Discovering the joy of reading

I read this article on the bus this morning. I liked the conclusion: the dad realizes that pushing books on his kid isn't going to make him want to read. One thing that might, though, is reading with him. What better way to spend family/quality time with your child!?

I know that if someone had tried to force me to read, I would have bucked completely. It has to be something you discover for yourself. I know I was amazed to find out that I could finish a book by myself instead of waiting for someone to read me the next chapter. It was my own secret hideaway. And from the moment of that discovery on, I read voraciously. Everything I could get my hands on.

What I'm going to make sure is that my kids can get their hands on plenty of good quality reading material. I think my high school years were such a waste: no bookstore in town (and no money to buy books anyway), and the only thing could find to read at the library was Sidney Sheldon and Ken Follett. What a waste of time... I mean, you can still learn something from that type of book, and I enjoyed reading them, but I could have been reading much more thought-provoking and stimulating novels. There are a lot of "classics" out there that I wish I had time to read. Back then, I had a ton of time, and got through a book a day. That's why I was what a waste of time.