Challenging Compulsive Readers--Part 1
- Angela Massengale
- Nov 27, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 1, 2023
If you have children like mine--or were a child like I was--you may understand compulsive readers. I frequently have parents who come to me, desperate to find books that will keep their readers engaged but are concerned that the content might not be appropriate. For example:
My daughter reads constantly and is going through four or five books a week. I can’t keep up and I’m worried about what she’s reading. I want to encourage her, but I am just not ready for my 9-year-old to be reading The Hunger Games. What should I do?
I refer to these children as Compulsive Readers. I identify with them because I was one. Still am. Compulsive Readers regularly bulldoze their way through five- and six-hundred-page books in a matter of days, walking around with their noses stuck in books like strangely literate zombies. They often have stacks of books with haphazard, makeshift bookmarks hanging out at all angles, and are not bothered at all to put down one book and immediately pick up another, often without breaking stride. They also may frequently have a dazed look in their eyes, because their minds are still lost in some fictional world that you can’t see.
It's often as difficult to keep Compulsive Readers engaged in reading as it is Reluctant Readers because CRs just go through books so fast! There are 2 major pitfalls in dealing with CRs: either they won’t be continually fulfilled with what they are reading and they lose interest, moving on to the next thing that grabs their attention in our digital world (insert picture of your librarians crying out “NOOOOOOOOOO!”); or you as the parent find yourself spending a LOT of money in bookstores. That was my parents' struggle as well.
{Yes, that was a Douglas Adams reference. Make sure you have your towel!)
It’s really important to not just thrust a book into their hands out of sheer panic (or even pride—it’s exciting when you have a kid that loves to read!). Keeping that love of reading alive is tricky as kids get older and have more distractions. It isn't about what books you like, what you want them to read, what you think is good for them, or what you think they should be reading at a certain age or in a certain grade. As I stated in the blog posts about children who are reluctant to read: we’re growing small human beings here, with their own very specific likes, dislikes, and opinions. Nurturing a compulsive reader is all about what THEY like, what they WANT to read, and what they are CAPABLE of reading. It’s also about what they have the ability to comprehend—just because they can read at a certain level doesn’t mean that they are really comprehending what they are reading.
Being exposed to inappropriate content is a major factor to consider when you have a compulsive reader, and as a parent, you have to consider what type of content you are comfortable with your child being exposed to, and at what age. At 10 years old, I was barreling through my mother's collection of Danielle Steel, because I had run out of age-appropriate books to read and my parents just did not have the money to buy me three to four new books every week (nor did they have the time to take me to the public library every other day). At 11 years old I read Gone with the Wind and Lauren Bacall’s autobiography—hardly risqué, but not exactly child-friendly fare either. Next up on my reading list were all four books in the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel and Moll Flanders. I was 13. At 15, I distinctly remember ignoring all the lectures and gory videos in driver’s ed, because you want to talk about violent deaths? I was halfway through Les Miserables, and my bedtime fair was Dean Koontz’s Phantoms.
Listen. I’m not saying that I was psychologically damaged by any of this. What I am saying is that I was a latch-key kid, with two struggling parents who worked long hours for not a lot of money. I had an unending appetite for reading and little access to books that would really whet my appetite and which were also age-appropriate. The 80s and early 90s were just not great times for substantial, age-appropriate books for pre-teens. Luckily, things have greatly improved since the advent of Harry Potter, which dramatically changed the landscape of children’s literature. In the follow-up post, I will offer some reading list suggestions for those middle-grade kiddos who are avid readers and need to be encouraged while not being exposed to materials that they (or you) might not be ready for them to handle yet.
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