“Reading – Saved by Super Heroes”

Hi all,

Here is the second episode of the “Hi All Podcast” as I talked about how comic books helped with my struggles to read. Watch it here and come bag and read the blog. Thank you.

Welcome Back,

When I was young, my dad worked at a hospital only a mile from our home.

Every so often, with my little sister in the stroller, my mother would walk us along a bridal trail to the hospital where we would have lunch with dad. We would often stay at the hospital until he was ready to come home.

Additionally, my grandparents would be patients at this hospital multiple times through the years.

Because of that, there was a lot of sitting alone in the hospital’s lobby with very little to do, other than homework, I would sit there and “behave myself”.

Then one afternoon the hospital’s Chaplain took pity on that little boy in the lobby and went back to his own office. When he returned, he handed me two comic books; one an issue of Superman, and the other The Flash.

And… I loved them. I devoured them. I read them cover to cover multiple times.

I wanted more. I wanted to have more comic books, and read more about super heroes and the adventures they have.

But my parents had concerns and went to my teachers, and tutors at the ‘Reading Game’, and asked “should he be reading comics?”

Their answer was simple; “If he’s reading, let him read, don’t stop him.”

So, I was given permission by both my teachers and God to enjoy comic books.

One after another I would be the super hero comics. I would find comics at book stores at the mall, and at the corner 7/11. Even at the hospital, the lobby gift shop sold digest size reprint comics. I scooped them all up.

Reading comics didn’t give me super powers, like the bite of a radioactive spider or a green ring from some alien, that would improve my grades. They did, however, give me the desire to read more, to stretch myself and find more stories to be excited about.

Though my growing education was still slow, being able to read comic books helped improve not only my reading skills, but also an interest in history.

Because of those reprint digests I learned about what was called “The Golden Age” of comic books. The earlier years of the super heroes from the 1930s to the 1950s. I started looking for stories that included those original heroes, including the members of the Justice Society of America. I soon discovered a current comic series entitled the All-Star Squadron. It included members of the JSA, but also many other characters that existed in the 1940s. The team’s name was a nod to the JSA originally appearing in All-Star Comics.

The All-Star Squadron took place during World War II. Many of these characters were first published in the years just before America joined the war. The writer, Roy Thomas, a former History teacher himself, wrote the tales of these heroes as if they were truly part of war time history.

A magical conceit was established so that these super powered beings could not involve themselves directly in the war in Europe or in the Pacific, otherwise it would have ended by February of ’42. These heroes fought crime and Nazi sympathizers on the American home front, and did a good job of teaching the reader about real war time history. The heroes met with historical figures like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and some of his actual Presidential speeches were included in the stories.

So, my interest in History grew because of these four-color stories.

Comics didn’t help with most of my other classes like math or science, but it did help with art and writing, because I was wanted to draw the comics I was reading. To draw and write my own comics.

Larger books still remained hard for me to grasp, but comics would get me through that as well.

I’ll tell you about other books that I read, and didn’t read, as well as how school bullies had an influence on my reading, in the next episode.

See you soon.

Bye all.