Even The Baddest Kids Have a Favorite Book

How do I get my child to read more and learn to love reading?

We know how important literacy is, and we know that children who become strong readers carry that advantage into every other subject. We also know there is a national literacy lag in the Black community: only about 17% of Black fourth graders reach NAEP’s proficient reading benchmark, and Black boys trail even further behind.

But these stats don’t capture what this feels like at home. If your child has ever struggled with reading, and if you’ve ever found yourself negotiating with them about making time for it, you know that wanting them to read and helping them want to read are often two very different things.

My week’s guest understands this, and is here to help. Alvin Irby was teaching first grade in the Bronx, getting a haircut at his local barbershop, when one of his students walked in and started getting restless waiting for his turn. Alvin knew the boy’s reading skills weren’t at grade level. He thought to himself, someone should put children’s books in here. That notion became Barbershop Books, his award-winning national nonprofit that has spent more than a decade inspiring Black boys to read for fun, and it became the heart of one of my favorite conversations this season.

Alvin’s response to the question “How do I get my child to love reading?” is simple and powerful: Ask children what they want to read. Not what adults think they should read. Not what carefully curated lists of books tell them to read. Ask them what makes them laugh, what sparks their curiosity, what they want to know more about. Then make those books and reading experiences available.

Rather than panic about why Black boys aren’t reading more, Alvin believes we should ask a different question: What are we putting in front of them to read? He points out that many book lists created specifically for Black boys leave off the very books Black boys consistently tell us they love. Captain Underpants. Dog Man. No, David! Books that may not look particularly significant or culturally relevant to adults can become the doorway to a lifelong reading identity.

This really resonated with me. I was an early and eager reader, and my first child was as well. But when my second initially wasn’t as interested, I panicked. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to hand him the books I wanted him to love and started paying attention to the books that made him laugh and sparked his interest that everything changed. Captain Underpants and The Lightning Thief built the bridge to his understanding and appreciation of the power of reading.

In this conversation, Alvin reminds us that children don’t become readers because we lecture them about reading. They become readers because reading begins to feel like something that belongs to them. They develop a reading identity. He asks us to rethink what literacy looks like in everyday life, too. Reading opportunities are on cereal boxes, subway signs, clothing labels, menus. It all counts. Children build literacy by seeing that words are everywhere and that reading is woven into their lives.

Alvin also encourages parents to examine their own relationship with reading. He notes that many adults carry childhood experiences that convinced them reading was a chore or something they couldn’t do well, and those feelings can quietly shape the way we introduce books to our children. Recognizing that is often the first step toward creating a different experience for the next generation.

By the end of our wonderfully engaging conversation, I realized we had spent as much time talking about curiosity, confidence, and possibility as we had about improving reading skills. This makes sense because helping our children discover the power of reading is fundamentally about helping them see themselves as learners, thinkers, and people whose questions are worth pursuing.

Let’s help them find that first favorite book.

Listen to Even the Baddest Kids Have a Favorite Book with Alvin Irby wherever you get your podcasts, or watch this episode on our YouTube channel. To learn more about Barbershop Books, visit barbershopbooks.org.

Thanks to Paramount for its sponsorship, Seneca Women Podcast Network for its support, and DonorsChoose for its philanthropic partnership this season. And thanks, as always, to YOU for being part of the GCP community. Please spread the word!

Enjoy,