How NYCC Will Make Your Kid A Reader

When you walk around New York Comic Con for the first time you will likely realize that this event is focused on comics, but also has a bunch of other options going on at the same time. They have video games, books, movies and all sorts of other cool places to visit. However, books is where we start our journey today. Do you have a child that is just not that interested in reading? It doesn’t even matter what age we are talking about, because the age range is all-encompassing at this show. From Disney Books all the way up to things that would scare your late age teenagers, but so does a book store, NYCC though has things that book stores do not have (well, most of the time) … authors and publicists.

All of these people might not like reading!

So the first thing as a parent you must do is scope out the schedule to see what authors will be signing what books, when and where. Make note to try to match up your kids age group to the books being signed, and even more bonus points if you can match some of their interests to the books being signed. We are talking NYCC so the skew of books will tend to be in the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres. Remember this, the schedule is out early so you do have to do a little bit of homework. Ok so now you are armed with a list of books, some times, and hopefully your kid. A few things are going to happen, first your child is going to think it is the coolest thing that the author signs their book, and every kid wants to read cool things. Secondly, as the parent, ask the author if they think your kid would like the book, apples to doughnuts, that author is going to give your kid the best pitch as to why you want to read their book. For example, Brandon Mull is going to sell your kid on any book he has written in a heartbeat, even those kids that don’t seem interested in reading.

Check out some of the programs that were offered:

Young Heroes and Heroines with the Power to Change the World: What we can learn from Harry Potter, Pug the Magician, Taran, Alanna, Will Stanton and More!

Chills & Goosebumps with R. L. Stine

They were definitely great programs. R. L. Stine is super interesting and can hold the attention of the room.

So let’s say you either don’t have the time to wait for the authors, there are another group of people that are well versed in helping your kids, publicists! The best thing about the publicists are that they have probably read over 80% of the books you see they have on the table, and if not, they can turn around and find another publicist that has. Also instead of trying to interest your child in one specific book, they can get a feel for what your child might like and they have a ton of different suggestions for them. A rare tool to be used by the parent to get your child interested in reading.

So, NYCC 2013 can be all different things to different kinds of people, and for you child it may just introduce them to the wonderful world of reading. From a parent’s standpoint, that would be a gift that keeps on giving. And maybe, just maybe it will bring you and your children a little bit closer and you enjoy reading the same books that they do, so make sure to get your tickets early!