Parenting & Family Quote by Kate DiCamillo

DiCamillo lands the point with a gentle sting: the problem isn’t that parents want readers; it’s that they want compliance. “Insist” and “make” are parenting verbs, not literary ones. They frame books as medicine - good for you, begrudgingly taken - and kids, being expert translators of adult hypocrisy, learn the real lesson: reading is a chore that responsible people endure.

Her intent is quietly radical because it reroutes the power dynamic. Instead of treating reading as a skill to be enforced, she treats it as a culture to be absorbed. The subtext is about desire and imitation: children don’t “treasure” what’s assigned; they treasure what seems to matter in the private lives of adults. If a child only sees reading in the context of school, rewards, or punishment, books become another instrument of evaluation. If they see an adult reading for pleasure, reading becomes a visible form of agency - a chosen refuge, not an obligation.

The context matters: DiCamillo writes for young readers and has spent a career making books feel like places you want to live. Her comment pushes back against a modern parental panic where every habit must be optimized and tracked, even joy. She’s arguing for modeling over management, for the persuasive force of a living room where stories are normal. It’s also a reminder that cultivating readers isn’t just about the child’s behavior; it’s about the household’s values made legible, one dog-eared paperback at a time.