family culture, when you go out and you run errands, and you talk board books into your back so when you end up in the evitable moment that happens to all parents were your kids are bored and layin lg around whether youre in line at the Grocery Store the doctors office, rather than do the easy thing and pull out a phone and handed to your child you take out a board book and even if you are occupied if they memorize that, they can read it to themselves. Again that builds confidence and a feeling that i am a reader from a very early age. Older children benefit emotionally from rereading books. For kids, i certainly can say this from personal experience having been buried in a book as a child myself, when you read the characters become your friends. They are your social life, these are people youre familiar with, the world they live in whether realistic or fantastical, places that you want to be, their comfort zone, places for fantasy but also a feeling of belonging, it is good for kids to. Reporter and i think if any adult knows, when you. Reporter a book as an adult you get Something Different each time. So if you. Reporter at age 25 and then you. Reporter at 40 many things he had in the book, youve actually experience some of that in yourself and the passing of generations that you might not of appreciated when you are 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 from now if there rereading they will. Reporter it in a different way that they previously read. It will get more out of the story and see new things because they are not only getting to know what is better but theyre in a different place themselves. It is really good for kids to. Reporter and not worry that they are stuck. Another myth, p and should work with their children starting in preschool to teach them how to read and progress yearbyyear. This feels like an obvious course because we hear about Parent Involvement and were supposed to be supporting our Child Education and that is in in fact true. We should do those things but school for our children is where they learn read, home is where they 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 learn how to do something, that is very different from getting your child to want to do something, to choose to do something to enjoy something. So if your child is struggling for example to learn how to read in school, the last thing he is going to want to do is have the experience replicated at home if you feeling bad about the fact that he is in group k and everybody else is in group in and you are forcing him to go through the level readers at home, that again it is continuing what might be a negative experience. While he is struggling how to read in school, trust your teacher to do that job. If you have doubts about it, you can consult your reading specialist. Your job as a parent is to offset the negative experience and make sure books are something that are pleasurable and pleasurable not put pressure. When youre with your child at night rather than having him struggle through the bob books or early level readers were there trying to pronounce and connect the dots in phonics, you can read a lot of picture books to them. One thing that is very important that we will get to in the next one, well get to it in a couple of minutes. Children enjoy books in many different ways at the same time, i will get to that in a moment. I want to talk about harry potter, a lot of people think that one of the milestones now is reading harry potter out loud to your kids, this is not your job, its not the parents jobs 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 find them frightening. But very importantly jk rolling wrote the first four books is middle grade books from ages 8 s in the series are for 12 and up. She decided to grow the series with the readers as she was riding in real time. There is a turning point at the edge of book for where one of the main characters, cedric, i hope im not a spoiler here, he dies and its a very traumatizing thing for some children to process. That is the transition from Childrens Book to young of adult books. Not every child is ready for it and when my kids were little everyone was showing off like my kid read all seven harry potters in kindergarten and that was the big thing that people wanted to show off, if your kid was not there, what appearance do they read out loud to make them feel like they were being left behind. But harry potter is the desert, you do not have defeat harry potter to your kids, that is a goal for them, that is something to inspire that is about reading being the reward, if your child wants to read harry potter, we intel she is ready to read those books and let her read themselves. Why would you give that away, thats a motivator for her. There were a lot of series that were not good reading for parents and i dont know how many parents of Young Children there are in this room but if youre a parent of girls, you probably know rainbow fairies, this is a great series were little kids, its a terrible series for adults, theres about 70000 of them written by a nonperson named daisy meadows who does not exist, girls who are four, five, six, 78, they love them, their torture for a parent to read aloud. The magic treehouse is similar, a huge long series, kids love them, most parents have to read them aloud and want to kill themselves after the fourth book because they start with the same prologue. Im not saying anything bad about these books, they serve a function, kids love them so they want to read in order to read this book, theyre not books that you need to read aloud tickets. And then this gets to the point, once they reading on their own, this is not true, picture books should stay in the picture all throughout childhood and beyond. Tricks picture books have their own beauty and function