Reading kids books

For 26 years of my life I struggled to read and/or complete books

For 26 years of my life I struggled to read and/or complete books

In the past 18 months I have worked hard to change that. I have tried and failed many times but this time I have been successful.

I changed my view on reading from “I’m reading a book” to “I’m reading a movie.” This instantly made it more interesting, but actually sitting down, opening a book and finishing it was still hard.

I tried reading novels but lost interest before I finished them or completely forgot I was reading one at all. They were too long. I needed something smaller and easier.

So I started reading kids books.

Kids books turned out easy to read, which wasn't a surprise but they also turned out not as boring or empty as I was anticipating. They can actually be really interesting and even deep.

It occurred to me that they are written by adults who are channeling life experiences and life lessons in an easy to digest way. In plain English. No fancy words. No trying to sound smart. Short, sharp sentences that get straight to the point.

The stories are written to attend to kids short attention span. And we are all kids in that respect. We all have a short attention span thanks to things like Facebook and Twitter. We are used to skimming over content and taking it in bite size chunks.

Two children’s books in particular caught my interest and over the last year I have read them a few times. They both have good messages and are just a fun read.

The Phantom Tollbooth―a boy finds himself alone in his room bored after school. Then he finds a tollbooth and passes through it into another world. What follows is a creative story filled with interesting characters and metaphors which reminded me that every day can be fun and different, if you look hard enough.

Alberic the Wise―a young man questions life and considers what he wants to do with his own. He meets an old wise man who has travelled the world and so he sets off to do the same in order to become wise and discover his own purpose.

Reading a novel can be quite an effort and even more so after a long day at work. Reading these books was easier. And my confidence grew because I was able to consume the whole of them, cover to cover.

Soon I was more interested in longer and more detailed stories and I was able to finish them as well.

In hindsight I realize it wasn't so bad learning to read novels this way and in fact it has been rewarding. At some point I stopped reading from the children/teen shelves but now I’m not so quick to dismiss them.

I might even be seeking them out.

Here are some worth reading: The Little Prince, The Dot and the Line, Where the Wild Things Are, The Phantom Tollbooth, Deadly!, Alberic the Wise, Wicked!

If you have a favorite book, whether it be recently or from your childhood, let me know.