iVillage - James Patterson

Turning Those Pages

2008-05-13T16:11:17Z

Well we’re starting to make a little noise here, anyhow. A publishing industry magazine noticed both the RIF funding issue and the blog entry I did the other week. I hope some more folks do, too.

I frankly can’t imagine many better ways for our tax dollars to be spent than getting kids reading. Talk about investing in our nation’s future.

Speaking of which, please stop by pattersonpageturner.org this week to learn about some terrific, inspiring efforts that have been made in the past year to get people excited about books and reading.

I’ve given out some money to some folks who are out there getting people to realize what FUN books and reading can be. From a website where kids can have books read to them, to an outreach program in the Bronx, I think you’ll find some pretty great stories, and maybe even some ideas for your own young reader.

Please keep those pages turning,

JP

The Excitement of Reading

2008-04-25T19:20:32Z

People frequently ask me why I keep going. I mean I already have more #1 bestsellers than any other person ever has.

So why do I keep writing books? Why do I bother doing a blog about how important it is for us to get our kids reading? Why do I speak to parents, teachers, booksellers and librarians around the country? Why am I working at setting up a website to help parents find the right books for their kids?

This piece of email I just received from Sharon C. explains a big part of it:

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! We bought our 13-year-old son "School's Out Forever" for Christmas. Since then we have all been hooked! "Final Warning" is the 1st book I have EVER pre-ordered! Our son is now getting an "A" in reading (from a "D"). You gave a tease in your interview about a Book 5! We fought over the other books and were upset when we thought it was over. We can't wait for the movie! Please don't stop writing these kinds of books for young (and not so young) adults.

Your biggest fans,

Troy, Sharon & Cody C.

Seriously, Sharon—thank you. And please realize that this excitement you’re feeling about books and reading is not just a short-term thing. It’s a life-changer.

Anyhow—back to the question of why I keep going—it’s from comments like this that I’m able to hope to spread this excitement even further.

So many people have no idea about what reading books is all about and I really think we have a chance to get things going here.

I’ll have more to say about this website I’m working on soon. And hopefully you can help me shape it.

Well, please keep reading and writing.

More soon.

What's on your bookshelf?

2008-04-09T16:11:58Z

Like in this recent, popular, New York Times piece, there’s been some press lately about how important books are as a means of identifying people with similar interests and attitudes. With these new “bookshelf” applications in Facebook (as I mentioned a few weeks back), and other places, books are clearly—even in this digital age—remaining a social touchstone.

Some of it is of course just silly stuff—as I’ve discovered in my life as a writer of “popular” fiction, people can be snobs about books more than almost anything else in this world—but I think communicating to each other about books is a pretty positive thing.

After all, what’s more personally meaningful than the ideas and worlds we experience in books? (Hint from yours truly: very little.)

To that end, here’s a picture of one of our own bookshelves that Sue just took the other week for a website.

One or two of those books happen to be pretty good for young readers.

Please feel free to drop a comment below if you’re curious.

Join the flock!

2008-04-03T19:14:08Z

For any of you who think being a bestselling author sounds glamorous, I’d like to point out that it’s not all black-tie award ceremonies and limousines. Actually, even for the annual formal event or two that the publishing event still puts on—at least of the ones I’m invited to—I prefer driving myself.

And there’s nothing I dislike more than dressing up in monkey suits, as folks used to call tuxedos.

But bird-suits? Well, if it’s getting attention to the cause of encouraging parents to turn their kids into readers . . . I’m a push-over:

Join Max's flock!

Anyhow, hopefully this is something fun for you to do with your kids . . . or co-workers.

Hope pages are flying in your home, too.

More soon,

JP

Saving the Fundamentals

2008-03-18T21:42:36Z

This week I’d like to refer you to a letter I received from the President of First Book:

Dear Jim,

Reading is Fundamental (RIF), a national nonprofit literacy organization and a good friend of First Book, needs your help. The President’s proposed fiscal year 2009 budget eliminates the RIF Book Distribution Program. Unless Congress reinstates funding for this program, RIF will be unable to distribute 16 million books annually to the nation’s youngest and most at-risk children.

While RIF is hard at work demonstrating to Congress the importance of reinstating their program’s funding, they need the help of all of us who believe in the power of books in the lives of children. We urge all of the First Book community to reach out to their members of Congress to request the reinstatement of RIF funding. Your voice, as a constituent, is the most important resource we have to make sure that Congress protects this critical program.

Please visit rif.org and help RIF build support in Congress for reinstating the funding. RIF will regularly update the website to show the ways you can most help!

