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The Non-Reading Reader
… Sports Illustrated and USA Today.
Needless to say, I have not been a lifelong member of the Nerdy Book Club. After twenty-four book reports in third grade (and still in possession of the dittoed certificate to prove it), I left books behind for the world of weekly sports magazines, baseball statistics, and the newspaper for people who lack the attention span for TV. I was a proud straight-B student. Many words and phrases were used to describe me from age ten to twenty-one. “Not working up to potential” was the report card’s way of saying “slacker.” One teacher told my parents that I “socialized excessively.” She probably told fellow teachers that I “never shut up.”
On the other hand, “reader” was never used. And I believed it. I was not a reader in the eyes of my teachers and therefore not a reader in my own eyes. But I was reading. My daily diet included award-winning authors like Frank Deford, Rick Reilly, Peter King, Paul Zimmerman, Gary Smith, and Steve Rushin. Not household names in the world of children’s literature, but in sports journalism? The cream of the crop. Was it my fault nobody ever asked?
I was a reader. I know that now. I was a reader even if I wasn’t a book reader.
But that would change. My membership in the Nerdy Book Club began the week I finished college, to be exact. All it took was a case of pink eye.
And now, here I sit. I am at a table in a Barnes and Noble coffee shop surrounded by people caught up in the pre-Christmas rush. (It is December 10 as I write.) I have been reading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, and I have been crying. Crying and not caring that I may have added an unwanted “bah-humbug” to the “ho, ho, ho” of these Christmas shoppers. Not caring that my sniffles are no doubt distracting the gift wrappers directly behind me. But this is what books do. To me. To us. This is what happens when a book matters.
I am hoping there is another member of the Nerdy Book Club amongst the crowd. Just one. One person who sees me and understands.
My wife joined me two chapters from the end, just as the monster insisted that Conor tell the fourth tale. Insisted that Conor tell the truth. That he must. My wife took one look at me and understood. She quietly said hello, got me a napkin, and said she needed to use the restroom – NBC code for “I’ll go away now and let you finish.”
She gets it. She’s been a Nerdy Book Club member since birth. She’s also the one responsible for both my college case of pink eye and entrance into the NBC.
My last week of college was spent student teaching. But while everyone else was taking finals, I got pink eye and could not go to school. I was bored and made the point clear to my future wife. “You whined,” she tells me.
“But you’re the one who gave me pink eye!”
“You whined.”
As Clementine would say, “Okay, fine.”
“Here,” she said that day, thrusting copies of Maniac Magee and Number the Stars into my hands. “Read these and be quiet.” And she left.
So I did. Read them both. Loved them both. For the first time I can remember, someone gave me books chosen specifically for me. These were books she loved herself and books she felt I would love too. She gave me books that mattered. To me. For me.
She didn’t try to convince me that the the next class novel on the approved curriculum was something I’d probably like. She didn’t find me an eight-pointer because I was six points short of my quarterly goal (and didn’t trust me to get 10 of 10 on the quiz). She didn’t choose randomly from a list of Best Books for Reluctant Readers. Instead, she chose books specifically for me. Books that mattered.
When she came to see me that evening, I told her I wanted more, that I needed another book as good as the first two. That beautiful, loving, kind, smart woman reached into her bag and pulled out The Giver. The first two books opened the door. The Giver shoved me through. Three months before my first official day in front of an elementary classroom and I was finally a member of the Nerdy Book Club.
So keep an eye out, everybody, for readers who don’t look like readers and for the books (or magazines or newspapers) that will help your readers love reading.
And try to keep the pink eye from spreading.
Brian Wilhorn
Brian is a grade 5/6 classroom teacher and reading teacher in central Wisconsin. He is @HelpReaders on Twitter and writes at Help Readers Love Reading.
Nerdy Book Club 
Hi Brian
I love how you articulate the need for someone to guide us to good things to read. And how we have to be open for those moments, too.
I loved this: “Instead, she chose books specifically for me. Books that mattered.”
The first part of your post reminds me how not all readers read books with joy. This is why I keep magazines, and comics, and graphic novels, and other non-traditional text in the classroom. It’s also why I line my closet door with articles of interest from Wired Magazine. Reading comes in many forms, and it is too bad you felt embarrassed with Sports Illustrated and the newspaper.
