By Claire Booth
The comics. Most don’t have
extended storylines. Or contain important information.
And some of them, quite frankly,
are just dumb. But …
If they sit on your breakfast
table every day, your kids will pick them up. And read them. And then that
leads to all sorts of other things. Like the sports page. And the local
section. And international news. And eventually, informed citizens.
The paper can spark conversations about everything
from the California drought to the discovery of new exoplanets, the price of
Super Bowl ads, and of course, the presidential election.
And yes, this obviously means
that you'll need to subscribe to the dead-tree version of a newspaper. Sure, you could read it on your phone, but that’s an individual experience, not a communal
one. An online subscription doesn’t allow kids to drip cereal milk on Beetle
Bailey as they read with their siblings peeking over their shoulders.
I was a newspaper reporter before
I started writing books, so I realize that I consider the news (and newspapers
in particular) more important than many people do. I will advocate for the
importance of accurate, professional news outlets all day long. But this post
is about the importance of the consumption mechanism involved. READING.
You start with the comics. Move
on to news stories. Then maybe magazines. Entertainment
Weekly, National Geographic, Motocross Action – it doesn’t matter.
From there, maybe there’s a turn toward comic books or graphic novels. Or
non-fiction. Or that most beautiful of art forms, the novel.
So if you’ve got kids and you don’t
subscribe to home delivery, think about popping out for a Sunday paper today.
Give ’em the comics page and see where it leads them.
