The most recent book I have finished is, The Promised Neverland, by Kaiu Shirai. I’ve read it once before, but I was rereading it because the second season of it’s animated version from Cloverworks had recently premiered. I was gonna just sit back and enjoy the second season but luck is never on my side. Around the third episode they did something that made me pretty scared. They diverged from the source material! It was at the end of the episode and it wasn’t so big that it ruined everything, so I prayed that this was just one mistake that wouldn’t affect anything. But, you can guess what happened after that. The fourth episode was not what I hoped and they botched a whole narrative! I went back to the manga to cope, thinking that it would make me feel better. Rereading the manga reminded why I was so excited for the anime and why I was so mad about this change. Reading The Promised Neverland manga was an emotional rollercoaster for me, which is more than I can say for any work of literature I have ever read. Historically, books haven’t appealed to me, mainly because it’s been difficult for me to attach myself to characters I can’t see. If the author doesn’t put in an abnormal amount of detail, I won’t be able to feel anything. Of course graphic novels aren’t for everyone, but just because picture books are associated with children's tales doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy and learn from them too. Comics, manga and graphic novels are gifts, and should be as accepted as real books by more people than just the people who read them.

The most important aspect of reading is enjoyment, so it’s a mistake to ridicule comics and manga. Lucas Maxwell, a librarian who writes for Bookriot.com, wrote about an incident in a library in which a father said to his son, “You can’t have those...comic books aren’t real books, you need to get proper books. Those don’t count.” This is much like the interactions I have with my dad. I would have a stack of three, three-hundred paged Calvin & Hobbes books that I’d read and reread three-hundred times, and he would always say the same things about them not being real and such. I don’t remember this impacting me, although I did feel annoyed at him. I wouldn’t argue back because half the opinion-related things my dad says are nonsense beyond reason anyways. Maxwell went on to state that (with) “...those few sentences about comic books he also is working to dissuade his son from being excited about reading and viewing it as a fun activity. Something that reduces stress and lets him forget about whatever might be bothering him that day.” Most kids, unlike me, probably think their dads know what they’re talking about. When they are prevented access to comics, they end up resenting reading. This also stresses out kids, making school and various other things much more of a hassle. By taking away a fun activity, parents are diminishing their potential to become an avid reader.

While some might think differently, there are many benefits to reading comics. According to BookRiot.com, California State University, Northridge did a study that found that the “language used by comics is far more advanced than that the oral communication of college graduates, and uses almost twice as many rare or difficult words!” When I first started reading it, there were many words in Calvin & Hobbes that I had never seen in my life. Back in the day (when I was too young to use the internet and too lazy to look through a dictionary) many of these unknown words flew over my head. But I still saw them and knew they existed. Lucas Maxwell states that, “reading for pleasure has proven to be beneficial to your mental health and educational outcomes.” Naturally, being forced to do something you don’t enjoy is irritating and creates a negative feeling towards the book. Society has deemed that things that aren’t enjoyable must be good for you, like taking medicine or eating kale. So, people are gonna think the opposite is true too. But that isn’t true! Reading for pleasure might really be what makes bookworms smart—not the form of knowledge consumption, but the amount of fun you’re having. If reading comics is as beneficial as reading literature, then why do parents and teachers care about what we read?

I often spend two hours a day reading manga. Of course, this is only if I find one I like. Before I got into manga, the amount of required daily reading for school was around 15-30 minutes. Naturally, I would only read that amount and then go do something else. Adults should be happy I’m reading at all. If I didn’t read manga, I bet I would only read the latest boba article in my newsfeed, and they only take about 5 minutes each. When I started reading The Promised Neverland, I would spend hours reading. Enjoying reading is what really gets a person into reading. It also allows you to take in more information, instead of ignoring it and just skimming to get it over with. Forcing reading on someone makes it likely that they will see it as another chore or homework assignment, which creates a negative association with reading. The most effective way of getting someone to learn from reading is to let them pick their own materials.