As I neared the completion of this book I asked some friends to read what I had written. Several made the same comment, saying something like, “This is all interesting, but one thing you haven’t said is that some kids are just destined not to be readers. And you don’t want those kids to feel bad, to feel like they are out of step with the family value of reading. So if you had a child like that, you’d back off, right?”

No, I wouldn’t.

Why might a child feel pressured about reading? An obvious answer is that reading does not come easily to him. He’d rather opt out, especially if he compares himself to siblings who seem to read effortlessly. But reading can still bring pleasure, even if it’s a little tougher to obtain. Every child should be met where he is and get the pleasures available from what he can do. My family doesn’t refrain from taking walks because one of us is confined to a wheelchair. My daughter can’t hike a mountain trail or walk a sandy beach, but she “walks” as she can and enjoys what’s available. I think backing off is exactly the wrong message. Doing so says, “I indicated before that reading is important, but now that I see you’re having trouble, let’s pretend it’s not.” The child won’t be fooled. The child will conclude that the problem is too terrible to be openly discussed.

Rather than deny, I prefer to normalize. It’s normal that some things come more easily to one child than to her sibling. Why not be frank and say, “Yes, this is difficult for you, I can see. I’m impressed by how hard you’re working at it”? The thing is, every child has a turn learning something that comes easily and learning something else that doesn’t. Maybe it’s math, or it’s being brave enough to take a bus downtown alone, or it’s learning to ride a bike, or it’s telling a friend that she’s let you down. I want my children to be gracious when things come easily and determined when they don’t. I’m not going to implicitly suggest they abandon things I believe are important when the going gets tough.

But for other kids, the issue is not that they have trouble reading; it’s that they just don’t seem very interested. I realize that what I’ve written in these chapters could easily be taken as a setup for your child to feel pressured to enjoy reading because this book has offered a whole lot of “do this, do that, for heaven’s sake don’t do this other thing.” The reason I’ve been so directive is that stating the objectives is not enough. I can’t just say, “The goal is for your child to love reading. Now go forth and do good.” I had to discuss the specifics of how that goal plays out day to day and what to do about the obstacles that are likely to arise. But too great a focus on the detailed instructions can lead to nearsightedness and, ultimately, mistakes (figure C.1).

You avoid myopia by reminding yourself to look up from the details every now and then to gain perspective—in other words, remind yourself of your ultimate goal. In the Introduction, I noted that I wasn’t much interested in getting my kids to read because leisure reading is associated with success in school or earning more money. My desire for my children to read is simply a gut instinct. Here at the book’s close, I think I can amplify on that. What I really want is for my children to experience reading pleasure.

What sort of reading pleasure? For me, reading affords a pleasure of understanding. Food writer Ruth Reichl can snare in words the elusive subtleties in the flavor of toro. Other writers make me understand things about myself, not always appealing things. After reading the memoir Clear Pictures, I remember reflecting on how lucky Reynolds Price was to have grown up among such wise and interesting people, only to realize that it was Price’s acumen and sensitivity that made them so; had I known them, I would likely have missed their finest qualities. As an adult, I get great satisfaction from at long last coming to a better understanding of ideas that I’ve long encountered but only dimly comprehended; most recently, it’s been the tensions among the founders of the United States.

An altogether different sort of pleasure comes from being carried to distant times and places when I read. How better to see the French Riviera during the 1920s than through the debauched, exhausted eyes of Dick Diver in Tender Is the Night? How could I enter the alternately solemn and boisterous world of New York’s Hasidim if Chaim Potok did not take me there? And then too, sometimes the pleasure lies not in the charms of a new world but in escape from my own. During graduate school, I read Herman Wouk’s two-volume World War II epic, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, nearly daily at lunch; I used it like worry beads to manage the anxiety consequent to my demanding academic program.

I maintain that these joys cannot be experienced through television or other media. Only reading elicits your contribution to the experience by demanding that you mentally create the world described. Only fiction demands that you live with the characters as long or as deeply. And with few exceptions, prose stylists show greater love of language than artists in other media.

I want my children and yours to experience those joys, or ones like them. And that’s where you must keep the goal in the forefront of your mind. As someone who has spent all of his professional life around eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds, I’ll offer my impression as to what causes the greatest conflict between parents and teens. Parents are under the impression that they want their child to be happy. Children are under the impression that their parents want them to be happy the way their parents think they ought to be happy.

That’s where the danger lies in a child feeling pressured and unhappy about reading. Remember that your goal is that your kids enjoy reading, not that they enjoy reading as you do. For you, it may be literary fiction. For your child, it may be the contemplative precision of poetry, or the muscular plotting of the thriller, or the funhouse distortions of horror. Or perhaps your children will show you the pleasure to be had from Geocacher Magazine or compendia of technical motorcycle engine diagrams. Let your child enjoy and explore the pleasure of reading as he can. And if it helps you, periodically look up from day-to-day life, and recall the principles I suggested at this book’s outset: we start now, and we have fun.

Have fun.