Life After College

So here’s a true story: my father, sometime in the 70s was looking for his first job. He went to the local McDonalds and told the staff, [manager’s name] said I was supposed to start today. They took his word for it and started training him and by the time the manager saw him and asked who he was, people just said “oh that’s the new guy.”

Somehow this actually worked. My dad worked there for a couple of years as a cook. He even won an award plaque which he had on the wall until the day he died.

“Boss made a dollar Granddad made a dime But that was a poem From a simpler time.

Boss made a thousand Gave pa a cent But that penny paid the mortgage Or at least it paid the rent

He had been genuinely excited about the 8 year old book he’d picked up. It was a new one in a series he used to read as a younger kid. He’d been actively sitting and reading, and then he was embarrassed in front of his classmates, told off for reading a kids book, and voila. He lost all enthusiasm for reading anything else that day.

What’s worse? That kid had been hit by a car like a year and a half earlier. Severe brain trauma. Had to re-learn a lot of basic things, like how to speak and how to read.

An 8 year old book would have been perfect for him. Easy enough to read that it would have helped rebuild his confidence in his own reading ability. A book meant for 15/16 years olds? A lot harder to read than a book for 8 year olds. Especially if you’re recovering from a relatively recent brain injury.

This thread is fucking depressing so I wanted to add an example of what can happen when the RIGHT approach is taken.

My best friend is a school librarian. But for a few years, she taught 7th and 8th grade. This was right around 2010.

She assigned a book report. You could do any book you wanted, but she had to approve your choice.

Some girl chose Twilight.

Alicia called me and said “I don’t know what to do. Her other teachers said it was a miracle she picked a book at all. She won’t even read two paragraphs for homework. But…it’s TWILIGHT.” Which, yes, Alicia had read, because it was popular with her students and she felt like she had to keep abreast of their likes and dislikes to be effective. (For those who weren’t around for this, or don’t remember: a lot of schools and teachers were banning Twilight more or less on the basis of finding it trashy.)

I said: “tell her yes. But tell her that if she wants to read Twilight, there are some questions you want her to keep in mind while she reads.” And advised her to tailor those questions around things that bothered her about the books (for example, Edward’s stalking of Bella).

She did.

A few weeks later she called me again.

The girl decided to read the whole series, got halfway through Breaking Dawn, took her the book, and said “Mrs. [name], I just don’t LIKE any of these people.” Normally, Alicia would’ve recommended Harry Potter, but again: these were the only books the girl had been known to pick up in YEARS, and the final Potter book was just barely three years old. If she’d wanted to read it, she already would have. Alicia’s preferred genre is one I call Tudor-lite (Jane Austen, Philippa Gregory, that stuff), and she was pretty sure the stuff she was really into wouldn’t pass muster with her student.

I was still living in the same area as Alicia at the time, so I told her to ask the girl what she HAD liked about Twilight, give me the answers, and my creepy-loving ass would make a recommendation and give her a book. Based on her answers, I gave her my copy of ‘Salem’s Lot and told her to tell the girl she could keep it as long as she liked.

I NEVER GOT IT BACK.

This girl went from ‘Salem’s Lot to Dracula. And from Dracula to Frankenstein. And from Frankenstein into the wider world of gothic literature. By the end of the school year she’d plowed through almost fifty books—which meant ALMOST THREE PER WEEK.

All it took was being told “sure, you can like Twilight” and then “it’s okay, you don’t have to like Twilight.”

A little sun, a little rain, a little love—that’s all it takes to make a flower grow.

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