We hope you will share this message with family, friends and colleagues. Thank you for your support as First Book and RIF work to bring new books and resources to the kids who need them most!

Sincerely,

Kyle Zimmer
President , First Book

RIF, if you don’t know, is one of the pioneers of kid-directed book distribution programs. I’ve already reached out. Do you think you might take a couple minutes to reach out to your congresspersons?

Infusing a love of books in our own kids is challenging enough . . . imagine how hard it is to do in families without our resources and level of education.

Drop Everything!

2008-03-11T15:37:44Z

Have you run across any of those D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) programs at schools or other places? Basic idea is that you carve out some time when everybody has some uninterrupted reading time, and make a fun thing of it.

I remember some past PageTurner winners—including All Hallows High School in the Bronx—have done quite wonderfully with them.

Of course, they don’t work so well if the kids aren’t armed with good books they can engage with. That is, if the books aren’t there, and they aren’t fun reads, the time reading isn’t likely to be fun, either.

I mention this because somebody just pointed out that my friends at FirstBook and some others are involved in a D.E.A.R. website that offers materials and guidance for people looking to try it out.

Actually, if you know any schools looking for books (for kids ages 10 and up) I happen to be giving away some Maximum Ride books myself right here. Kids seem to have been enjoying them, and some schools have done some pretty fun book-oriented stuff with them.

JP

Is It All In The Presentation?

2008-02-27T15:18:49Z

I was in Marrakech once. Marrakech is the location of the summer palace of the Sultan. According to Koranic law, the sultan has to meet with his subjects each day to hear their complaints.

Because of the custom, a public square has been built outside of the palace. The square fills up every night at sundown. It's quite a show.

On this particular night, I sat in the public square, sipping a pastiche, watching people bartering for camels, monkeys, spices, perfumes.

Suddenly, the huge crowd parted, and a 6'8" man in indigo and saffron robes, with indigo dye from the robes tinted into his skin-a totally amazing looking man-appeared in my sight line. ]]>
I asked the waiter at our café who the man was, and I was told he was a Berber chief, and also the greatest storyteller in North Africa.

After the man's basket was filled with coins-he began to tell his stories.

He danced magnificently, and waved his arms wildly, and shouted to the heavens, and whispered lovingly to women, and to men.

And I watched this storyteller for nearly two hours, mesmerized, unable to look away.

And, and, I didn't understand a single word of Arabic that the man spoke. But I loved his stories anyway.

Why am I telling this story in a blog about getting our kids reading? Maybe I have a thought that our presentation of stories to our kids is kind of important. Do your kids ever see you act excited about the stories you read in books?

Just a thought.
JP

Face the Book

2008-02-15T17:25:16Z

So my British publisher goaded me into starting a Facebook page. Apparently it’s all the rage. Do you guys have one? Do please feel free to become my “friend.” I can’t promise I’m going to remember birthdays and things, but here’s the link.

One thing I do enjoy about the site, though, is that lately people have been using an application that’s all about... books!

You can make a virtual bookshelf by picking out books you’ve read, are reading, or would like to read, and folks can easily come by and chat with you about them.

I don’t know if your kids have Facebook pages— and I’m not suggesting they should, necessarily, especially not if they’re younger— but if they do, or are about to get one, you might suggest they try out this application. It’s kind of fun.

Please let me know what you think.

JP

Striking Chords

2008-02-08T21:31:32Z

Well this writer’s strike sure is something. Good thing it doesn’t apply to book writers. I don’t think I’d be a happy camper if I couldn’t write every day.

It does, of course, have some real-world impact on me. I don’t know if you heard that ABC is doing a TV-series adaptation of my Women’s Murder Club series (which is for grown-ups, not kids!), but of course that’s on hold now after they showed the first batch of episodes this fall.

And though it hasn’t worked its way through the pipe yet, the strike might end up causing fewer choices at the movie theater in a matter of months. Being the compulsive movie-watcher I am, I wouldn’t be happy about that, either.

Which reminds me, you know that notion we had about finding books that got or are going to get turned into movies? A friend found this link: http://www.kidsreads.com/features/books2movies.asp

Hope that’s useful, and please let me know how that goes if you get a chance to put it to use.

JP

Reaching the "Next Level"

2008-02-02T21:25:53Z

Can’t write much this week—Sue and I are taking a little long-overdue holiday away from home and if she catches me writing here, well . . .

But I did want to highlight a clever post Beth made last week. She writes,

“Here's an idea: have kids do reports on video games every day in school for years; keep logs on them and take them apart, diagram their dialogue structure, make everyone in the class work at the exact same pace (too slow or too fast) and generally take all the 'fun' out of the games.

