It's probably a pretty good assumption that just about everyone reading this piece learned how to read sometime between the ages of five and seven. We were already talking by then, but our brains were being rewired so that we could look at words and sentences and know what they meant.
This was something truly amazing. It wouldn't be long before we could read entire books and venture to far-off lands in the process.
But for some reason, in many cases, somewhere along the way, our love of reading begins to tail off. Not for everyone of course. There are many young people who are voracious readers after all, but the statistics point to the fact that, when feeding your mind it comes to reading as a pastime, many of us just lose interest.
And then we all begin to wonder if the ?next generation' will even be readers.
When I was selling books, the ongoing lament went something like this: "If we can't get the next generation to become readers, what hope do we have?"
Yet, for all the consternation, there were not that many books available for the young reader.
I used to ask the publishers about this. Their answer was ironic. "We have to get young people reading but we can't afford to publish books that do not have much sales potential." Say again? A catch-22 is what I think they call that.
The reality is that young people are reading. Perhaps not the kind of reading we prefer, but when you figure in all the text messages, Facebook entries, internet pages, and video game narration, it adds up to a whole lot of words.
I have spent my fair share of energy grousing about the fact that my own children did not read that much. My son would play video games for hours but hardly ever read a book.
Then one day I realized that the games he was playing had huge amounts of story to read between 'levels'. He was following a story of sorts as he overcame one challenge after another.
It was then that I began to appreciate that ?the next generation' is actually better at narrative story than my generation. We were raised on learning the facts; they are being raised on understanding the larger story in which they find themselves.
I believe this is a good thing and something we all need to learn. After all, we are all part of a great story and when we can see that, we begin to realize we are adding our story to something larger than ourselves.
When it comes to the next generation of reading, the new electronic reading devices like the iPad, Kindle, Sony reader and others, are stealing the show. The ability to download and store hundreds of titles now in font sizes that even ?old timer's' like me can read, is the story.
Just like my children can hardly remember a vinyl record, the leaders of tomorrow will wonder how we ever carted all those hard covers around. Whenever we are tempted to disparage the 'next generation' we need to remember that we were once the next generation. And the next generation is all about new ways of thinking.
