Reading to Superheroes

Cathy at Midway Heights. Photo by Michele Spry

Reading. I love it. I read everything and anything in sight. Leave an old newspaper spread out on the floor, like for painting, and I'm totally distracted: I have to read it!

So the other day when I was going to be a guest reader at Midway Heights Elementary School to help my friend Michele Spry*, I got really excited.

They were celebrating superheroes and I'll admit that my first thought about the event was "Can I dress up like a superhero?"

But, as thoughts of a superhero costume and a superhero book filtered through my mind suddenly a different trail drifted by.  It began like this: what's the definition of a superhero?

Wikipedia says: A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a type of stock character possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers."
And: By most definitions, characters do not strictly require actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes...normally, superheroes use their powers to counter day-to-day crime.  

Counter day-to-day crime?
Crime stuff? Now that's what I'm talking about. Well, in this case we're using crime stuff as a play-on-words for a very difficult situation. But let me ask a question: Do you consider the act of reading to be a difficult type of case?

For many, reading is simply something they learned at an early age. It came naturally to them.  To others, the simple act of reading was anything but simple.  To another whole group of people, reading has not yet happened!

For about 20% of the population, learning how to read is in fact, a feat of stupendous, superhero-like proportions! And for those who have not yet learned how to read I think it is a crime that they have not learned! (And of course we're talking about people who are of at least school age!)

Superhero book!
Then as quickly as the dressing-up-like-a-superhero thought had come, it left; and the thought of which book should I would read, flew in to replace it.

Suddenly reading Patricia Polacco's books, Thank you, Mr. Falker and The Junkyard Wonders was in place to stay! Yes, these books, too, are about superheroes, though not the kind of superhero described by Wikipedia. Nor superheroes like Spiderman, Batman, Superman .... but real life superheroes.

Real life superhero as in a young girl who struggles to learn how to read. A young girl who, even once she does learn how to read, struggles with self-esteem and more.

So as I began reading I asked the kids if learning to read was hard. Almost everyone loudly said, "YES"! "It's still hard!" And I told them that to me, they are the superheroes when they do their best and keep working at the act of learning to read. Even when it's hard.

As the young 'superhero' in Ms. Polacco's story comes into her new special class for the first day of a brand new year, in a strange new school, the teacher comes into the room and begins reading in a no-nonsense voice:

"The definition of genius," 

"Genius is neither learned nor acquired.
It is knowing without experience.
It is risking without fear of failure. 
It is perception without touch. 
It is understanding without research.
It is certainty without proof.
It is ability without practice.
It is invention without limitations.
It is imagination without boundaries.
It is creativity without constraints.
It is ... extraordinary intelligence!"

"...write the definition..."
"Post it on your mirrors."
"Look at it everyday."
"Memorize it!"
"The definition describes every one of you!"

As I read to the young students at Midway Heights I wanted them to know they are superheroes when they learn to read.  Theirs may not be the superhero kind of genius identified with the likes of Einstein, Galileo, and da Vinci but each of them is truly unique in their own way.

*Read more about Michele: http://www.michelespry.com/book.php 

Link to Patricia Polacco: http://www.patriciapolacco.com/books/junkyard/index2.html