You might find the kids turn to books for enjoyment instead of those 'boring' (frustrating) computer games!”

Whether or not it’s possible to ruin video games for kids in this way, I think we can all recognize that books do sometimes die an ignominious death in our nation’s classrooms.

And while they certainly don’t always get ruined in school—there are a lot of great teachers making books exciting for kids and turning them into readers—it does happen. It happened to me back when I was a student, and it’s happening to thousands of kids every single day.

And it’s exactly why, as parents, we can’t just assume that our kids are going to learn a love of books in school, and why we have to undertake this particular mission ourselves.

Fortunately, it’s a rewarding one . . . and one that’s very, very do-able.

More soon,

Turning ePages

2008-01-24T01:28:27Z

First of all thank you for your smart and fun comments. I read them all and, as before, I’m going to respond to some this month:

Jocelyn rightly points out that one doesn’t need to spend lavishly on books to enjoy them, and reminds us that we can find some pretty good books for free at the library. I fear she was worrying that I was equating not spending on books with some sort of personal failure, but I think the article was merely noticing the fact that Americans are spending less and less on books, and taking that as a symptom of how books are becoming less and less popular. Clearly she’s not part of that distressing trend, nor are June, Lee Ann, and Renee.

On the more controversial end of the spectrum, Gabriel suggests that, “Reading a book is alright as a distraction from studies or while waiting for a bus, but overall it serves little purpose and can even be detrimental.” And I applaud him for being so articulate on the subject—maybe it was partly through the books he read in school that he learned to get his ideas across as well as he does? At any rate, I’d very much like to see any research that shows reading books to be a bad thing. Personally, I expect it will be hard to find any.

I also suspect Gabriel’s school-based reading experience may have been limited—as my own was—to books that didn’t really work for him. I happen to like Moby Dick these days, but it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, especially among young readers who may not be ready for that 700-page whale of a book.

And thank you, Terrie, for your own very articulate response to Gabriel’s post.

Shawna, like Gabriel, is also clearly not gobbling up everything I’ve written and goes further to suggest she doesn’t like my books. I happen to like popcorn myself (and confess I’m not quite so sure what “popcorn trash” is) but I am glad she’s at least reading my blog entries. Maybe she would care, as did Sarah, to suggest some other books she does enjoy?

Finally, I’d like to just point out some of my favorite 1-liners from that batch of postings:

“Turn off the tv and read a good book!” –Mary

“When the world outside is crazy and stressful, a good book is like a mini-vacation. A step away from the world and a chance to breath and relax. LONG LIVE THE WRITTEN WORD!” –June

“Reading is important and can be a way to escape the hum drums.” –Debbie

“There is no substitute for reading. It's far better than movie or TV version. It has a world of its own...in our minds.” –Baklita

“The principal complaint among employers is the poor writing/spelling/general communication skills among young applicants...” –Debra

And my personal favorite:

“I wish parents would hand children a book once and a while instead of a new video game.” –Rachel

I hope our words have a chance to cross paths again next week,

The Wisdom of the Ice Cream Driver

2008-01-16T00:56:02Z

I’m mindful that last week’s entry wasn’t the cheeriest I’ve ever written. Here’s something a little lighter:

During the summers, my grandfather would take me on his frozen food and ice cream delivery route once a week.

These trips were a great treat for me. We’d be up at four in the morning packing his truck, and before five we’d be on our way.

Now, most of us know that driving a delivery truck isn’t the most romantic job in the world.

But every morning, my grandfather would drive over the storm king mountain toward west point, and he’d be singing at the top of his voice.

His big, clumsy truck would be jouncing all over the road—and in a loud, terrible voice he’d sing “Oh, Susanna,” or “Put Another Nickel in the Nickelodeon,” or “She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain.”

And my grandfather told me this: “Jim,” he said, “When you grow up, I don’t care if you’re a truck driver or a famous surgeon—just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you’ve got to be singing.”

And, at least since I discovered books and eventually decided to become a writer, I do.

A Darker Sort of Twilight

2008-01-09T22:26:00Z

A friend in the publishing industry brought a recent article in The New Yorker to my attention. It’s called “The Twilight of the Books: What Will Life Be Like If People Stop Reading?”, and it begins with some scary statistics about how, as a nation, we’re turning into a bunch of non-readers. . .and what that means.

I won’t repeat it all, but here’s a fact that stood out for me:

In 1995, the average family spent an average $163 dollars on reading (including newspapers, magazines, books, e-books).

In 2005, that amount had fallen by almost a quarter, to just $126 a year.

