It seems like I hear comments about how readers are a dying breed fairly often. I don't know that I believe that. Maybe we just need to expand our definition of what makes a reader.
During the school year, myself and two of my writing besties, Amanda Strong and Gail Wagner, do school presentations and we ask the kids how many of them like to read.
The first round of hands is usually fairly small, unless we're in an advanced or accelerated reader class. Then we have to clarify. Reading isn't just novels. Reading can be comics, nonfiction, graphic novels, textbooks, news, magazines...
More hands pop up, and their interest piques when they realize we're not criticizing them for not necessarily loving to read Twilight or Hunger Games. Any form of reading is awesome. It expands your mind, teaches you, and helps you see more than just the world around you. That can be accomplished with pretty much any form or reading.
I'd also like to add audiobooks to that list.
Audiobooks are something my family likes to listen to on road trips. Usually it's nonfiction, like the amazing narrative nonfiction book, Unbroken, which is being made into a movie next year. If you haven't read/listened to it, please do. It's an amazing story.
My eight-year-old daughter recently discovered that audiobooks aren't limited to long car rides. She asked if she could listen to an audiobook on my phone the other night, and she's hooked! Her first solo audiobook was The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is only about 15 minutes and she didn't understand a lot of it, but I only had a few on my phone the moment she asked.
Next try at audiobooks was Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Long Haul. She finished listening in two days and immediately wanted more. Now she's listening to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. That one will take her a little while!
Her discovery that audiobooks exist for young readers has interrupted our Anne of Green Gables nightly reading, but I'm okay with that. Not because I don't love Anne, because I do, but because this is the first time my daughter has really wanted to read on her own. It's always been something she only asked to do at night before bed, like it was weird to read any other time!
Now, she wants to grab her audiobook whenever she has free time, and I want to encourage that as much as possible.
