Guest Post by Kelley Kay Bowles
My father opened one of the first used bookstores in the US back in 1966, and that event triggered a whole lot of other events in my life that have brought me to one of my most important mantras: “If you don’t like to read, then you just haven’t found the right book yet!” Which in turn has (hopefully) and will (hopefully) set in motion a whole onslaught of results for other people: first, my students, now my children and finally YOU, my readers!👍🤗
What I found when I started teaching was that there were people out there were who were the OPPOSITE of Obsessed.
Disinterested.
Disgusted.
They hated Books, and whatever experience in their past that had that caused them to feel this way about books was a mystery to me. If I didn’t mention before that my job was teaching high school English, I’m saying it now—and explaining further that books are obviously a big part of being an English teacher. So I set about figuring out a way to get my students to feel like books were a part of their life and to feel like readers. I took several bags of those books my dad always brought me and brought them into my classroom, and put them into a shelf with a beanbag chair in front of it for people to pick and choose and sit and read. I told that mantra of mine to all my different classes, and went on to explain that I because of my father I had read many many books, and had a whole arsenal in my brain to share with them. I gave them outside reading time every day, and while we still had the assigned reading that some people dislike so much, I explained to them that that was for school, Their outside reading choices were for LIFE. I practically had it tattooed on my forehead; I wanted so much to make sure that I could build readers.
My first year of teaching was in Lake Tahoe California, 1992. One of my freshmen was a student named Elijah. He had long hair, wore Bellbottom jeans that were all holey and busted up on the bottom, and a baseball cap shoved clear down to his nose so you couldn’t see his eyes. He was a ‘skater type’ which in Lake Tahoe means you are a snowboarder. He told me “Miss Bowles, I haven’t finished a book since the fifth grade! I’m just not interested—can you help me?” I asked about his likes (the outdoors, animals), and what kind of movies he liked (fast moving, action packed), And then I gave him a book called The Watchers, by a horror/science fiction/fantasy/thriller novelist named Dean Koontz. It had an animal (golden retriever), the outdoors (a mysterious laboratory hiding deep in the woods), and a technoscifi plotline that moved lightning quick.I asked Elijah to give it 20 or 30 or 40 pages, and then if he wasn’t hooked to go ahead and bring it back to me, and I would find something else. About a week later he trotted into the room with book in hand. I was disappointed, but I said, “That’s OK, we’ll find you a different one—no problem!”
And Elijah said, “No, I’m finished! Give me another one!”
And my heart swelled like it would burst.
I only taught at Lake Tahoe for one more year, but when I went back during Elijah’s senior year, he told me he had read everything ever written by Dean Koontz. This is a really big number right now but even then it was something like 40 Books!
Since then the mantra “if you don’t like to read you haven’t found the right book yet” has been shared with TONS of students and I’ve had reactions like Elijah’s many times over. It’s not a controlled scientific study, but to me it feels like proof.
What’s YOUR feeling on people who don’t like to read, and what you would share with them to help them catch the bug? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Kelley Kay Bowles
Down in the Belly of the Whale
Check our review for her new book, Down in the Belly of the Whale!Purchase Links
(hopefully all editions will be available together once the book is released... :-))
https://www.instagram.com/kelkay1202/About the Author
Kelley Kay Bowles is the pen name for the YA fiction of Kelley Bowles Gusich. Kelley taught high school English and Drama for twenty years in Colorado and California, but a 1994 MS diagnosis has (circuitously) brought her, finally, to the life of writer and mother, both occupations she adores, and both of which were dreamed of clear back at stories surrounding her Barbie and Ken. Her debut novel, cozy mystery Death by Diploma (pen name Kelley Kaye),was released by Red Adept Publishing February 2016, and is first in the Chalkboard Outlines® series. Book 2, Poison by Punctuation, was just released. Down in the Belly of the Whale is her first traditionally published YA novel, and she’s currently working on a paranormal series with a working name THE MELD. She has two wonderful and funny sons, and an amazing husband who cooks for her. She lives in Southern California.
Kelley is active on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and GoodReads,. Her website is www.kelleykaybowles.com where she aspires to blog once per week.
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