Air Date: 12/21/20

The Upgrade by Lifehacker

How to Get Your Kids Into Reading, With Alvin Irby

Alice ​
Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at Lifehacker, where
we help you improve your life one week at a time. I'm Alice Bradley, editor in chief of
Lifehacker.

Jordan ​
And I'm Jordan Calhoun, Lifehacker's deputy editor.

Alice ​
And today we are tackling a parenting problem.

Jordan ​We are. And we're getting tips on how to get our kids to be better readers with
help from award-winning comedian and social entrepreneur Alvin Irby.

Alvin Irby ​
Right now, while your child is young, what you want to be doing is cultivating his
reading identity. As he gets older, his reading preferences may change. But what's going
to be more difficult to change is the extent to which he identifies as a reader.

Alice ​
Alvin is a former kindergarten teacher turned activist, author and stand-up comedian.
In 2014, he founded a nonprofit literacy project called Barbershop Books in an effort to
bring books to kids where they are.

Jordan ​Alvin also has a TED talk called How to Inspire Every Child to Be a Lifelong
Reader, which has been viewed over a million times. And in twenty-sixteen, he published
his own children's book called Gross Greg.

Alice ​
So Jordan, what were you like as a kid? Were you a big reader?

Jordan ​ I was not. Let me tell you, I didn't get into reading until late. I was very much a
cliché young kid who grew up in the city and was very much into cartoons and movies and
a lot of pop culture stuff that excluded reading. When I got to a certain age, I think there's
you know, there comes that point around, I don't know, maybe fourth or fifth grade where
reading stops being cool as a kid or at least as a boy and reading starts to look like a thing
that girls do. I had a very bookish cousin named Gabrielle and she would always be
reading and I'd be like, this is silly at this point. I'm going to go watch cartoons. Why would
you choose to do that over this? Like, I have a much better option over here. Why are you
still reading? So I started off reading a ton when it was like cloudy with a chance of
meatballs level reading. And I was really good at reading like, you know, second, third,
fourth grade. I was really, really good at reading and really into it. And then I got to a
certain age where it just stopped being cool and I did not start reading again until I was like
a grown-ass adult. Like, I probably got through high school, Alice, like only reading Lord of
the Flies and Fahrenheit 451. Like, I can't remember another book that...I think I got
through high school reading only a handful of books. And it's a shame. Like there are so
many books that I had to reread or read for the first time as an adult because I missed
over that chunk of time where I would have otherwise been, you know, diving into books.
There are some periods that were exceptions, like when my mom would let me go to the
library with my brother and we got to choose our own books. There were certain tricks that
she did that got us reading more than we wanted to. But I didn't identify as a reader when I
was, you know, in elementary and middle school and high school. Were you different?
How was it how was it for you? I imagine like with girls, the socialization around it is just
completely different.

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Alice ​You know, it was completely different for me. I think that is true to a large extent. But
I'm thinking of people like my sister Liz, who is, you know, a very she's an editor, also very
literary person. We always are swapping book ideas. And she was not a reader at all. Like
just did not identify as a reader, was not particularly into books, I think until maybe during
college, maybe after college. I'd have to ask her. But I think it's interesting how people just
get into that identity or they don't. And there's not too much you can really do. I mean, well,
I don't know as a parent, I mean, I have I have one kid, so I only had one chance to really
try. And, you know, it's we're done now. But he was not he was somewhere in the middle.
He was an enthusiastic reader to an extent, but not like I was where I needed to have a
book with me at all times. And if I didn't, I felt like something was missing. You know, he's
just as happy watching YouTube videos and playing video games as he was reading, but.
So what changed it for you? Because at some point, clearly, you became a reader.