and if people did not 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 observe artwork individuals into understand how to read pictures and follow the sequence of events through the art of a visual storytelling. If your child is working on a book at school that 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 you read this on your own i will not read anywhere to you, you are essentially punishing them for becoming an independent reader. Many kids who have grown up in a home where the reading aloud to your child is a family habit and pleasure to get a pull out from underneath them at the moment there reading on their own is punitive. And moreover it denies them the opportunity to enjoy books that have a richer vocabulary that are visually interesting to them that they are getting for school. At the similar way as in early reader, you should read in on picture book to them but if you are reading the hobbit or little house on the prairie, whatever the series might be to continue to do that because kids are like adults, they enjoy storytelling in all of the various ways and just as many of us, while we might enjoy reading eden we might like to read a domestic thriller or spy novel, we might like to listen to books on audio. We like to enjoy books at different kinds of any given moment in kids in the same way. The best Childrens Books of the classics, again this is a myth, there are great classic books out there for kids, if you look at the sales of Childrens Books in this country, you will find that the books that continue to outsell all of the new books in the aggregate are the classics, there is a reason why and its because when we become new parents or new grandparents we say we cannot wait to share blueberries for south o sale. And theres nothing wrong with that but the people go back to that because they dont know the whole world that is out there and we are living in a new golden age for children, i dont to say that because i work at the book review and i did not to say that as a Childrens Book editor. I was so shocked by how good Childrens Books have become when i was a Childrens Book editor that i asked at the time i asked for my pages and when i got more pages, there were still more books that deserved attention and i continue to write and started writing one Online Review week, 52 additional books to cover a small sliver of the greatness that is out there. The books have improved at every age and every format. Even if its not board books, the board books that kids can chew on, theyre now available in any other formats, theyre indestructible, books that are deliberately created to go in the bathtub, all kinds of board books and because of production that has improved so much, a lot of the percentage in china and the books can be creative, there are things that they can do with cutouts, th a used to be you hae to bridge a picture book into a board book format because the board book cannot hold as many pages and now they have improved the production to the point where they dont have a bridge picture book, they are better than ever with picture books. I cannot describe to you, it is a shame that the book review has to be printed on news print because the glorious illustration in the quality of the stories is truly phenomenal, i have to say that the diversity of the Childrens Books in terms of the kinds of experiences and the children who are depicted in their pages has improved and or mostly. They reflect our world today, you cannot publish a picture book with all this thesis. That is good not only for children of color to see their self reflected in the books that they read but also good for children who are white and dont necessarily encounter those experiences in their everyday lives because they will. That is the world that their coming into an books are one of the most powerful pass for fostering empathy, its a way we can see through other peoples eyes, we can see their stories and learn about other experiences and that is something with picture books that all children can do. Theyre much more global, we have incredible children picture books coming from europe, latin america, now more and more from asia, china did not have a tradition of picture books and now they started in their producing really incredible work and all of that is coming over here, its a world are 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 and i would go alphabetical looking for the girls so i would go from obligor albums to clara to Dolley Madison and essentially it was all first ladies and nurses and that was great, i like to read about them, helen keller was an exception but now theres childrens biographies of everyone you can imagine from artist to entrepreneurs to writers to politicians she to public service, sports heroes, really across the spectrum. They are highly illustrated and beautifully produced, they run from quite young, the workbooks you mightve seen in the hero books for very Young Children growing to picture books with older kids, kids who are more visual readers who appreciate things, richford taught graffiti in the photography that is produced in all of these books because of the lower printing cost in asia has gotten much better. Now you have National Geographic in washington producing incredible photography books for kids and then there are lots of books of middle grade that really reflect the world in which kids are living now, another category and want to talk about as young adult books. When i was a kid young adult did not exist, he went from sweet valley high and leapfrog into sheldon with flowers in the attic, it was about incest, there was no books for teenagers. Now theres a whole category of books for teenagers that all their incarnations reflect kids experiences in desires and the way in which the writers work is remarkable