Janie and Richard Jarvis are journalists and parents who make their home in Atlanta, Georgia. Janie has been a reporter for newspapers including the Greenville (SC) News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her work has also appeared in various national magazines.

She works from home as a speech and correspondence writer for the Atlantic diplomatic office of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Janie’s life-long study of children’s literature includes courses at Emory University in Atlanta on juvenile literature and writing. Richard’s journalism experience includes five years as the education reporter for The Greenville Piedmont, an afternoon newspaper. He later worked as an assistant city editor for The Greenville News, and is executive editor for an Atlanta-based publisher of newsletters for tax and human resources professionals.

Joe:
I'd like to invite Richard Jarvis to join us here on our "Meet the Author" series. Richard, you define "The Magic Bookshelf" consists of the good books that you encounter. How did you come by this concept?

Richard:
Thank you for inviting me to meet with your group here on the Zone.

This begins with a personal story involving my son Allen and my wife Janie. Allen is a part-time resident in our house (he lives with his mother most of the time) and has always been a good student. We noticed however that his reading wasn't as avid as we would have expected given his ability. He would go to the library and check out stacks of Goosebumps books and read the first chapter of each book and then stop. Books just didn't seem to light the fire we wanted with him. So Janie found a copy of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Ronald Dahl that she had kept since childhood. I read that book out loud to Allen (who was then eight years old) and it was followed soon by the sequel, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator." That sent Allen looking for all of Dahl's books, which he checked out and read and then later bought for his own with HIS OWN MONEY.

Janie continued to pull books from her collection and every one seemed to be a hit, prompting Allen to call the bookshelf where Janie's childhood treasures were stored the "Magic Bookshelf." When it came time to name our book, it was the only title that seemed to make sense. After all, we saw the magic that the right books were able to work with a good reader who just wasn't being captured by what he chose for himself. Allen had been read to since birth and books are a part of both homes, but he had hit a lull and it took truly good books to light that fire and set him to moving forward again.

Joe:
With so many ways to learn with audio and visual techniques and text on the Internet, many people say the the "book is dead." What value does a book have over these more "high tech" media?

Richard:
The warmth of a book is undeniable.
Can you curl up with your computer in a child's bed at night and read the story out loud? Further, books allow us to fill in the blanks as we grow older. When we use the high tech media our imagination is replaced by that of the artist who creates the entire multimedia experience. With a book, however, we get to draw our own pictures in our minds of how characters look and how scenes are laid out. Television, computers and other media are powerful tools and I think today's children are fortunate to live in a world where they can take advantage of all these tools. Still, the current technology is not ready to take out under a tree on a warm summer day when there is nothing else to do.

In "The Magic Bookshelf," we discuss how to put these tools to work in learning and reading. For example, Allen saw the movie based on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and noticed right away what a pale rendition of the book it was. This was true with several other books we read. We do note, however, that sometimes a movie can be used to spark interest in a book and get a child to read a book that might otherwise go ignored. The new CD-ROM books are also great tools for parents. The Arthur series is particularly well done because it features so many hidden surprises that play off the funny happenings in the books themselves. Audio tapes are also a good tool to use. Books on tape make great travel companions and allow parents to extend the influence of good literature. We are truly blessed to live in this age, but that doesn't mean that black type on white paper is going away.

A final note here. The critical element here is story. Good stories will always capture the imagination, no matter what format is used for the presentation. Thus, good writing and imagination will be creating magic for children many years into the future, regardless of format.

Joe:
You can lead a horse to water, but you can can't make him drink. How do you balance a child's interests in "junk food" books with classics that might be more difficult to digest?

Richard:
I think the real issue is that classic books are often easier to digest. The stories are believable and the characters are more fully developed. Junk books are those with trite plot lines, predictable endings and one-dimensional characters. Junk books do, however, often have flashy covers and the appeal of collecting that seems to be a big thing among children these days.

Good books give us the unexpected and the often the initially undesirable, such as the death of Charlotte the spider in "Charlotte's Web." Look at C.S. Lewis and how he brings the children in that series through so many twists and turns. They are well developed characters who strike a chord in the reader. Sure, some classic books are harder to read. For example, "The Yearling" is made difficult by the use of dialect. But savvy parents can overcome this through reading out loud and explaining the use of dialect and helping the child work through the harder parts.

We also remind parents that comprehension often outpaces ability. Children can understand books that they are unable to read. As parents we can use this to our advantage by making special reading times. With Allen, we read "Charlotte's Web" out loud when he was too young to read it for himself. It became a special time for us to sit down and share a few chapters of this wonderful book. One of the things we advocate in "The Magic Bookshelf" is strong parent involvement in your child's reading life. That means reading books aloud and also means discussing reading choices and being actively involved in those choices.