Jordan ​ Hoo, I mean, I think it changed when the social currency around reading changed.
So when you get to a certain level in your academic career, when you get to college or
even later on in high school, what changed for me was when people who read became
more, they were seen differently. They were seen as as smarter. And when I was in
college and it became more currency to have read certain books, and you're having
conversations with people who have actually read X number of books that you hadn't read
or even heard of, and you start to feel a little bit stupid. I think that's honestly part of like
what catapulted me into wanting to read more was knowing that it's not cool to have not
read this stuff or you'll start looking a bit dumb or people will start having certain
assumptions about you. And I mean, honestly, to be frank about it. When you're a young
Black man in college, you start to pick up on certain expectations of people's intelligence
or people's perceptions of your own intelligence and things and yeah. A lot of it made me
feel uncomfortable knowing that I hadn't read as much as other people. And you start to
feel some insecurity about that, which I guess in that case it was a...Depending on which
angle I look at it, it's like a good insecurity. It got me to do something that I eventually fell in
love with. And then once you do fall in love with reading and you know how to enjoy it and
you develop a taste, then then you can actually read for enjoyment. I think a lot of the
roadblock for me and for a lot of people when they were first getting to know what they like
is that you don't know what you like, you don't know what's out there. It's so hard to
develop a love of reading if you don't have a taste yet and you're just reading whatever's
popular or whatever someone suggests to you. And you read those things, if you're lucky,
there are things that you happen to fall in love with and that you think are great and that
will spark, you know, some some intrinsic motivation for you to continue reading. But if
you're unlucky and you end up reading something that's, you know, oh, this is really
popular, I'm going to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and you don't really care for it, then you're
like, what the fuck is this like? Why why are people gushing over this? This is actually just
boring, whatever nonsense. So.

Alice ​Right. Yeah. And that's the kind of hurdle you want your kid to get past. I think as a
parent, you want them to learn that it actually...You want them to become sort of
intrinsically motivated because they're...It is joyful in the end, like you want them to do it
because it's fun. Right. And people it's easy to lose sight of that when you're a parent and
concerned about your kid not reading enough. And I think it's worth it to kind of just sit
back and be like, why do I want them to read more? I mean, what's the...?

Jordan ​
Yeah, and—.

Alice ​
What's the end game?

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Jordan ​ Right. And I think we take for granted the amount of work that takes in to one, like
building the patience for reading. Like it's going to be a slower burn than if I'm you know, if
I'm a kid watching anime. And two, it takes some work to develop understanding of what
you like and what you don't like. And like if you get through that hurdle earlier, if you start
to develop that taste when you're a younger kid, then you'll be better able to pick books
that continue to make reading enjoyable. But if you just read what you're assigned in
school or if you just read what your parents are, what someone forced you to read, it sort
of sucks. Like it's the easy way to suck the fun out of it, because you start to think that this
is all there is this book that you know, that I just am not enjoying.

Alice ​Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was not there for your talk with Alvin, but I heard that you and
staff writer Beth Skwarecki had a good talk and I look forward to hearing what you guys
come up with.

Jordan ​
Absolutely. Let's dive into it.

Jordan ​
Alvin, thanks for for joining the show. So glad to have you, man.

Alvin Irby ​
Hey, man. It's my pleasure, man. Long time no see.

Jordan ​Yeah. Always great speaking with you. So I want to start by talking about the
gender reading gap, because Barbershop Books, your nonprofit focuses primarily on boys
and that could be probably confusing to someone if they didn't understand what the
gender reading gap was and when it begins. So can you explain that? What's the gender
reading gap and about when do we start seeing a difference in boys and girls and their
reading habits?

Alvin Irby ​ Well, you know, I think it starts very young, you know, but the data around
reading proficiency is clear across all demographics. You know, girls generally have higher
levels of reading proficiency than boys. And again, that's across all, you know, kind of
ethnic groups, you know, whether Black, white, Hispanic, whatever. Like the girls have
their stuff together.

Jordan ​
Why?

Alvin Irby ​ You know, I think, I think that there are a lot of kind of cultural and societal
factors that go into it. You know, where boys are much, you know, I mean, they have a
little more freedom at a young age. Right. Go outside and play versus a little girl. Stay in
here where I can see you. You know, like there's all kind of gendered kind of norms
around play who gets to play by themselves versus who has to have someone watching
them. And also, you know, I think a lot of the girls, I think boys and girls both like the
intimacy of curling up with a parent and engaging in, you know, any type of experience,
really, that's positive. But I think that girls probably a little bit more than boys, may have a
little bit of a longer attention span. Right. So our girls sit there and cuddle up with you
forever, whereas, you know, some boys, you know, I can think about reading to my little
nephew when he was three. You know, he sat there for a few minutes, then he was just
like, yep, all I needed. Bye. And he just got up and walked away. And so, you know, I think
that some of those kinds of differences could potentially contribute to some of the
differences that we see in terms of reading achievement between boys and girls.

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Beth ​
So did you have a love of reading as a young person? And can you tell us how you
came to that?