because they know what theyre up against, they are up against tiktok, theyre up against fortnite, theyre up against instagram. These writers go for your heartstrings, if you as an adult have not read john greenes the full inner star, i think people know about to Cancer Patients who fall in love and dont cry. You do not have a heart. These look into the immediacy and the intensity of adolescent emotion in a way that books did not do it all when i was growing up. In terms of fantasy, these are very plot driven books because the writers know if they dont grab you by page two, they lost you to the internet or hulu or netflix or amazon or wherever else kids will going spend their free time. What can a parent do to raise a reader. I will run through some quick tips, just to give you some big ideas and very specific things that you can do. So reading should be fun, should not be a chore, reading is a pleasure. We have the abbreviated version. Add many tips for all of these but what i will say quickly about reading should be fun is that you are not there teacher, dont treat reading in the home i tore, read it like something that is special and i will give you one example of practical tips that we used in my home which is we told our kids when they were growing up they are still growing up, theyre not ten, 13 and 14 and they have a ways to go but when they were younger we would set a bedtime 7 00 oclock but then we would say if you want to stay up in bed quietly reading you can stay up until 730 pam. That tells them that reading is a privilege, you get to do because you are older and when 730 comes along, they dont say can i stay up late, they say can i finish the chapter can i finish the page, im almost done with the book. So you are training them in a way to want to read, to view reading and the positive light. Another big idea, everyone learns to read. Everyone learns to read, you are not there is a taskmaster, you can do a lot to help a child learn to read but the more that they are reading at home, the more that will ultimately help them read at school especially if you start early on. Do trust teachers to handle the nuts and bolts of reading, but kids go at their own pace, let them make mistakes, you do not have to correct them when they are reading and if you make a mistake that is a good thing, that is good for them to see this is an imperfect process. A lot of parents after a long day working in the office are exhausted. Ive slumped over many words as i was tersely reading to my kids, kids appreciate that adults make mistakes too. Create a family culture around reading. This is really important, when youre at the family table for dinner, you can talk about the books you are reading, not just what your Binge Watching on 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 we will watch a movie now, do you want to come. If you say no i meant to 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 for example you say all screens away in a public area at 8 00 p. M. That you follow that yourself. I know it can be very hard for adults but if youre sitting there saying its time to read and your scrolling on your phone, that sending a really mixed message. Its important for parents to be part of this too. Show respect. One thing i love, we have a whole area in the book is ways in which to incorporate part of your family culture, one thing for example that grandparents can do is rather i think frankly most parents would welcome this, rather than get your child a big toy or gift card when its a birthday, give them a book, personally inscribed to them when theyre born. Create a library of books that is just the books that they got from grandma or grandpa becomes a library from 0 onward. Donate books, inscribed books to her kids, teach them to treat them with respect, teach them to donate to the library, donate to schools, book fairs and let them show how books are made, whats behind it, take them to readings and allow them to see the process. When i was at the National Book festival, i would worry because they had a one big room for the largest and greatest authors, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the speaker and she had a full house with 7000 people on the waiting list in one of the other people who is going to be in the room was a very popular graphic novelist, i worried she would not fill up the room. I shouldnt of worried because her latest book which deals with children anxiety, hit number one on amazon before he came out and it was number one for a week after that. A huge success with kids in the room was filled overflow. One of the things that she did in the session was to show a slideshow of the books and artwork she created as a child and how her process worked as a graphic novelist drawing and writing the text for her book in kids were wrapped around the process. What engine let your child take charge. You want to make sure your child is allowed to maintain control over his or her bookshelf, let them. Reporter , dont judge what theyre reading, dont just say that book again even without is what youre secretly thinking. Allow them to feel your enthusiasm and response is important respect. I will end with an image, this is the bookshelf of one of my coauthor who has three kids, one of her sons bookshelves which he has arranged very deliberately according to his own interest and she is not allowed to touch them. Which is as it should be. Thank you so much. I welcome anyones questions and hopefully questions from all of you. Thank you. That was a wonderful and you can find many more tips in the book and what i particularly like is apparent, a lot of the book has recommendation for your role as a book on tear. If your child is obsessed with harry potter they may also like this. Its helpful in that way too. I want to talk about a