I LOVE picture books, especially picture books that inspire me as an artist. My grandparents made sure we had tons of books growing up, subscribing to Scolastic books and the like for us from the momemnt we could hold a book in our hands. The thing is picture books didn’t inspire me to read. They inspired me to draw and paint, even now the favorite picture books from my childhood inspire me as an artist.

What inspired me to read were those great big books my mom put up high so I wouldn’t destroy them–books like Winnie-the-Pooh, Heidi, A.A. Milne’s poems, a couple Reader’s Digest anthologies for kids, a book of poetry with very few illustrations but designed for children, and several great big sets of vintage children’s books–short on pictures bu full of bits and pieces from wonderful children’s stories through the ages. I would often ask my mom to read to me from them as they were a mystery to me, these books with few pictures but so man words that were clearly designed for children.

Another thing that made me want to read was seeing her cuddled up on the couch, reading a novel. I would snuggle up to her, trying to get her attention. When that didn’t work I would look over her shoulder, trying to figure out what held her attention. To this day I still remember that wall of words and how I couldn’t understand what was so great about it. Every once in a while she would pause her reading to see what I wanted, and I would always ask, regardless of what I had originally wanted, where the pictures were and why she wanted to read a book without pictures. She would always reply, “because I enjoy a good story and like reading books.” Then she would return to reading and I would look over her shoulder, staring at the page trying to see if I could decipher any of the words on it, trying to make sense of the blur of squiggles. Sometimes, if it were a suitable book, she would take a moment to read aloud some bit that I would point out to her, asking what it said. It would be years before I would learn to read and enjoy it because I struggled with the way they taught reading in school–teaching words I didn’t care about, that didn’t follow any rules, reading stories that were stupid and pointless. It wasn’t until I was older and found books I wanted to read that my voracious appetite for reading developed, and never for the books that were supposed to read (except for The Scarlett Letter, which I loved and then got in trouble because I didn’t read it slowly with the class–1 chapter a week but instead read the whole thing in a night and then moved on to other books that I devoured.)

Nowadays I often read aloud to the kids from chapter books with no pictures–the kids know not to ask to see the pictures but one or all will sit by me, looking over my shoulder reading with me (or in Esther’s case, taking the book when I stop for the night and reading the rest on her own.) When I read to myself, Issac–my new reader, will often come cuddle next to me, looking over my shoulder, occasionally stopping me, reading a few words aloud, asking if he read it right, then asking me to reread the whole sentence together so he can hear how it is supposed to sound.

And I am thinking that, on the whole, that is a much better, way to learn to read.