Alvin Irby ​No, I did not enjoy reading for fun as a kid. I mean, among my group of friends
that I grew up with, you know, in elementary school through middle school, reading just
was not where we found our cultural capital. You know, like whether or not you were good
at basketball or football or whether or not somebody wanted to choose you for, you know,
two-hand touch in the street or game of twenty one. You know, all these, you know, twenty
one was an individual game. Let me just put that out there. But anyway, those things all
kind of played into I think, you know, I think if my friends would have been into reading, I
think I certainly would have been the kind of kid that probably would have stayed inside
and discussed books, but that just wasn't a part. And my mom, even as an elementary
school teacher. You know, I think, thinking about the context of Little Rock during the early
90s when we were the murder capital of the country, you know, because of the gang
violence and the drugs, you know, I think a lot of Black mothers were preoccupied and
concerned with making sure that their children lived and stayed alive, you know, and and
so I think for her, it was kind of like, you know, stay out of trouble. You know, I don't want
you out there in the streets or hanging out with the wrong people. And that's not to say that
she didn't have goals and standards for us. But, you know, her being a single mother and
being a teacher, you know, might have affected how much time or energy she had to try
and curl up with us to read. You know, it was more about sit down and do this reading
lesson write. That was kind of you're not reading as well as you could do this reading
lesson. It wasn't as much of let's curl up and have this kind of warm and fuzzy reading
experience. And I think that some of that may have contributed to my kind of very early
negative attitudes toward reading. It was really not until high school that I began to really
develop positive attitudes toward reading and began to really view reading and learning as
something that I could control and that I wanted to control.

Jordan ​ You and I have very similar life experiences in certain ways. We're the same age
you grew up, a young Black kid in Little Rock. I was a young Black kid in Detroit. Neither of
us liked reading as kids. Both of us, I imagine, are somewhat voracious readers now. I
think of, when it comes to my mom, when I was being raised, I was not interested in
reading at all, except for the exception here was comic books. I loved comic books. I
wanted to read comic books. And when you think of like the Social Currency among me
and my friends, comic books was the one part that was like reading that did fit into what
applied for social currency. And that was the one thing my, my mom didn't want me to read
comic books.

Alvin Irby ​
You know, we had playing cards, right. So we would trade football, basketball
and we would read all the stats on the back and we would...

Jordan ​
Yeah.

Alvin Irby ​...you know, do these kinds of things. But yeah, I would say if anything it was it
was playing cards but I could absolutely see. But again, the social element of it. Right. It
wasn't just you in isolation reading comic books, your friends also read comic books. You
talked about comic books. Right. And so I think that there's this social element that if if
children can create that among their friends, whether it's comic books, whether it's other
kind of books, I think it can create opportunities for children to be able to identify as
readers. And it may not even be connected to school at all. You know, like that identity as
a reader, because if comic books aren't accepted in school, then you're reading identity
will—may just be kind of isolated in that domain of comic books.

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Jordan ​
Mhmm.

Beth ​ So right before we hopped on this interview, I asked my 11 year old about, you know,
I told him, oh, I'm going to talk to this guy about, you know, how to help kids read and
whatever. And he said something that reminds me of what you're saying now, that he said
that he thinks that one of the reasons kids his age, he's 11, play more video games and
read books is he said, you know, like our friends are on the video games, like it's a very
social experience for them. But I can also see kids getting, you know, like if all of your
friends are reading a certain series or talking about certain characters, you know, does
that become a factor or like a tool you can use?

Alvin Irby ​ Yeah, or talking about a certain level on the game that they all got to or some
people got to and some people didn't. I mean, I really think that cultural and social factors
are a lot. I mean, they are a really strong factor in the identity formation of children. You
know, I think that if if a child starts to identify as a gamer. Right. And if that's the way that
they get social acceptance, whether they even like games or not, like you want to be a part
of the cool conversation. And I think that's why I feel like there's such a missed opportunity
in so many schools to use that built-In opportunity to create a social environment. But first,
you got to choose the right kind of books. You know, your mother didn't want you reading
comic books and your school probably wasn't gung ho about comic books being a part of
the instructional environment, you know? So, yeah, I concur with your son.

Jordan ​ Man. OK, so there's a lot there. I, I sort of want to ask about the publishing
industry and just how certain books get to be made and popularized. But I also want to go
back to that, creating an identity as a reader that you've said a few times. Like, being able
to build and cultivate that identity as someone who is, you know, if I'm a gamer or I'm a
reader, I'm a whatever that sort of...Create sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy in this
motivation to be able to do the types of things to make you qualified to have that label that
you've given yourself, if that makes sense. So what types of things did you recognize in
yourself as a kid who didn't love reading? Like at what stage did you identify as a reader
and what were the types of things that made you start to embody that identity? To start to
believe that, like, this is a character trait of mine and these are the types of things that I
want to do and it's enjoyable for me.