couple of minutes on the question of the competing things. Our kids dont have a lot of free time so it feels very difficult to set aside reading time because theres so many other whether structured sports activity or school work or other obligations the kids have, how you create that time in your home and make that a priority for kids when it seems like Everything Else comes first. It is a challenge for everyone, as you said theres Extracurricular Activities and all this homework and distractions. Many on screens that tug at our childrens time and attention. That is why i stress the making books become something that kids want to do because ultimately a lot of this will come down to their choice, particularly as they get older and that is when you see a lot of fall off and that is when also the messaging that we as parents and our schools sent to kids is really important. One thing i find distressing, when you look at childrens libraries in school, the library and the elementary is incredibly rich and become middle school their Media Centers and computers take the priority in a lot of the books are being stripped out in the librarians being let go which is a mistake because what were trying to do is encourage enthusiasm. I do think carving out a time for reading, i think it is always time to read a book and my kids are always shoving it into the next and crannies in the little moments that they have in between Everything Else and that is honestly ideally what you want because to set it aside it creates this idea of a task of something that has to be done. The reading logs. That 20 minutes tonight, again thats a very different kind of mindset, i urge parents to really think about this, i hate to say it but in the same manipulative way that parents think about violent practice, you have to think about how to write create motivation as to reward or punishment or inducement because ultimately its going to be that kids choice. From an early age, i would say even if you have for an example is bedtime routine where you read before bed, make sure that is not the only time, its good for kids to have the practice because its also especially good for kids to wind down to a book and stamp a screen and keep screens out of the bedroom. You also want to make sure that they are reading in the morning when they wake up, that they read in between doing other things. Its things like always carrying books with you, when you go on vacation as a family, asking everyone what books they bring in. Again little mindset twist of you know what, we are not buying books. If you dont bring enough books and you run out, it is on you. We have the opposite problem that i always given at the bookstores, that is my family policy, i dont necessarily spoil them with Everything Else but i usually walk out of the bookstore with quite a big bill. I do too. Theres nothing you can do, look were not buying souvenirs but will always get you books from another country. While finding english language bookstore or if youre in the state or an english language country, although to go to the bookstore and we can pick out three books. That thing where that becomes part of what your family does. There is ways in which to arrange travel around that. Again does a kid need a battery pack for his iphone when you go on vacation, maybe not let it run out of batteries and make sure everyone brings a book every time they leave the house. Again no parent likes to have stuff scattered in the back of their cars but better it be boo books in the back of the car then random plastic toys that theyve gotten. I think ideally you dont really want to have a set time for reading. A read in an atmosphere where theyre looking for that time. I say this because im not the editor of a book, i encourage my kids to read Children Book reviews but the 12, ten and seven in the 12 and 10yearold i encourage them to read the wall street journal and the Childrens Book section and if they are interested and want to order so they can get into be professional book reviewers. Thats a great way to empower kids. I had moments where i had and felt like my kids did not know what to read. I might say heres six books you might like, what you pick the one you want to read to let them take the lead and give me a review. Obviously i had a professional advantage when i was a Children Book editor because i would 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 want to open it up for questions. If there are either specific book issues on the culture of bringing reading into your home. Who is your favorite Children Book illustrator. That is not easy, that is difficult. I have so many. It is really hard to choose. I will just mention one person who is a really versatile illustrator and he is also a comic book artist, his name is Patrick Mcdonnell. In my Favorite Book by him is called me jane of the childhood of jane goodall and how she groped and incorporates the drawing of jane goodall from her own notebooks as a child, how she groped observing the world around her and how that led her to become a scientist and ends with the production of the same image of jane, the photograph reaching to a baby chimpanzee in the chimpanzee reaching back to her to touch her hand. I cry every time i get to the final spread. What is so beautiful about the book, for very Young Children and he gets to what the way in which children think about the world around them, it starts off with jane going into the chicken coop to see how the eggs come to be, the questions that all children ask but what i also think is really beautiful about the book, its about nature and close observation and direct experience and very offscreen. But what Patrick Mcdonnell does, he does an incredibly funny book, he has the book on the perfectly messed up story and has an unidentifiable creature