I’ve been thinking about pre-adult reading lately because next week at Bouchercon I get to moderate an author panel on the books that inspired us to write.

As I sat with my dad this morning, we talked about how, when I was a girl, he would take me on the weekend to the K-12 country school he was superintendent of and let me into the school library, all by myself, where I could read ANYTHING I WANTED. It was amazing. Like the way I imagined being locked into Bakersfield’s Dewars Ice Cream shop overnight. Reading has always been a delicious pleasure to me.

So I was sad to learn in the LA Times that “high school students can’t read” anymore. I don’t want to be one of those luddites who disparages stories kids find in places other than books. I love movies and comic books and audiobooks and plays and ballads. All of them.

But it does make me feel something is lost when young people don’t also experience the slow, earned pleasure of reading.

It takes work to read. You can’t just receive the story. You have to fetch it with your eyes and your mind. It’s a kind of exercise. Maybe that’s why I tend to love a story more when I’ve been immersed in a book. I’ve earned the pleasure. When I watch a story on television, I can doom scroll on my phone at the same time. It doesn’t get all of my attention.

I don’t know exactly what to say about this. Is it just a natural, logical progression of culture? Will we regret it when no one reads anymore? What personal characteristics will wash away when nobody learns to focus for long periods of time to do the work of seeing the meaning of those abstract shapes on a page? I don’t know. But it makes me sad. How about you?

What can we do about it? If you live in the Sacramento area, I know a great program that supports kids in becoming good readers. You can be a volunteer for 916 Ink’s READ ON program. Local students receive reading instruction, anchored in the science of reading, from volunteer tutors and 916 Ink staff/service members. Lessons include instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

And with those skills, doors are opened. All kinds of doors. In the students and in the volunteers.

Or you can form a book club. I recently visited a group that has been gathering to talk about books for forty years! Obviously they’ve connected over more than what they read. But man, this was a group of great readers—smart, funny, connectors. I’d love to meet with your group. Book clubs are my favorite.

Make time to read. If you’re looking for a little late-summer reading, for the beach or the train or the plane, I hope you’ll consider picking up one of the Jane Benjamin novels. Just curl up and disappear into a different time period that’s also a bit like now.

Bookish things I’m doing.

The dog days of summer are full of bookish things for me. The Killer Nashville Conference (where Tomboy has been named a Top Pick), Bouchercon, where I’ll speak on the panel mentioned above, a Pen Parentis Salon, a trip to Le Château de Thauvenay in Sancerre, France, where I’ll put the finishing touches on my work in progress before turning it in to my publisher. I’ll also get to investigate the World War II French resistance, headquartered in Sancerre. (Sounds like a promising novel, don’t you think?)

Now let’s all curl up and disappear into a story. What do you say?