Alvin Irby ​So I think one of the the key experiences was kind of exposure to
institutionalized racism and particularly how it played out in kind of rigor across different
types of courses in high school. So I was in a regular English class where, in 10th grade,
where we were reading short stories and doing spelling lists. In 10th grade. That's what we
were doing. And I remember it being just like bored out of my mind to the point that I, of my
own volition, went to my counselor and was like, is there any other type of English class I
can get into? Not because I was intellectual and like I want to, you know, I was just bored.
And the students kept complaining about the little work we had. ​[00:18:02]​So I go to my
counselor, she switches me into pre-AP English. I get into this class right beginning of a
new semester. She's handing out book packets with lists and lists of novels and talking
about how we got to read two novels and write two book reports. And I just remember
asking, like, when you say two novels, you mean like the whole thing? Because in my
other class we were just reading such stories and here you talk about reading a whole
novel, two of them and writing book reports. And I just remember thinking to myself, if this
is what tenth grade English is supposed to be, then like, why isn't the other regular English
class doing the same thing? And I didn't have the language right. I hadn't taken an intro to
sociology yet. I didn't have the language to describe what I was experiencing, what I was

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seeing. But I knew that reading was at the center of the injustice and different expectations
around how much reading or the quality or rigor connected to that reading. And it was at
that point that I kind of just decided for myself, you know what, I'm not going to let other
people dictate what and when I read, I'm going to start trying to figure out what I want to
read. ​[82.7s] ​And it actually led me during my junior year to do a science fair project where
I surveyed over two hundred of my peers to find out what their reading habits were. And
then I found out that most of them didn't read at all if it wasn't required. So then during the
summer between my junior, my senior year, I designed a reading incentive program and
wrote a grant to fund a reading—the reading incentive program in Barnes and Noble, the
Barnes and Noble in Little Rock gave me eight hundred and ten dollars grant to implement
this reading incentive program I designed at my high school. And so that was kind of, I
guess, my little platform that I ran on for student council president at my high school, which
honestly, most of the kids in the hood could care less about my little reading incentive of
program, they were just like, "yo, you the first Black president!" I'm like, no, our high school
has had other Blacks do it. But as far as they were concerned...so I got the whole hood to,
like, register to vote and they all voted for me. And then I became a student council
president. And I actually did launch that reading incentive program my senior year. So I
guess I've been on this path, you know, whether I realize it or not for a little while.

Ad ​ Hi, I'm Danielle Belton, editor in chief of The Root, and I'm Maiysha Kai, managing
editor of The Glow Up. And this September, we're excited to bring you The Root Presents:
It's Lit! It's Lit is a podcast where we talk about all things literature, literally. More
specifically Black literature. And we have some incredible guests lined up, including Nikole
Hannah-Jones. "The last thing I want is us to produce anything like the Green Book."
Ijeoma Oluo. "Why this book? You know, why are we...Why aren't we all picking up the
how-to-burn-down-the-system book? You know? Why can't we do that right now?"The
venerable Claudia Rankine. "I can't really separate the subject out from the structure. And
the two things for me are actually what makes writing exciting." And so many more brilliant
Black authors, writers and thought leaders. We're speaking with some of the most
distinguished voices in Black literature about their work, the books that influenced them,
and a lot more. So please join us every Friday for some thought-provoking conversations.
You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And keep it lit!

Jordan ​ I want to hear your opinion on incentivizing, reading or using reading as

punishment, I think of both of these two different angles sometimes, at least when I was
growing up and I've seen this with kids now, books are seen as something that they would
either have to do for school or something that they would have to do if they were being
punished or if their PlayStation was taken away or if they couldn't watch TV or if they
couldn't be on the Internet. It's like, go read this book, like go sit in the corner and read.
And that could probably, you know, mold some type of unsavory, unwanted opinions
towards reading. But there's also what I think of when I was growing up was my mom
would incentivize my reading for short stretches of time. She would incentivize it by either
pay me small amounts of money for it or letting me go to the library and choose which
books that I would have. You know, whether it's comic books or whatever, just giving me
free rein of those books. So how could parents or teachers or anyone who wants to impact
a young person start making decisions and incentivizing books in a way that might actually
see an increase in their kids' interest in reading?

