Janet S. Wong is the author of 30 books for children, as well as a co-editor (with Sylvia Vardell) of The Poetry Friday Anthology series of professional resource books. She has been honored with her appointment to the NCTE Commission on Literature, the Excellence in Poetry Award Committee, and the IRA Notable Books for a Global Society Committee. Wong recently wrote an essay for our Open a World of Possible initiative, reflecting upon her early experiences with reading, which we've repurposed here. The full version is also available in our new Open a World of Possible book, which you can download for free here.
Last month I was outside the vehicle registration office at my local DMV when I heard a desperate young mother pleading with her Kindergartenage son on the phone. Over and over she asked him to read the car’s VIN number to her. After she ended her call, she told me that she needed to renew the registration in the next 15 minutes, before the office closed, but her five-year-old son kept giving her the wrong number.
Poor kid. I know how it is to grow up in a family where reading is something that you need to know to be useful. It’s a lot of pressure.
Four years old: I learned to read and write in a hurry because my mother needed help at her tiny beauty shop. When someone needed to book an appointment, I turned to the right page (or sometimes the wrong page) and they’d spell their names and recite their phone numbers. (Many thanks to the ladies who were incorrectly booked for their shampoos-and-sets and always said it was fine.)
Seven years old: While my friends were reading Nancy Drew, I was reading letters from Medicare and the IRS. This is how it is when your grandparents cannot read English, your parents and uncles work long hours, and government offices stop answering phones at 5 pm.
Twelve years old: My father wanted to start a company and needed someone to edit his business plan. What did “procurement” mean? Reading helped me figure it out.
In many working-class immigrant families, the oldest child acts as social worker, translator, interpreter, and scribe for parents and grandparents. You get no praise for it because there is rarely good news from the government.
You never tell your teachers about this “extra stuff ” that you need to do, but you carry this responsibility everywhere you go. At the library, you skip stories and look for nonfiction because you’re reading to build real-world knowledge. Poetry? Definitely not useful. If only there were books on VIN numbers and practice sheets for medical forms!
This is the kind of thinking that led me to my job as a lawyer. But then, in a bookstore one day with my two-year-old cousin, I found myself sitting on the floor and reading picture books. What fun! I was four years old again—but this time, the reading was totally purposeless. I was reading for no reason—or for the best reason: the pure joy of it.
Now, as a children’s author, I have found the perfect balance. When I read for joy, I am simultaneously keeping current in my profession. Poetry? It’s not only useful, it is essential. Poetry is a multivitamin for the soul. Read a poem today to a child. It might be the most useful thing you can do.
