Sometimes — or maybe most of the time — it’s hard to get my 10-year-old daughter to read. She’s a child of the 21st century, meaning she’s intrigued by animated programs, Power Rangers, Nick, the Disney Channel and video games.
And oh, is she a video gamer! Pokémon, Pokémon, Pokémon! Along with online kids’ gaming sites like Roblox, Club Penguin and Animal Jam. I know that once she’s in front of that TV or that computer screen, she’s gone!
Time and time again, my daughter told me she doesn’t like to read because she’d rather play her video games. Typical parenting issue.
So how to get my child to read? It’s pretty simple: let her read whatever she wants to read, I was advised.
My daughter loves manga and comic books. So of course that’s what I let her read. If a parent were to force their child to read what he or she doesn’t want to read — if a parent were to say that comic books aren’t good literary food, so to speak — that would turn a child off to reading.
When I talked to a writer friend of mine about this dilemma, he told me it’s not a detriment to let a child read comic books or graphic novels. According to him, if a youth reads a graphic novel adapted from a literary classic, the graphic novel would encourage that youth to read the original book.
Nowadays, my daughter has happily expanded her reading choices. She’s reading Anastasia Krupnick by Lois Lowry and novels about wolves.