Alvin Irby ​
Yes. So I'll first just start by saying reading should never be a punishment.
Never. It should never be a punishment. You know, in the conversations that I have with
barbers, you know, I talk to them a lot about reading trauma and how, you know, a lot of

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kids who come into their shop may not want to read the first time or the second time or the
third time or the fourth time that, you know, they talk to them about reading. And I talk—the
example that I use, as I asked the barbers if they know a child who's been bitten by a dog,
you know, and I'm like, if a child has been bitten by a dog, they really don't care how cute
you say your dog is. They don't care how nice you say your dog is. They really don't want
to have anything to do with your dog. In fact, the mere sight of a dog, it may not even be a
real dog is the picture of a dog could elicit some type of physiological response or anxiety
or whatever that would cause them not to want to interact with a dog. And so I said I told
the barbers in the same way there are children who have experience, you know, reading
trauma. They've had some type of negative experience, maybe, like you said, they were
punished. Right. Go read, write, or maybe they were forced to read out loud in class when
they didn't know a word and the whole class laughed at them right there. There's any
number of of ways in which reading trauma can play out in a kid's early learning
experience. But I think that that's one thing that should be avoided at all costs is is using
reading as a punishment. Now looking at incentives. I mean, my preference is certainly for
cultivating the intrinsic motivation of children to read. I think that paying kids to read or, you
know, giving them ice cream if they read, I think that it can be effective for some kids. But it
could also have the opposite effect in some cases where when the stimuli or the incentive
is removed, well, then the motivation also immediately goes away. And so, you know,
[00:25:33]​but if the kid identifies as a reader, if you're providing children with positive
experiences or culturally-based reading routines, then, you know, you know, they begin to
kind of want to do it not because of some external reward, but because it's just who they
are and it's what they do. And so I think that creating family routines like going to the
library is key, creating family reading time in the house. You know, when I taught
kindergarten first grade, one of the greatest insights that I gained is that at the end of the
day, a lot of kids just want to be grown. So whatever they see the grown people in their
lives doing, that's what they conclude it means to be a part of their family or their
community. ​[44.6s] ​And so I think, you know, even if you know, even if a kid is being
forced to read, if they see their parents reading all the time. Right. There are certain there
are additional signals that are being sent that this is what we do in our family. Even if I
don't want to do it. This is what we do in my family and I'm a part of this family. And so
reading is a part of who I am. You know, I think that choice. Right, is also an important
factor. Right. You know, too often I encounter parents who say, oh, my son wants to do is
read Captain Underpants. All he wants to do is read comic books. And I stop the parents
right there and I say, I just want to stop you and let you know something. There are a lot of
parents who cannot say those few words. All my son wants to read. There are a lot of
parents who can't say that. And so what I want you to understand is that. ​[00:27:13]​Right
now, while your child is young, what you want to be doing is cultivating his reading identity
as he gets older, as he learns more, as he interacts with more people, more things, his
reading preferences may change. But what's going to be more difficult to change is the
extent to which he identifies as a reader. If you can solidify that young, you know, at a
young age and if you can cultivate and grow it as a child gets older, then that's something
that can stick with them far into the future. ​[35.0s] ​But if you instill kind of negative
attitudes, negative experiences, then that can really create barriers, not that they can't be
overcome. But I think it really does create more of an uphill battle. And, you know, as you
think about standard, as I think about standardized tests and college prep and all these
things, many of the children who do the best on those things, yes, they may cram or they
may get additional instruction, but many of them read for fun and they've developed robust
vocabularies, not from just simply studying a vocabulary sheet, but from the hours and
hours of pleasure reading that they've done.

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Beth ​So so here's something that I've been wondering about, so I have three kids my
oldest loves to read, my middle kid is one of these, like super energetic kids. He wants to
be always, like just running around, he's eight years old, either, like doing something
physically active or being in a video game that he finds, like, really exciting. And so I
wonder if you have any tips on, like, what to do with a kid like that. How do you get them
interested in, like, sitting down to read when, you know, the sitting down itself is sort of a
big stretch for them?

