Learning to read came easily to me, so much so that I was puzzled when I was praised for being “a good reader.” That seemed as pointless as praising me for being “a good breather.” It also made me anxious when teachers scolded the children who struggled to read. Even at that age, I knew that scolding them wasn’t going to help. I was too shy and timid to say anything, but I already had a budding sense of social justice, and I knew that something about the situation was wrong.
I now know that some of those children were struggling with a learning disorder called dyslexia. Dyslexia causes difficulties in reading and spelling words. The condition was first described in the 1870s, when it was called “word blindness.” It is believed to stem from differences in brain anatomy. It has nothing to do with a lack of intelligence and can exist side by side with exceptional abilities in other areas, such as artistic or engineering skills.
Some people with dyslexia find ways to cope with it on their own, but others flounder through life, being bullied at school, feeling stupid, and never knowing why they struggle and others succeed. Dyslexia can take an enormous psychological toll on those who have it. It also robs the world of the talents those people might otherwise have been able to share with us all.
Techniques have been developed to help people with dyslexia learn to thrive in spite of it, but that can happen only when the condition is recognized and when help is available. The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act states that children with dyslexia, which is considered a “specific learning disability,” are eligible for special education, but not all of them receive it. Sometimes schools lack the funding to offer it. Sometimes teachers haven’t been trained in how to recognize it. Sometimes parents don’t want their children to be labeled with a disability.
If children with dyslexia are going to receive the help they need, the adults of the world will have to work together to change national, state, and local policies. Given that some of those adults don’t believe that dyslexia exists, it continues to be an uphill battle.
The books below illustrate what it’s like to live with dyslexia. Some children who read these books may recognize that they have it themselves and be motivated to ask for help. Others may learn to recognize it in their friends and classmates and look at them with more understanding. And they might even become the adults who make the world a better place for people with dyslexia and other learning disorders.
A Walk in the Words
By Hudson Talbott
It’s hard to explain what dyslexia is like to someone who doesn’t have it, but Hudson Talbott shows us what it’s like in his picture book A Walk in the Words. He uses his talents as an artist to illustrate his own experience with dyslexia as a child — and he does it in a way that is simply brilliant.
The narrator of the story is a young boy who explains that drawing had always come naturally to him. When he describes drawing as being like “diving into my own world,” Talbott shows the boy literally diving into a large drawing spread on the floor. The boy and the underworld scene are shown in bright colors, while the living room around them fades into gray.
When the boy describes his difficulties with reading, he describes having to picture every single word one at a time. Talbott shows the child putting individual words in picture frames and hanging them on a wall.
As the rest of the boy’s class progress in their reading skills, he falls behind. This is shown as a literal wall built out of blocks of dense text, with the child’s head barely visible behind it.
Talbott shows the boy in a jungle made of tangled branches and roots labeled with words — strange, scary words like “sovereign” and “exactitude” and “persuasion.”
But this child is smart and determined, and he finds solutions to his dilemma. He grabs a branch labeled “overwhelm” and breaks into “over” and “whelm,” which are much more manageable. Then he looks for stepping-stones — words that he already knows — and lets them lead him forward. The stepping-stones have words of encouragement — “trust yourself” and “go for it” — written on them.
He keeps going, learning more techniques and strategies along the way. He is finally able to tear down that awful Wall of Shame and replace it with an array of portraits that he calls the Slow Readers Hall of Fame. It features pictures of famous slow readers, including Joan of Arc and Thomas Edison.
The boy admits that he still sometimes finds himself lost in a sea of words — shown as an ocean of words with him using his sketching pad to stay afloat — but he has learned to “enjoy the ride!” — by using his sketching pad to surf a giant wave of words. Here, the words in the sea of words have been rearranged into the comprehensible sentences of this book itself.
An author’s note ends with: “I hope that my story will help to heal those who bear similar scars to mine, and will empower readers who are on their own journey to literacy.”
You can learn more about Hudson Talbott here.
May B.
By Caroline Starr Rose
When May B. begins, Mavis Elizabeth Betterly, known as May B., has been exiled. She’d been relatively happy living with her parents and brother on their homestead on the Kansas prairie, despite being shamed and humiliated at school because of her inability to read. Then her parents, in need of cash, sent her to work as hired help for a newlywed couple on another homestead. May is angry and resentful, especially since the move means she won’t be able to attend school for five months. She thinks this is yet another sign that she’s not worth much to anybody.
Mrs. Oblinger, the newlywed bride May is expected to help, is clearly miserable with her new life on the prairie. She treats May B. with contempt, but May goes to work fetching water and making biscuits. Then, while Mr. Oblinger is away, his wife takes the opportunity to escape her marriage and rides away. When he discovers that his wife has left him, he goes after her and never returns. That leaves May alone on the stark and unforgiving prairie, knowing that no one will come looking for her until Christmas. She will have to fend for herself.
