Browsing: Reluctant Readers

Elizabeth Singer Hunt is the bestselling author of the hugely popular Jack Stalwart series. Her love of adventure and travel is what inspired her to create her globe-trotting children’s book character, nine-year-old Secret Agent Jack Stalwart. More than 1 million books have been sold worldwide and the series has been published in multiple languages.

Of course, every boy isn’t a reluctant reader. A lot of boys love books. All we’re trying to do is get as many as possible to strike their pup-tents in camp #1 and pitch them in Camp #2.

On the first day of summer vacation when I was twelve years old, I got on my bicycle, rode three miles down the street through a tunnel of new leaves, emerged into lemon-colored sunshine in the middle of town, racked my bike, opened the front door of the library to release its peppery aroma into the juicy green afternoon, and saw a book with a fantastic cover awaiting me on the nearest wooden table: M.C. Higgins The Great.

Sometimes, as I ponder tactics for encouraging the “reluctant readers” in my life (typically late-elementary through middle-school boys), I cast my mind back to an earlier generation’s paragon of averseness, Mikey [Life cereal commercial]. Only instead of confronting Mikey with healthy breakfast cereal, in my imagination, I confront him with fiction.

Back in the days when we drank gallons of Tang and ran wild in the neighborhood like dogs without leashes, these books were called comic books. Now they’re graphic novels and have fancy covers and binding so they don’t fall apart.