Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lake
It's probably due to idiot moms like this. Ugh. 
http://creativeauthorsguild.blogspot...-buy-book.html
It's people like this telling their kids that books are stupid and not to read them that are making this world so bad, and reducing the total reading public. Of course, these guys aren't the only ones hearing that kinda stuff. I've talked with a lot of people at conventions, signings, or just on the street, and their general take on books is, "They're stupid" or "Nah, I don't read. It doesn't interest me." or excuses even more lame than that.
One of my favorites comes from a comic book convention where I asked a guy, "Why don't you read books" to which he replied, "Oh I do. But I want mine to have pictures in them. 
Uh, isn't that what your imagination is for? And no, just because a comic book has the word "book" in its name doesn't mean it's truly a "book" by the proper definition of the word. Ugh. Sorry for the rant, but this just bugged me. |
I've got no issues whatsoever with people who read comic books. I was an avid comic book reader as a kid, because that was the reading material I could afford to buy at that age (Remember, in the 1960's comic books cost only 12-25 cents depending on whether they were the regular monthly issue or a special larger-size issue - and on a 25-cent a week allowance, I could afford to buy them.). Between library books and comic books, my reading jones was satisfied.
Comic books introduced me to the world of scifi, which in turn stretched my imagination and made me question the assumptions of the society that surrounded me. They also built up my vocabulary, and gave me a lifelong appreciation for the graphic arts. They were the introduction point to the world of magazines, with all of their varied content, which in turn pushed me into reading non-fiction, which I probably would have never touched voluntarily without that sequence of building blocks.
My parents always encouraged me and my siblings to read. But, I am the only one of us that really has a love of reading, the one who will let real life concerns drop by the wayside in order to spend a few minutes reading whenever I can. I'm the only one who can't count the number of books I actually own; the one who hauls 25 books with her on vacation (in addition to the books on the ereader) just because "vacation" also means "unfettered reading".
I am not surprised by that mother; I've come across people like her. She wasn't taught that reading is enjoyable (or else she has an undiagnosed learning disability that didn't make it so) so there's no way for her to comprehend that others might find it so. Hopefully, the obstacles she throws in her daughter's path will just make the girl more determined to read, and not discourage her and push her more firmly onto her mother's path of ignorance.