To prepare for James Patterson’s appearance at the West Virginia Book Festival in October, Kanawha Circuit Judge Carrie Webster printed a letter the bestselling author had written to his son Jack back in 2007. It was a loving letter at Christmas, urging his son to read for the joy of it, not just to get into Harvard. Patterson promised to give his son at least one book every Christmas and several for the summer.
Webster served as host and moderator of the author Q&A, and confided to him that she wished her own daughter read more.
“It’s your moms’ job,” he said to the judge’s daughter and to the crowd. “She says you are smart, but you could read more.
“It really is,” he said. “It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading. It’s our job. It’s on the parents, the grandparents, aunts and uncles, all that stuff.”
Patterson didn’t read much as a kid. He thinks it is because his parents and the nuns at his school did not put enticing books in his hands. He discovered reading as a young adult working night shifts at a mental hospital.
Then years later his own son was uninspired by books.
“I said, ‘Jack, you have to read over the summer.’
He said, ‘Do I have to?’
I said, ‘Yeah, unless you want to live in the garage.’”
But the key thing is, he said, kids must have books they really enjoy.
“We went to the local library and got about a dozen books, and by the end of the summer he had read 12 books. It’s going to vary with your kids. He went from being not very interested to going to the library in his school.”
A reader told Patterson that her 7-year-old came running in after a visit to his school library saying: “Nana! Nana! Look what I found. It’s James Patterson!”
“He didn’t know you were a children’s book author,” she said.
Many people don’t know it, he said. One reason he writes for kids: to give them the kind of page-turners that keep them coming back.
“As I say, I think the important thing is if you are a mom or dad or whatever, it really is your job. We’re the ones who are responsible. It’s great to teach your kid how to ride a bike and how to throw a ball, but if they’re not at least competent readers, we’re putting them behind the eight-ball.
Patterson’s son Jack, now 21, is a reader and has since collaborated with his dad on a picture book, Penguins of America.
“Look. We have rules in the house. You can’t come in and track mud on the rug. You’ve got to show up to meals. It just needs to be a rule,” Patterson said.
Afterward, Webster thought back. “I loved reading as a child — Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden,” she said. As an adult, she enjoyed Patterson’s Alex Cross series, though thanks to her phone, she doesn’t read like she used to.
Her daughter loved reading in the early grades (and was a big Accelerated Reader fan). “Now she reads only when she has to,” Webster said.
Around the time of Patterson’s appearance, her daughter asked if they could read together like they used to.
“We need to do that,” Webster said. “I’m going to take her to the bookstore.”