wandering along and is told in a very nice way, jack is having a wonderful day and he was going along and everything was sunny and bright and all of a sudden a blob of jelly lands on the page and breaks the wall and the character is upset that the jelly is interrupting his story and ruining it. And kids love that story. Im a big fan of books that make kids laugh. I think for any reluctant read reader, there is a lot of concern about boys around reading and as a mother of two sons i definitely can understand why because my sons are readers but not a lot of boys are in the statistics around are alarming. One great way is humor. I am really responding well to any books that make the kid laugh. Why do you think i was curious when i talked about the golden age of Childrens Books. It seems paradoxical that were experiencing fewer and fewer kids want to read for pleasure but there seems to be so much out there for them. Why do you see the golden age. Let me continue to talk about the boys for one second, i think its important when you look around statistics of voice in reading, this will come around to answer your question, boys read far less than girls, they are less likely in National Surveys to say that reading is a favorite activity for them, they read fewer books over the summer, many of them do not read a single book over the summer. I want to couple the statistics of two other things that we know from National Surveys, one is that both genders say they are less likely to see their fathers reading and their mothers reading. Again this gets back to role models, its really important that role models and that both parents that role models reading to the kids. Secondly both parents, mothers and fathers are less likely to read to their sons into their daughters. So i want to get back to the answering your question, one things people have observed and theres a lot more books for boys because it is a wider recognition of the many different ways in which kids read and some kids are more kinetic readers and visual readers and law a lot of parents of young boys with him i cant sit stil still what hes readino those great interactive books, popup books, books with pads and things to do. Im not talking about electronic buttons embedded in books, theres books that allow kids to get in there and i also say its okay but the kid is wandering around why youre reading, if they want to see within the picture they will come back and mostly they do because a picture tells a story. Also graphic novels are great way to get boys. When i talk about the National Geographic book, a lot of books are 101 wacky facts about animals or great sports moments. Those are books and its really important if your child gravitate to those books and many boys do, and girls, the boys were talking about, not to judge them and say thats just a graphic novel or comics. Because many of us when you look at the great authors and asked them the same question in the times regularly buy the book what did you read growing up, many novelist groped reading superhero comics, so everyone can still enjoy those books and grow to appreciate Edith Wharton in adulthood. There are a lot more books out there for those kinds of readers to resolve the problem. I think graphic novels, you might look down at dog man and captain underpants and i did before i looked into the and now i dont look down on those books, i look up to those books, those books are doing something really incredible, those books, the wimpy kid book, cat in the underpants, those are getting kids books to read who otherwise probably would not read, those kids love those books, they will move on to other books. Again there is a recognition and catering to a greater variety of readers. One of the things i wanted to pick your brain, you mentioned the new category in my older two have gone more into the why a category and some of the material seems to be inappropriate for even kids who are the target for it. Ive tried to figure out what makes the book of why a book and how we can figure out maybe we need to why a categories or Something Like that if the parent is not going to read every why a book before handing it over to a child. I think what is appropriate and inappropriate in a beer towards allowing them to read inappropriate books. I do this for a number of reasons because if you are trying to get kids to read a book, theres nothing to induce especially a teenager than saying that is not appropriate for you if you really want your teenager to read a book tell them that they cant and they will read the book. If they are going to learn about something dangerous and learn about something unknown, something that you think is beyond their years, my kids of done all and i share some horrifying stories, the way i tell myself this, would you rather than read in a book that has been carefully looked at, rewritten, written again, edited, overseen by people making sure not to upset, to offend take care to the academic market and the institutional market or rather them go online and google improve and also the book experience allows them to process in a way that seen it on a screen or in a movie takes a lot more time. My kids when they have seen something from siri or unappropriate, theyre much more likely to have a nightmare about the movie then tell me theyre having nightmares because they read something scary in the book that happens. And this is talking about a culture of readers, and enables you to have a conversation with your kid because remember this to the kids of all ages very often find it easier to talk about the difficult situation or emotion or experience when its not about them. It is about someone else, its about character in a book and you can talk about it that way. If its something theyre worried about and unable to talk in terms of himself, theres