My son is a voracious reader, but he judges books by their covers. How can I help him see past them? | Family
My eight and a half year old son is a voracious reader and a budding writer. I am very happy that he likes to read and I want to help him find the next good read. Unfortunately, he is extremely easily influenced by cover art. He will unwrap a gift book, immediately reject it, and refuse to try it if he doesn’t like the cover. He doesn’t even read the blurb. When I was still reading to him, we had a pact that he had to listen to at least one page, and that’s how he discovered many of his favorite books despite his initial reluctance. I completely understand the appeal of a good illustration, but now that he’s reading chapters, I wish he could get past the two less important pages. How can I help him not judge a book by its cover?
Eléonore says: I totally appreciate the benefit of having him see beyond the cover, but on the other hand…could you just change the cover?
What attracts him to a blanket? Iridescence? A dragon? A cool guy? He could do a new cover! A collage, or even a collage of other books. He could make a dozen matted covers, ready to be glued to the book you would like to give him next. Or he might redo a particular cover after explaining why he doesn’t like the one he gave it; or you can cover the books in brown paper so he never sees the cover, and ask him to design one once he knows what the book is about. Colorful films! Laser eyes! Give him a director’s chair.
When I was a child, my mother and I made workbook covers together, using colored pencils and watercolors, which were glued onto contact paper on my homework books. This way, schoolwork wasn’t so incredibly tedious. Among a multitude of other things carelessly left at the bottom of the schoolbag to accumulate crumbs and creases, homework notebooks have always seemed quite special to me. They didn’t seem like a standard or serious problem. They looked like me, like the care others gave me. If your son understands the appeal of illustration, he might make his books more like him.
Maybe this doesn’t seem right to you. Perhaps you would prefer to distance him from this sensitivity rather than respond to it. You may not want flame decals on Aslan. You might want it to like the serifs of a publisher’s decor. Believe me, I totally have the instinct to improve a child’s aesthetic judgments. The other day I went to see a Van Gogh and as (terribly aesthetically sophisticated) tears streamed down my face, a kid nearby said to me, “That’s the most boring thing I’ve ever seen.” » I totally understand wanting to shout: “You’re missing something! It’s so much better than anything you think you prefer!”
But when you make art a demonstration of virtue, you can make it seem like a hindrance. It is such good news that he reads with joy. It’s not, so far, something he does because he “should.”
Lots of things will try to capture his tastes in the next few years – algorithms, television, peers, all saying “people like you should like this”. Of course, you don’t want your voracious reader’s tastes captured by the iPad-algorithm-AI event horizon of bad kid art. But the reaction need not be the addition of another “you should” – “you should like this blanket”. Instead, the reaction might be to encourage him to develop his own sensitivity. For what Does he like this one more than that one? Can he design something he would be happy to put on any book? Or if he thinks certain covers only make sense with certain books, why?
Allowing and working with the emphasis on coverage does not have to be a surrender. This could be a way to deepen his relationship with the books you would like him to love.
Ask Eléonore a question
