For the Sake of Future Brendans (a thread)...

At an author event at @BooksofWonder this past weekend, a 9-year-old boy named Brendan came up w/his mother to get a book signed. He talked about loving history & was excited for me to sign THE ELECTRIC WAR.

I always go full reading nerd mode w/kids & asked what other books he liked. He mentioned Rick Riordan's PERCY books. I told him I loved them too. His mother then said, "He also loves them because Percy..." she paused and looked at Brendan, who added, "Has dyslexia, like me."

I smiled wide. Not only does Brendan love books, but he sees himself in a hero of a popular series because the character is, as Brendan says, “Like me.” This boy seemed to LOVE books. I got the impression being at Books of Wonder was akin to most kids being at a Disney park.

I love Brendans of the world. We need more of them. So, why these super cool kids like Brendan exist. How do we allow kids to LOVE books? I’d venture to guess for most Brendans, it's BECAUSE they see themselves in the book they’re reading. In this case it was a kid with dyslexia.

Let’s turn the viewfinder on other kids. To cultivate Brendans of all kinds, we need to feature REAL kids of all kinds in our books. Not in gimmicky ways but in a way that brings authentic, real kids to the story so that these Brendans who aren’t yet Brendans can become Brendans.

That means kids of every race, nationality, ethnicity, disability, religion, everything needs to be front-and-center in our books. There’s a Brendan who doesn’t even know he’s a Brendan right now who has not yet seen himself in a story.

He’s looking for himself right now. I hope we (authors) can help him find himself. I’d like to see more Brendans out there. Thanks for listening.
* I'm not a big fan of threads, but I felt I had to here.