And while there are plenty of areas to criticize with the Common Core Curriculum, one thing we can acknowledge is the push for a mix of reading opportunities for our students, so that novels are not the only kind of text they see in school. Other forms of text, in various disciplines, are valued in the Common Core.
Kevin
It’s the “guiding” us to good things to read, not “giving” us good things to read, isn’t it? (“Giving” meaning “assigning” in this case.)
I don’t remember being embarrassed to read what I was reading, necessarily, but I do know I would have had a difficult time defending my choices at that time. It was too fun to be educational.
I loved this post. I think this is part of the reason why we end up with boys who see themselves as “reluctant readers” when they really are just reading things that schools don’t value.
I need to figure out how to show my students that I value all the types of reading they do – not just novels.
Thank you, Brian, for reminding us how we can play a role in connecting readers with things they like to read. Magazines, pink eye, Number the Stars, whatever it takes.
Just to be clear, I enjoyed the magazines and Number the Stars. The pink eye … not so much. 🙂
Great post, but now I have a question…to be in the Nerdy Book Club, do you have to actually read books? I know the title suggests it but, like you said, you were reading great journalism and you were reading voraciously but adults didn’t recognize that. Doesn’t that make the case that you were a reader and always part of the Nerdy Book Club if we consider that you were reading even if it wasn’t actually books?
I remind myself all the time that you don’t have to be a book or fiction reader to be a reader. I have a student who reads the paper from front to back every day. I don’t do that, but does that mean his reading should be less valued than mine?
I think you were already in the Nerdy Book Club when you were devouring Sports Illustrated and USA today but I’d be curious to hear what other Nerdy Book Club members think!
If there are some sort of retroactive benefits to being in the Nerdy Book Club back then, then I’m all for forcing this through NBC committee. 🙂
This Christmas I received The Life of Reilly by Rick Reilly, a compilation of his Sports Illustrated articles from the mid-eighties through the early 2000s, and was reminded why I enjoyed reading SI so much. Rereading his article on Jack Nicklaus in the 1986 Masters was spectacular. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1064735/index.htm
And I just realized something: I was reading books back then – the articles just hadn’t been put into a compilation yet!
Jen – I have gone through all kinds of phases – the only non-fiction book phase, the mass market paper back formulaic mystery book phase, the cookbook and cooking magazine phase, and I always saw myself as a reader. I think we need to recognize that children who start with fact books or magazines are still readers and should be encouraged to grow as readers.
Brian – I would say you have been a member of the NBC since those early days of Sports Illustrated. Thanks for a great post.
Am I a total nerd for thinking THIS IS SUCH A ROMANTIC STORY?
That’s an angle I didn’t anticipate, but I’ll take it. 🙂
I was thinking the same thing!!
Love this post! Your wife picked some great books for you to find your way to the NBC back then and I’m so glad she did. Thanks for sharing.
Katherine
You are the boy who challenged me as a 7th grader with the words “I’ve never finished a book.” You are the same boy who came to me as a high school senior and said “OK. You got me to read in 7th grade. I need some books now.” You are the same boy who wrote me from Afghanistan and said “Will you please buy these books for me? I’ll pick them up when I am home on leave and pay you for them…” All it takes is someone who cares and the right book to make someone (even a boy) to be a nerdy book club member!
Love this post. It brought back a favorite memory and reminded me to keep a watch out for those boys who say they don’t read!
If any of my former teachers met me today and said “You are the boy who challenged me,” I’d be forced to respond, “Yes, I probably am.”
Thanks for taking the time to share your story. Your one paragraph said just as much as my entire post. Thank you.
Too often we use ‘reading fiction’ as our criteria for determining who is a reader, and you help all of us see that is not true. When 80% of what we read in a day is nonfiction, how can it be?
However, when we know our students and know books, we can offer another reading experience for each of them…one that might lead them to other books that we love and beyond that to finding their own favorites. Then, they can pay it forward to their friends and classmates by sharing those titles.
Mentoring is a huge part of the job we do as teachers of children. True joy comes in helping them see themselves as readers, no matter what they choose to read.
And here’s a recommendation from me. I think you might enjoy another Rick Reilly book called Hate Mail from Cheerleaders. Our family has great respect for Rick Reilly and his writing. We have cried our way through many of his ‘last page’ columns for SI and have memorable shared reading experiences because of them.
