Dav Pilkey Quotes

The most important thing whenever we're connecting kids to books, is that we try to match the book to the kid and make sure that reading is a fun, rewarding experience outside the classroom.

Having a sense of fun in books is a huge, huge deal, because a lot of times kids - even me when I got to third or fourth grade - don't associate reading with fun.

I love kids; I think they are fun and funny.

Most of my inspiration, if that's the word, came from books themselves.

I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I can't promise that every child with learning differences will become a novelist, but I do think all children can become lifelong readers.

Children will not pretend to be enjoying books, and they will not read books because they have been told that these books are good. They are looking for delight.

Making reading an enjoyable activity for children is a challenge. So I ensure that I write in a way that is fun for children to read.

To work with children anywhere is just plain fun.

I was very happy and honored to create the Professor Garfield Foundation with Ball State to make reading fun.

Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.

I hate the idea of any kid missing out on the magic of reading.

There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups.

I read a great deal as a child. A lot of children go through a phase of reading in a literally voracious way. It is their primary imaginative activity. Maybe that's an experience which is not so common any more with the presence of television in every home.

Pretty much every night of their lives, my 8-year-old sons have absorbed themselves entirely in books. As toddlers, they pointed out pictures, made conjectures; lately, we find them in their bunk beds embarked upon two-hour comic-reading benders.

We've never tried to educate children. We've never tried to preach to them, just entertain.

One of the things about horror movies that I've noticed with the children I've worked with is that they have a great time.

Our greatest hope is to bring up children inspired by their opportunities for being helpful and loving.

If I could summarize my suggestions to parents over the past twenty-five years it would be: worry less, criticize less, preach less, listen more, have more fun, be more honest with your own feelings, develop your own joys and friendships, and don't sweat the small stuff (which is nearly everything). The goal is not to be a perfect parent, because no such thing exists. The hope is to be a good enough parent so that your child leaves home a responsible adult who can take care of him or herself.

My personal view is that reading has to be balanced. Obviously, there's a certain amount of reading that we have to do academically to continue to learn and to grow, but it's got to be balanced with fun and with elective reading. Whether that's comic books or Jane Austen, if it makes you excited about reading, that's what matters.

When I was a child I could do math and art, so I had left- and right-brain capabilities. But I've seen my children, who are more right-brained, struggling. My son was told he wouldn't make it to college, but he dogged it through and ended up being accepted by 10 major art schools after the high school advisor said, "Please don't apply. You're going to be disappointed." That kid's an artist now.

I find that nowadays it's just gotten harder for me to read for fun. It feels like all of my reading is research-based.

Even though I have this solid career in picture books, I've not only been thinking about kids - because I don't think that much about children; I'm not a child educator; I'm just a former child.

I think, for some children, your skills don't lie in written words. A lot of school is based around written words and how good you are at spelling or reading. From a young age, if you're told you can't spell or read very well, you're made to feel a bit stupid.