I used to have a bookmark from way back in elementary school, probably, that said “RIF: Reading is fun!”
I probably got it from a Bookmobile (Remember those?!) or a book fair in the library or something. I thought it was a little weird that anyone would have to promote reading: DUH! Of course, reading is fun; tell me something I don’t know. I loved to read mysteries, especially, back then. (I read every Nancy Drew book in the Brosville Middle School library.) Today, I prefer the classics.
Since then, I’ve known a LOT of people (mostly students) who do not believe that reading is fun. On the contrary, some of them considered (I’m using the past tense in hopes that they’ve by now seen the light 😉 the act of reading tantamount to serious torture. No whimsically decorated bookmark could convince them otherwise. And neither could an English teacher (namely moi).
When I met Kevin, he wasn’t that into reading either. He didn’t dread it, I don’t guess, but he didn’t think it was fun either. Now, he reads a lot. I don’t think he’d call it fun now, even. When I just asked him if he thinks reading is fun, he said, “Yes, if it’s something I want to read.” A convert!!
I don’t find time to read for fun much anymore (although I did sign up for a reading challenge this year), but I’m reading pretty much all the time.
A lot of my reading is on the Internet: Twitter and Facebook posts, blog posts, news articles. And a lot of it is for my job: tons and tons of essays (Multiply my 124 students by the 10 or so essays they have to write for their portfolios).
Today, I juggled comic books and narrative essays, and although neither is the kind of reading I exactly prefer, I could do much worse on a Saturday.
Your right, Jo, reading is for fun when you have the time and are not bogged down with required reading. I was actually drawn to this pic because of the X-Men comic. I’ve collected comics on and off since I was 14 and X-Men has always been an integral title in one form or another. So has Wonder Woman. And Margaret Atwood (oops, that last one isn’t a comic… yet).
D’oh. “You’re”.
I never really got into comic books, but (in a house full of boys) I’ve grown to really enjoy superhero movies and TV series. The X-Men issue in the picture was really interesting because it gave additional info on some of the characters I already knew from the movies, but we also have one called X-Men 2099 that’s really odd: new characters altogether, like the next generation, I guess. They’re all growing on me.
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