Thanks for the recommendation – I already have Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and love it. I’m still following Reilly on espn.com and read his articles as soon as they’re published. For years I’ve been using an article of his titled Getting a Second Wind in reading presentations to illustrate how readers connect to what they read. How many of us can relate to this article in some way? http://goo.gl/WQk4q
And if anyone is curious why he gets hate mail from cheerleaders, read on: http://goo.gl/QXpDx
I have always been a member of the NBC. However, as a teacher I know a lot of my students aren’t. I hated AR because it meant students would choose the easy way out and not reach for those books we know are so good. I fill my room with books. I give book talks and line them up on my white board tray. I talk loudly to one student about a book knowing others are listening and will eventually make their way over to the bookshelves looking for that book. For me joy and accomplishment comes when a parent calls and says, “I don’t know what you did to my child. Before your class we couldn’t get them to pick up a book and now we have to take it out of their hand so they can eat.” Forcing a child to read what they don’t like is a turn off. Teaching to pick books they will like and learning to abandon a book is what makes them a member of the NBC.
There are those books, and other things to read, that do shove students through the door into reading. Like someone earlier, the key word to use is guide. I also want to add that peers recommending is a big part of getting some to read, the ‘good’ kind of peer pressure. Thanks for a great and poignant story. I wish everyone could learn that reading is intensely personal in choice.
Great post and I also thought the story was a little romantic! (I’m a sucker, what can I say??) I definitely think anyone who “reads” is a member of the NBC. I teach a boy who daily devours every Ripley’s Believe it or Not encyclopedia, TIme Almanac, or books with sports records and stats in them. He uses every chance he can to tell me a fact or interesting tid bit. I would not take that excitement or interest away from him for anything. This is what I live for! I’ve been able to get him to read longer books (sports related at first) that I think he will like and he’s enjoying them too. Thanks for reminding me to pick books FOR the reader, and not just assign them. I’ll get better results every time.
I’m so glad you shared your post with all of us NBC members. Reading comes in all kinds of packages, we just have to find the right one. In my first couple years of teaching in the 80’s I had a junior lower level English lit class with 23 boys and 3 girls. (we tracked back then) Every single boy came in the room telling me how much they HATED English class, but loved cars and fixing up old beaters. So, we read The Outsiders together. Eventually we got to The Day No Pigs Would Die and sniffled through the ending. Nobody skipped class when we read books that interested them. Those kids started hating to reading, but I think some of them turned into NBC members like you. I’m glad you found your love in sports magazines, and eventually books. You have every qualification to be part of the NBC in my eyes.
Julie Hembree
I loved your post. As a “nerdy” reader from the beginning, I had to smile at your story. I devoured books. Living in a town without a library, I visited the bookmobile each time it arrived. My mother, who worked in the capital city of our state, would go to the library on her lunch hour and bring home stacks of books for me. In a high school of 65 students, I read every book in our little library, carefully protected by our English teacher. My brother did not “read.” But, like you, they did. He devoured any railroad timetable or WWII history that he could find, spending hours in the stacks at Mizzou reading things that piqued his interest. You (and my brother) are a reminder that readers come in all shapes, sizes, and interests. Let’s let our students choose more, let’s require less. They will read. I’m sure of it.
I loved reading your post and the thought-provoking replies. They reminded me of my reading mantra – one I spew whenever I address teachers: “We have to make kids want to read before we can make them read what we want them to.” I’m thrilled so many of you are making kids WANT to read. It’s the key to the NBC clubhouse.
““We have to make kids want to read before we can make them read what we want them to.” I love this!
Thank you, everyone, for your thought provoking comments. My apologies for not responding personally to all of them, but thank you none the less.
Although I’m sure it’s not completely true, sometimes it seems like all the teachers who love reading have loved reading all their lives. They grew up with friends in a Big Woods or an apartment in New York City with a brother named Fudge. I didn’t read Little House until I was a 22-year-old first year teacher. It’s good to hear so many of you acknowledge that reading is about reading.
Thanks so much for this post, Brian! Your description of yourself as a youth reminds me of a few of my readers. This post is perfectly timed as I am still figuring out how to guide them.
I can’t wait to share this post and Jen Vs comments. We do a Friday Reads -everyone reads for 30 min – and the “rule” is fiction. But why? Are we forcing students OUT of the NBC by dictating that fiction=reading? Especially since I spent a lot of time reading twitter, goodreads, and blog posts! That’s reading too, right?
Kathy – I so agree…I am always reading…not just novels but websites, magazines, articles, etc. We really need to expand our definition at times.
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