Jon Scieszka Quotes

#1. Be a good reading role model. Show kids what you like to read, what you don't like to read, how you choose what you read. Let them see you reading.

Jon Scieszka

#2. I'm just trying to get kids motivated to be readers by connecting them with a book they like.

Jon Scieszka

#3. Read as much as you can, and then sit down and write.

Jon Scieszka

#4. 'Just looking at pictures' used to be considered cheating. No longer. The graphic novel is booming. Comics, heavily illustrated texts, books with no words are now accepted as reading.

Jon Scieszka

#5. We're promoting such a narrow version of literacy that we're not including what a lot of boys like.

Jon Scieszka

#6. For the longest time, you couldn't even say boys and girls were different. It was taboo in the educational world.

Jon Scieszka

#7. Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.

Jon Scieszka

#8. Your brain is doing some great work when it's laughing.

Jon Scieszka

#9. I was born full grown in the middle of a hurricane and an earthquake on 10 September 1954, 12.52 P.M. When I found out that I had missed lunch, I gave such a shout that the Earth stopped and spun backwards two days. That's why I celebrate my birthday on 8 September.

Jon Scieszka

#10. I always loved strange stories like the Dr. Seuss stuff. 'Go, Dog. Go!' was one of my favorite stories - it still is. It's just such a bizarre yet true book. And I did well reading and writing as a kid throughout school. I think early on that's what made me realize what an advantage that is.

Jon Scieszka

#11. I believe that all blogs should have at least one set of rhyming words. Just because. Does. Fuzz. Was.

Jon Scieszka

#12. I'm not sure what to call 'Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary.' Nonfiction? Movie/toy fiction? But it is any Lego/'Star Wars' kid's dream. Call it spectacular.

Jon Scieszka

#13. And everyone lived happily, thought maybe not completely honestly, ever after. The End.

Jon Scieszka

#14. Avoid demonizing television, computer games, and new technologies. Electronic media may compete for kids' attention, but we're not going to get kids reading by badmouthing other entertainment. Admit that TV and games can do things books can't.

Jon Scieszka

#15. I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

Jon Scieszka

#16. If the day gets really bad, I can always pull out fan mail. Who else gets mail where kids write to you and say, 'Dear Mr. Scieszka, we were supposed to write to our favorite author, but Roald Dahl is dead. So I'm writing to you.'

Jon Scieszka

#17. When I was one day old, I learned how to read. When I was two days old, I started to write. By the time I was three, I had finished 212 short stories, 38 novels, 730 poems, and one very funny limerick, all before breakfast.

Jon Scieszka

#18. For a lot of kids, reading is not magical. It's really hard work.

Jon Scieszka

#19. Jeff Kinney's 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series and Stephenie Meyer's 'Twilight' books got 49,323,701 kids reading.

Jon Scieszka

#20. People say, 'All my son will read is 'Captain Underpants,' or 'My son is crazy about shark books, is that O.K.?' I want to be the person to say, 'Yeah, that's really O.K., as long as he's motivated to want to read.'

Jon Scieszka

#21. I think every parent knows that, like, boys and girls are different. And we just don't take that into account in schools on those things like required reading lists. 'Cause that was my experience, say, with my son, who had to read 'Little House on the Prairie' when he was in third grade.

Jon Scieszka

#22. There are six 'Time Warp Trio' books that would take a page each to fully praise. And I just thought up twelve more while I was typing this sentence.

Jon Scieszka