The thing is, ever since he started grade school, I have
been trying to get him to read books. I
was looking for a boy’s version of what the Sweet Valley Kids was for me. Or maybe this generation’s Bobbsey Twins. I have tried to find books he would be
interested in—comic books, story books, K-Zone, kiddie book versions about
movies and tv shows he liked, choose-you-own-adventures kinda books but nothing
really clicked.
I thought the love of reading books was something you can
teach but seeing it with my kid plus finding out that another kid (who is a
year younger) had already blew through the Harry Potter series made me realize that
you are either a book person or you are not.
My penchant for book collecting started way earlier during
pre-school but the love of reading started around seven or eight years
old. I remember finishing a Sweet
Valley Kids Book and thinking to myself, I wanna read more of these. I was so stoked when I discovered the treasure
trove of Bobbsey Twins books in our library. And then there was a family trip
to the neighboring city and I begged my parents to buy me a book about
Philippine Monsters. I was poring over
that book for the rest of the trip. And
I could go on and on.
This unexplainable desire to read books is not shared by
everyone. With my own siblings, one
brother is like me and the two others aren’t avid book readers. I know that my hubby, in his entire life, has
not read a single book cover-to-cover.
There are just people who are not into reading. There are people who like to read once in a
while. And there are people like me, who
“chain reads”.
Maybe my kid isn’t a “chain-reader” like me. But I’m
still hoping to he’d fit into the middle category of “people who like to read
once in a while.”
