Creating Book Lovers: 3 tips for raising book lovers

To tell the truth, Creating Book Lovers or raising kids who love to read was never a concern of mine until I had kids even though I am a self-professed bibliophile. I assumed that once you find something you like reading about you just naturally would read more, and more, and more. The truth is, we live in a very visual, distracting world and reading is an option, but it’s not the only option. These days Creating Book Lovers! or raising our kids to love to read isn’t as easy as you would think.

 Thanks to this article I did more research than I’ve done since my kids were very little and I have to say I didn’t do that much research when I had my kids. I assumed that simply by modeling the behavior and making sure they learn to read at an early age. They would become Book Lovers, but what I didn’t consider was the amount of competition books have these days so it takes a little more to really get your kids on the path to loving books. 

For this article in honor of National Book Lovers day which is August 7th 2021, I did Research into various books such as Jim Trelease’s book The read-along handbook: 8th Edition and articles from the Washington Post and a couple of teaching blogs from Pinterest. All of these turned out to be great sources of information on how to create Book Lovers and in light of that I would like to share with you my three favorite tips. 

1.Be an active reader

2.Don’t Shun the graphic novel

3.Share your love of reading, don’t just model it.

1. Be an active reader.

 I thought being an active reader just meant getting into what you are reading or paying attention to what you’re reading, but that’s not the meaning at all. Being an active reader to create a book lover means making reading an active experience. Showing that reading can be an active part of things you do, for example crafting or cooking things you read about in books. I am a huge fan of reading aloud to kids, so creating activities around what I read is the natural next step for me. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be as simple as creating special memories like in author Christine Francine children’s book Special Memory.

2. Don’t shun the graphic novel or activity book. (quote from Tips on how to help kids become readers) Okay I’m going to have to show my age for a minute here back when I was in school you didn’t read books with pictures in them unless you were in elementary school. Plus towards the end of elementary school, people started to move away from the fun stuff such as comic books, activity books and coloring books. Today that is not the case. Comic books, graphic novels and other visual literary art forms have been fighting and innovating to change the literary world. Graphic novels are changing minds by not just having legions of devoted fans, but they are now winning coveted awards such as the Jon Newbery Award. Graphic novels no longer have that stigmatism of not being real literature and activity books are just for kids. Adult coloring books and activity books have taken the world by storm. They can enhance the reading experience. Try reading books like Tracy Diane, Mini Me Geology that have activity books that you can do with your child.

3. Share your love of reading, don’t just model it.

This is one of those tips, I had to learn the hard way because like most bibliophiles; I thought my kids would naturally read a lot, because they would see me do it all the time. This was not the case. Sadly, like all things with parenting, it takes way more work for the parent than the kid or others give credit for. Just reading in front of kids or, as some call it, modeling the behavior isn’t enough to spark the love of reading book lovers have. So share your love of books by reading books on their level with interest you both share. For instance, if you’re a hockey fan you could read Stacy Drumtra- Juba Hockey Rivals books. Read aloud together and talk about it. 

There are a lot of great sources out there with information on how to Create Book Lovers. Be an active reader, Don’t shun the graphic novel or activity book and Share your love of reading, don’t just model it are just three of my favorites. I would love to hear what yours are. Leave a message in the comments to share and join us for Creating Book Lovers live on Facebook August 7, 2021. Authors Christine Francine, Stacy Drumtra- Juba and Tracy Diane will be reading from their books and answering a few questions. You can watch live on our facebook page @TheAuthorEncounter  or  join us via zoom from our website.