I had a lot of friends as a kid. Anne of Green Gables, all the March girls, the Hardy Boys, Katy of What Katy Did, the Naughtiest Girl in School and countless other imaginary people were significant in my early life. The world of books was as important to me as the “real world”. Sometimes more so.
My seven year old son doesn’t seem anywhere near as enamoured with reading as I was at the same age. As someone who still considers a good book one of life’s greatest pleasures, this worries me. So when Dymocks literacy expert Ryan Spencer invited me to ask questions about kids and books, I had quite a few. Particularly around boys and reading. This is a longer than normal post but I found the answers so helpful that I had to publish all of them. I hope you find the below as enlightening (and encouraging) as I did.