Alvin Irby ​So one of the things that I think about is kind of Piaget and he talks about
stages of cognitive development and he talks about how, you know, children can move
through the various stages at different paces. Right. But he argues that they still have to
move through these various stages. And when I think about kind of early literacy
development, you know, I think that for some children, they may need more time of just
listening to someone reading. Right. And I think that a lot of adults are like, "Alright, you're
at a certain age, you should be reading independently." But when you think about the
positive experiences and the benefits of reading, a kid can have a really enriching
experience from being read to if a parent is stopping and asking questions and asking
them what they think. And I think if you choose the right type of books, right, like a Captain
Underpants or you choose, you know, certain types of, you know, beginning novels and
things like that that have cliffhangers. Right. You can stop a book. Right? I used to do that
to my students reading, Bud, Not Buddy at first grade. I would stop the book right at the
end of the chapter and say, "That's all we're reading for today." "Mr. Irby, one more page,
how're you going to stop the book like that?" "That's all we're reading for today. We'll pick it
up..."

Jordan ​
Give them a cliffhanger.

Alvin Irby ​They would be so upset! They would be so upset. But also this book, the author
just wrote, these perfect juicy cliffhangers that would drive you crazy. Right. And so
[00:30:47]​I think I think a lot of adults and parents underestimate the power of reading
aloud longer books. I think that a lot of adults when doing read aloud, have just gotten
used to, OK, I'm going to read a picture book that I'm going to begin it and then I'm going
to end it. And when I finish, it's done. But I think that, you know, as kids get older and
especially if they kind of have not cultivated their own reading stamina, I think a still
reading to kids can be really beneficial and reading that type of content that they want.
[35.5s] ​Right. You know, because maybe a lot of parents don't want to sit there and read
Captain Underpants because they're like, this is the silliest book ever. Well, you know,
these kids are crazy. I don't want to read this. But, you know, I think kind of sitting, I think
adults setting their personal preferences aside and really trying to meet the kids where
they are can be helpful. And ​[00:31:44]​then I think another thing is, you know, being
realistic about a child's reading stamina. You know, like not every kid can just sit and read
for ten minutes uninterrupted at one time. Maybe that needs to be broken into, you know,
three, five minute, you know, sessions with a little snack or a little stress break or a little
drawing break in between. ​[23.6s] ​And then also, I think, you know, trying to create reading
experiences around real interest. So if a kid likes video games, find out if they have a
game codebook or cheat book for that game. Find out if, you know, if he likes a certain
sport or something. Find out if, you know, there are books on that particular topic that can
be connected to his, his or her interest. You know, I think for me, those are some kind of
recommendations I would probably give for engaging those kind of active—And also
another thing I would say, you know, around someone who, you know, a child who doesn't
want to just sit and kind of like I would say, ​[00:32:50]​use environmental print. Like I think a
lot of parents underestimate the power and the potential in a grocery store. Right. Give him

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his own little shopping list. Tell him that we want to choose the cereal without a lot of
sugar. So we got to look at the sugar on the back and you got to see, well, this one is 20.
This one has 40, 40. Oh, that's a lot of sugar. I know. Well, we're not going with that one.
Right. But give them his own little shopping list, show them how to use the aisle titles.
[33.9s] ​You know, the little things at the top of each aisle in the shopping aisle, like I think
all of those things are kind of missed opportunities and making and using the grocery
store, I think, especially for an active child, could be super duper helpful for both the
parent—But it should be fun. And I think keeping fun at the center is, you know, going to
be key for that type of thing.

Jordan ​I'm so glad that you mentioned reading stamina. Whenever I sit and read with my
nephews, I have to remind myself that I have built this skill set to be able to sit down for a
longer stretch of time.

Alvin Irby ​
My nephew got up after three minutes and was like, "no, I'm good.".

Jordan ​ Right, exactly. My nephews are 13 now and we'll sit down for ten minutes. And for
them it seems like an eternity because. Right. It seems like so long for them. But we've
been reading forever and it's like...

Alvin Irby ​
Yeah man, you get that Bud, Not Buddy. Them cliffhangers...Them cliffhangers
in Bud, Not Buddy will drive you—even I as a teacher was like, wait a minute, I need to
know. I need to know what's happening there.

Jordan ​ The other thing that really, really resonates with me is being able to tie it into an
actual kid's interests. And I think that for me, that was comic books. But I think that
basically any franchise, any movie, any TV show, any video game that's popular, there's
often a novelization or graphic novel version of that exact same story. So it sort of ties into
their wanting to make it that social experiment with their—experience with their friends,
where like they know additional details to that story because they've read the Assassin's
Creed novel or they've read this other thing that's related to it. But like it takes place in the
world of Avatar, The Last Airbender or Fortnight or whatever it is that their social currency,
social currency comes from with their friends. So that, but that really stands out in my head
is something that that at least it works well with my nephews.

