"I took time to look
for words that I knew.
There they were!
Like stepping-stones
leading me onward.
I jumped over the words
I didn't know,
and let the words
I knew lead me into the story."
In a first-rate book that speaks of his own reading journey, Hudson Talbott gives voice to a young boy who loves to draw. After school every day, he comes home to his art supplies and long swaths of drawing paper. Drawing the stories he imagines provides pleasure and assurance.
It is not the same at school. There, he is the slowest reader, well behind all of his classmates. As the images become less available to him and the words take up all the space, he retreats from books.
"I had to face it:
I was alone and lost in a world of ...
WORDS"
Slowly, very slowly, he comes to grips with the challenges of reading and begins to feel more confident in finding his way. He learns that many of the most brilliant historical figures also had reading difficulties that didn't stop them from doing great things. He is no longer ashamed of his 'failures' and finds a way to combine storytelling with art to find success.
Using watercolors, colored pencil, and ink to help tell his story, Mr. Talbott creates a clear and honest look at the many feelings he experienced as he walked in the words to find his own love of reading ... on his terms and in his time.
In the author's note that concludes this book, Hudson Talbott explains some of the difficulties he experienced as an emergent reader. He recalls the pressure that made reading even harder for him as he struggled to meet the requirements for all children to be at the same place on their reading journey. Being the one that didn't fit the mold was very uncomfortable for him, and he didn't get much school support for the difficulties he was facing.
At home, he found comfort in pictures. He was curious about what they represented. Using them, he managed to generate confidence in himself to be a reader.
"The less I thought about reading,
the more I read. I had crossed a
threshold. Fear no longer prevented
me from finding my way with words."
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