Tod Goldberg, On Reading

"When I was a child I remember being told I would never read or write above the 4th grade level. I was only six or seven at the time and was profoundly dyslexic. I was at an optometrist's office getting my eyes checked and as I sat there in the dark with my eyes dilated, the optometrist turned to my mother and told her my future as if I was incapable of understanding what he was saying. I spent the next several years in special classes filled with other kids with far more significant maladies -- cerebral palsy, missing limbs, Downs Syndrome -- and every day that I spent in those classes, and every day I spent being tormented by what I couldn't do and couldn't be, the more I wanted to simply be able to sit down and read, get swept away to a better life than what I was mired in. Of course I didn't know how hard it would be, or how long the journey, or how grand the payoff would be. I don't know if I write above a 4th grade level -- at least not according to some reviews on Amazon! -- but I surely read above that level now."

{Tod Goldberg is the author of several books, including Fake Liar Cheat, Other Resort Cities, Burn Notice: The Fix, and Burn Notice: The End Game. His novel, Living Dead Girl ,was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and his collection of short stories, Simplify, was a finalist for the SCIBA Award for Fiction and winner of the Other Voices Short Story Collection Prize. Visit his website here for more information.}