Alvin Irby ​One of the most to me, one of the most important reasons why identity is key is
because I think it helps to counteract negative reading or learning experiences. Right.
[00:35:36]​If a child identifies as a learner, if they identify as a reader, well, guess what?
Whether they have a good teacher or a bad teacher, they're still a reader. They're still a
learner. Whether they're in a good school or bad school, they're still a learner. They're still
a reader. And I think for far too many children, their identity is linked to their teacher or to a
certain school experience. And so when that thing goes away, well, then now they're no
longer interested in it. And so I, I think that, you know, with there being so much variability
in quality between grades, between teachers, between schools, it's that much more
important to create experiences that really cultivate children's reading identities. ​[48.3s]

Jordan ​That's great, that's great. Alvin, thanks for taking the time. Love talking with you.
Where can people find and support Barbershop Books and learn more about the
organization and what you're doing to help students read?

Alvin Irby ​
So if people are interested in learning more about helping the babies read, they
can go to Barbershop Books dot org to make a donation or just to learn about the kind of

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innovative programming that we have going on. One of the things that I think many of your
listeners might be interested in is our Reading So Lit E Library. We have over 12 titles,
e-books that feature Black and brown protagonists that are not oppression narratives or
affirmation narratives, which I think too often are the kinds of categories that diverse books
get limited to today. But just books about, you know, Black children being Black children,
you know, not necessarily fighting oppression or any of that. And you can also connect
with us on social media, you know, at Barbershop Books, on all the platforms. We'd love to
connect with you and hear from you.

Jordan ​
Awesome. Alvin, again, thanks for taking the time, man. Really appreciate it.

Alvin Irby ​
No problem, man. I'm sorry it took so long. I'm glad we were able to do it and it
was nice meeting you, Beth.

Beth ​
Thanks nice meeting you.

Alvin Irby ​
Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Ad ​Hi, I'm Jane McManus. And I'm Julie DiCaro. And we're here to invite you to listen to
our new Deadspin podcast, The Ladies Room. Yeah, we can't promise it'll be all bathroom
humor, but we can promise some. Plus, we're going to have all things related to sports and
women and lots of great guests to talk about this with. And we also promise that you'll
laugh a lot and maybe think a little, too. Our first episode is dropping soon, so make sure
to subscribe to The Ladies Room wherever you get your podcasts.

Jordan ​Now it's time for our upgrade of the week where we talk about that one tiny thing
that's making a big difference in our lives. Alice, what's your upgrade this week?

Alice ​
So as we know, it is the Christmas season and we need a little Christmas, right?
Right this very minute I would say.

Jordan ​
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Alice ​
I mean, so I love the pine tree scent. I love it. And we got a big tree. It's fine. It's not
given me enough pine-y sensations.

Jordan ​
That piney goodness?

Alice ​
I want to be immersed in a forest of pine. I love it so much. I want to be in a winter
wonderland. So I found these candles. I'm going to show you the listener can't see them
but they're called Tree Farm from...do you see it? It says tree farm.

Jordan ​
I see it. Tree farm.

Alice ​From Redwood, Redwood And Co. And they were recommended to me from my
friend Sarah Brown, whose taste I trust with these things implicitly. She's very good at
telling me, like, what candles are, because sometimes you can get you can overdo it, right.
You can get the candle that's like it's artificial. You don't want the car freshener pine tree
scent.

Jordan ​
I mean, you know my affliction, right? You know that I...

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Alice ​
Oh, God.

Jordan ​
Yeah. So we've...

Alice ​
I'm so, I'm so sorry to be just...

Jordan ​
You're just rubbing my face in it. For listeners who aren't aware...

Alice ​
It just makes my whole day.

Jordan ​Yes. Listeners who aren't aware I actually have something called anosmia. It's
pretty mild, but I can't smell very well or sometimes at all. So pine scent, like I, I have a
vague idea what it smells like, but it would have to be really strong and like really up to my
nose for me to notice. But like if I was in a living room with a Christmas tree, I guess it fills
the room with that smell? I don't know. I have no idea.

Alice ​
It can. But it really it depends on the variety you get and who's going to know. And
I'm not going to go to the place and be like, is this a a Serbian fir or, you know, Czech
birch? I have no idea. But so, you know, blue spruce or...No. So I have these candles. I
got three of them. They are worth it. They smell amazing. They make your house smell
very homey. I'm sorry that you can't smell it. I will send you one...

