For the Love of Reading

So I came from a Parent-Teacher-Conference for my son.  The teacher said he needs to read more books so that it can help strengthen his vocabulary and spelling and also help with his writing skills.  I totally agree with all of this. 

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.”