May B. becomes a survival story as May struggles to make her meager supply of food last till Christmas. She learns to catch fish with her bare hands. She sleeps with the jar of her sourdough starter tucked against her to keep it from freezing. She bundles hay together to use as fuel. She has to fight to survive, but she still has time to think … about home, about her unspoken dream of someday becoming a teacher, about how badly she’d been treated at school. Then she pulls out the reader she’d brought with her and begins to teach herself to read, in her own way, at her own pace.
May B. is written in verse, which is the perfect choice for the story. The short lines and spare text telegraph the urgency of May’s situation. At the same time, the verse is lovely and eloquent, highlighting the fact that while May might have dyslexia, there’s nothing wrong with her ability to think deep thoughts.
Despite the fact that May’s struggle with dyslexia happened long ago in an isolated prairie sod house, her perseverance makes her a superb role model for anyone living with dyslexia today.
You can learn more about Caroline Starr Rose here.
Close to Famous
By Joan Bauer
The first chapter of Close to Famous sounds like the plot of a slapstick comedy: A young girl and her mother are on the run from an Elvis impersonator who drives a Cadillac with a horn that plays “Jailhouse Rock.” But domestic violence is no joke, and Foster McFee’s mother has just been punched in the face by her soon-to be-ex boyfriend. She and Foster throw most of their belongings into their car and leave him and Memphis behind.
This is not the first time Foster’s life has been uprooted. Her father was killed while serving in Iraq, and Foster and her mother have struggled to get by on her mother’s income as a backup singer. Their many moves have allowed Foster to hide her big secret from her teachers: She’s never learned to read. Fortunately, she hasn’t needed to read recipes to become a stellar baker, and her dream is to have her own cooking show, like her favorite TV chef.
By chance, Foster and her mother end up in tiny Culpepper, West Virginia, where they encounter a group of quirky characters, including a boy who wants to be a documentary filmmaker, although he doesn’t own a camera, and a movie star whose career has been derailed. Foster believes that just about anything can be cured with the right cupcake, and she puts her baking skills to work in her new hometown. When her inability to read is inadvertently revealed, she learns that it’s just as important to accept help as it is to give it.
It’s hard not to like a character like Foster McFee. Despite the challenges she’s faced, she still has a warm, loving heart that always looks for the good in other people (except for Huck, the violent Elvis impersonator). Because the story is told in her voice, we see the good in the people she meets in Culpepper, which gives this story its heartwarming appeal. It makes her triumph over dyslexia even more satisfying. The descriptions of red velvet cupcakes are (I can’t resist writing this!) the icing on the cake.
You can learn more about Joan Bauer here.
Bluefish
By Pat Schmatz
You might expect to feel depressed after reading a book that addresses alcoholism, bullying, poverty, grief, and a reading disorder, but Bluefish is actually filled with so much humor and hope that it gives me a warm glow every time I re-read it.
Every other chapter in Bluefish is told from the viewpoint of Travis Roberts, a boy who has lived a haphazard existence since he was orphaned at the age of three. He’s been raised by his grandfather, but his dog Rosco has actually been his main caretaker his and constant companion. Unfortunately, Rosco couldn’t teach Travis to read, something Travis still can’t do at thirteen.
Travis’s life is upended when Rosco disappears and his grandfather abruptly moves them to a new town. His grandfather starts attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and Travis starts attending a new school, where he can no longer hide the fact that he can’t read. He also struggles with what he calls “anger management issues,” but he still has a deep sense of fairness that leads him to intervene when a classmate is bullied.
Velveeta, one of Travis’s classmate, has also been living a haphazard existence. She lives in a trailer park with her negligent mother. A neighbor named Calvin had been giving Velveeta a lift out of her lonely existence by introducing her to classic movies and giving her the beautiful scarves his wife used to wear. Since Calvin died, Velveeta has continued to use his trailer as her refuge. She still writes to him as a way to maintain the connection she desperately needs. Her letters to him alternate with the chapters about Travis’s struggles.
Both Travis and Velveeta are lucky enough to encounter a reading teacher who knows exactly what each of them needs. The two misfits form a tentative friendship that grows stronger as the story progresses and becomes a part of Travis’s learning to read. They also become friends with a third misfit classmate whose personality is just as endearing as theirs.
Having spent a fair amount of my childhood living a haphazard existence and dealing with poverty, bullying, and grief, I am particularly drawn to books that address those issues with sensitivity and with touches of humor instead of reverting to stereotypes. Author Pat Schmatz does exactly that with Bluefish.
I can vouch for Bluefish being an accurate portrayal of what life is like on what used to be called “the other side of the tracks.” It also shows that when children struggle to read, it’s often just one of many challenges in their lives. Adults who want to help them must acknowledge those challenges as well. Telling them to “just try,” as one of Travis’s teachers did, is not enough.
You can learn more about Pat Schmatz here.
Long after my days as an beginning reader, I am still angry that my classmates then were scolded when they struggled to read. No one should be stigmatized when they have difficulty learning a new skill or even if they never learn it at all. After all, sign language and braille were invented to help people communicate in new ways when the old ways didn’t work for them. It’s the communication that’s important, not the method through which it’s achieved. The books described above show that dyslexia might be a speed bump on the road to communication, but it doesn’t have to be a stop sign.