Jordan ​
I will trust that it's amazing.

Alice ​
...And you can just stick your face in it and tell me...

Jordan ​
That's what I have to do. If I want to smell a candle, I got to stick my face in it.

Alice ​ It's a very good candle also because it doesn't. I'm sensitive to smells that aren't,
that aren't natural. I feel like such a snowflake. "I'm sensitive, I'm just sensitive." I like
smells but they make me sneeze. But no, like Yankee Candle Company makes me sneeze
like I can't stop sneezing whenever I'm confronted by that, that experience. But this is a
very pleasant one, so I highly recommend it. Maybe like the link in the show notes for
people who can smell.

Jordan ​For people who you know. Yeah. Who have all five senses, they can go ahead
and enjoy such things.

Alice ​
Jordan, what's your upgrade?

Jordan ​ My upgrade is also Christmas themed and this one comes courtesy of one of our
staff writers as well, Aisha Jordan. She had mentioned that when it comes to mailing gifts
like this is the time of year, especially during the pandemic, where a lot of us are going to
be shipping things. If you are buying gifts on Amazon or a very large reseller retailer, you
can just select it as a gift. Like there's that option in checkout and people will get a gift
receipt with it and it'll say on the outside, I think Amazon has this option, where it'll say on
the outside that it's a gift. So people are aware not to open it in advance. But if you're
shopping small, if you're sending a book or if you're doing something like that at a small
online retailer, if you were to send it regularly, they might get it before Christmas and not
realize that it's a gift. And I'll just open it like it's normal mail because you just sent it under
their name. So a tiny hack to fix that problem is if they don't have like a regular gift option
sort of built into their site, just put a "gift for:" and then put their name in the name section

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of where you would mail it so that they'll see that it won't affect the mailing at all. It'll just be
part of the name, part of of the address line. And then they'll see that this is a gift and that
they can hold on to it for Christmas morning or whatever it is that they want to open gifts.
And that will save them from stumbling across a gift a little bit too early because you can't
really predict when it will actually arrive. So it's it's an easy cue just writing "gift for: Jordan
Calhoun" or whatever, and then I'll know to open it on Christmas Day or whoever the
recipient is.

Alice ​ I love this hack and I will tell you that I happen to know that Amazon does not do
that. If it's a gift for somebody and you indicate it's a gift, they will just take out the amount
on the receipt.

Jordan ​
Really?

Alice ​ They'll also wrap it, but it's like an extra five bucks, which like that's that can really
add up if you're going to get multiple I mean, five dollars for just a just a gift bag to it's just
it's too much. So I recently had this talk with my my mom, who is, you know, in her 80s and
very sweet, very funny. She's like, "I'm sending you a lot of gifts, so don't open any boxes."
That's how...

Jordan ​
You're cutting me off from all of my livelihood if you're telling me not to open
boxes.

Alice ​
Like I've ordered every gift for my family. So I'm like nonstop getting boxes all day
long. You know, I don't know which ones are from her and which ones aren't.

Jordan ​ You got to help people differentiate. We get so much mail now, there's got to be a
way to differentiate what it is that you ordered or what it is that someone is sending you.
That's for now or for later.

Alice ​Yeah, I was trying to explain this to her, but I was trying to explain this to her and
she just wasn't getting it. She's like, "just don't just don't open the box. Just don't, don't."
I'm like, "But I. But there might be gifts for you!" Never mind.

Jordan ​
Oh, man.

Alice ​
So anyway, good hacks and hopefully we'll make it through Christmas.

Jordan ​
Absolutely.

Alice ​
And that's our show, the upgrade is produced by Micaela Heck and mixed by Brad
Fisher.

Jordan ​If you want to send Alice and I a Christmas gift, you can do it by just rating us on
Apple Podcasts. We love to see those reviews that be a great way for us to end our year.
And you can also reach us by calling us at three, four, seven, six eight seven eight one
zero nine and leaving us a holiday voicemail. Or you can write to us at upgrade at
Lifehacker dot com.

Alice ​You can also find us on Twitter, at Lifehacker, on Instagram, at Lifehacker dot com,
all one word and on Facebook, at Facebook dot com Lifehacker. Sign up for Lifehacker's
daily newsletter full of tips and tricks and hacks and Lifehacker dot com slash newsletter.

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And you can find show notes for this and every episode of The Upgrade at Lifehacker dot
com the show.

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