I’m not arguing that money’s the best measure here, but I do think it gives an indication of how reading ranks among those things upon which we spend our money. (What’s a cup of coffee cost these days? Seems to me $126 is about what it costs to take a family the movies two or three times. Or indulge a parent’s Starbucks habit for a couple months.)

And then it goes into a history of reading and the science behind the claims people have always made—and that some of us know or have suspected from our own experience and common sense—things like how readers are more likely than non-readers to:

play sports
exercise
visit art museums, theater, concerts
make art or take pictures
volunteer
vote

I believe the author was making the point that some of these things are kind of important to our society.

Anyhow, it’s a pretty long article, but it was definitely a thought-stirrer for little old me.

Resolution Time

2008-01-03T20:29:57Z

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been becoming a progressively better resolution-keeper as I get older.

The trick, as with many things you wish to accomplish in life, comes down to being realistic with yourself.

For instance, if you are trying to start a really noble habit, you should make sure it’s actually do-able and at least somewhat in line with your character. Like, say, you tell yourself that this year you’re going to start running five miles a day, but you’ve never been much of a runner, and you’re pretty out of shape, and you really don’t like running (except when playing basketball, I don’t like it much, I will confess), well, maybe you should pick another resolution. Like walking a couple miles a day.

It’s great to have ambitions, but they don’t tend to flourish unless you know what you’re working with.

And I don’t mean to presume to know you that well, but I think I’ve stumbled on a great resolution, in case the one you picked isn’t shaping up so well.

If you think your kid(s) should read more, if you have Internet access or are able-bodied, and if you have fifteen minutes or more of free time a month, here’s the idea.

Hold up your right hand and read this next bit aloud—

“I, [your name, and don’t be a wiseacre and say 'yourname’] do hereby resolve for 2008 to help get one great book a month for into the hands of a child in my life.”

That wasn’t so painful, was it? And you can do that, can’t you? If you can’t afford a brand new book each month—either from a store or from an online retailer—get a used one, or borrow from your local library (here’s a handy list of local libraries and links for how to set yourself, and your kid, up with a library card) or even a friend who has the book you think your child will like.

And if you need recommendations for books—bookstores and libraries, with all the thousands of books they have, can be a pain to find your way around, I know—then come here and check out recommendations that I—and your fellow blog-readers—have made. Or go ahead and ask somebody here at the message boards, or your child’s teacher, or a bookseller, or a librarian.

It really shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes from start to finish.

Note This

2007-12-26T17:38:24Z

Hope your holidays were great. Christmas happens to be one of my favorite days of the year.

And my family outdid themselves this year. I got some great books myself, gave a couple good ones—including one of my all-time favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird—to my son, Jack. I also received some of the world’s best ice cream, from Graeter’s in Cincinnati.

So now it’s time for thank-you notes! I know, thank-you notes can seem like a total drag and, these days, with the speed and ease of email, IMs, cell phones, and texting, it seems downright old-fashioned and inefficient to actually commit pen to paper, but I personally think part of enjoying books comes from an appreciation of this old-fashioned, first-hand, and magical experience of turning our own thoughts into words.

To that end, even if thank-you notes are a hard-sell with your child, have you ever considered getting them a blank notebook? Here’s a thought and a letter you’re welcome to adapt for your own young reader:

Dear ___,

You ought to keep a journal. Do you know what a journal is? It’s basically your own book. And it’s a place where you can keeps things you want to remember. Things like [and of course use your own examples here, these are just for-instances]:

How much the Cowboys are going to win by in the next game

What sorts of table scraps Rex likes best

The right amount of ketchup one should use on one’s burger

What is the best joke you heard at school this week

What day of the week you get your allowance on

How many Whiffle balls you’ve hit into the next-door-neighbors’ yard

What sort of cake you want for your birthday

What Mom or Dad said to you that ticked you off the other day

Best fishing spots at the river

Secrets that nobody should know but you

My point is that if you have a journal and practice writing in it—just like with our bike or smacking Whiffle balls into the neighbors’ yard—you’ll get good fast.

And writing’s a good thing to be good at. It helps you remember things, it helps you get your ideas to across to other people (so you can get into good schools and get good jobs and stuff like that) and it can even be pretty good fun.

And you don’t have to write in this journal when you don’t feel like it. You can glue pictures you’ve cut out of magazines, things you’ve printed off the computer, hide money in it, or even smash leaves or bugs into it if you like. Or you can neglect it for weeks or months at a time.

Anyhow, why don’t you give it a try, and let me know if there’s anything I can help with? I’m proud of you being such a good reader and writer.