a character in the book that is cutting themselves and i dont understand what that means. It would be a nerveracking moment when my daughter was only ten years old and she came downstairs and she was reading a book at the book for kids his age 12 and she said what is this word mean and it was heroin. And i did not know we were going to have that conversation yet. And my son reads books about sports figures and sports history and the history. The reason why it was in the book is because a character in the book had a sister who was an opioid addict, thats an issue that affects a lot of americans and if you think about those americans who have a situation in their family lives or their community to see that in a book and see it handled sensitively and in context, that is hugely powerful to the child to see something that might be upsetting or disturbing handled in a way. My daughter was completely new, again, i think id rather her learn about their then somewhere that i have 0 control over and she wont come to me and say what is this. So hurt trial to google something, to say i dont think it should have seen that they wont bring it up necessarily but a book that something they know they talk to you about what they read, thats what your family does that they will come to a parent and ask. One last question, i know you suggested one of the tips is reading should not be competitive. What we are trying to induce our kids, we use competition for that to happen among siblings who can read the most books or whatever it is. I was wondering why you think that is particularly harmful in the context of reading. Again its about rewards and not about intransit rewards. You have three children so you know, my first child was a girl in my second was a boy and when i was pregnant with my third i thought would you be like this one or that one, its a totally different child. There are all three really different readers so theres no competition in a way, my daughter reads for comfort and reads really trashy stuff but she also will read history and right now she was given in school she said im ditching the someone to read the real book. So shes reading 300 pages. My mongol child loves classic anything that has a seal he wants to read it. He is 13 and mostly reading adult books. But what was interesting with him he would read books, he read the jungle book for example and then he came away with this and this is where i told parents to trust kids because he came back and he said these books are well, theres racist stuff in here. And i thought that is interesting. Some people will say dont give your kids those books, protect them from that but i think many kids can handle it, you know your child best so you know the things that they can process and my younger child likes to read encyclopedias which is the last thing i want to read in my other two would not want to read that. I think of it they are all different, you dont want to set them against each other and what you dont want to do with kids is have one child say theyre not a reader, soandso is so good and shes the reader, say no, youre reading all these different kinds of books, your reading fact books or long novels, thats what you do. Each kid has different taste so sometimes they have arguments over whether the other sibling might like such a book because they only read the kind of book. In the other sibling will get upset and say no oil like those books too. Another way to empower your kids into more cooperative ways of doing it, as each of my kids weeded books out of the room because you can imagine my profession they get a lot of books, they have to go through them and asked them weed out your books, which ones do you think should go to this kid, which one do you think should go to a cousin because you dont think either of your brothers will be into it and they actually really love the process of thinking im the older brother or sister and i know the younger one better and im going to give him these books and then it becomes something that fosters a different atmosphere. Thank you and please join me in thanking pamela paul for joining us today. Once again thank you so much. [applause] sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words. Abc news chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Carl provides a behindthescenes look at the trope of administration in his book front row at the trump show. He is interviewed by mike mccurry former White House Press secretary in the clinton administration. You have enemy of the people which is a phrase which is but a little bit of time in the book about the origins of the phrase, its a very ugly phrase that has been used by stalin, used by hitler during the french revolution and basically the justification, the people that were targeted by the law under which they were found guilty and beheaded, the actual law uses that phrase enemy of the people. Watch after words with Jonathan Carl, sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv on cspan2. Television has changed since he spent begin 41 years ago. But our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus, you can watch all of cspan Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on the free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through thessocial media feed, cspan created by private and as a public service, brought to you today by your television provider. Next marianne describes how your brain processes and greader, come home. And evening. I am clear in behalf of harvard bookstore, thank you for joining with an event with Maryanne Wolf who is here to discuss her new book reader, come home the reading brain and the digital world, before we dive and i want to take a moment to let you know about our upcomingeron events, t means one thing, fiction fridays, for the rest of a