When I sit down I don't really think, "Who is my target audience?" I think about, "What's the best way to tell this story?" I try to imagine my audience really being grabbed by it, including the kind of knucklehead guys sitting in the back who often don't think stories are for them.

Jon Scieszka

People say, 'All my son will read is 'Captain Underpants,' or 'My son is crazy about shark books, is that O.K.?' I want to be the person to say, 'Yeah, that's really O.K., as long as he's motivated to want to read.'

crazy long people son

Be a good reading role model. Show kids what you like to read, what you don't like to read, how you choose what you read. Let them see you reading.

choose good you reading

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

walk good wife time

We're promoting such a narrow version of literacy that we're not... by Jon Scieszka

We're promoting such a narrow version of literacy that we're not including what a lot of boys like.

version lot like literacy

Jeff Kinney's 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series and Stephenie Meyer's 'Twilight' books got 49,323,701 kids reading.

diary kid reading twilight

I always loved strange stories like the Dr. Seuss stuff. 'Go, Dog. Go!' was one of my favorite stories - it still is. It's just such a bizarre yet true book. And I did well reading and writing as a kid throughout school. I think early on that's what made me realize what an advantage that is.

me dog book school

I like to tell kids that I started thinking about stories when I first started reading stuff like Dr. Seuss and 'Go, Dog. Go!,' thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's funny. I'd like to do that.' And then writing throughout school, but at the same time I was studying pre-med stuff, because my mom told me I should be a doctor.

me dog time funny

The big problem is just this kind of gigantic piece, of kids reading less and liking it less and so getting worse at it. It's kind of this terrible spiral: Since they're not so good at it they do less of it, get worse at it, do less of it. And it's really what I discovered five, six years ago when I started the 'Guys Read' thing.

big good problem reading

For a lot of kids, reading is not magical. It's really hard work. by Jon Scieszka

For a lot of kids, reading is not magical. It's really hard work.

hard hard-work reading work