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The Complicated Task of Creating Enthusiastic Young Readers

If hooked early, kids can become voracious readers.

It’s a sentiment that authors Faith Harkey andMarcia Wells agree with.

"Most readers want to connect with the protagonist," Harkey says. "Effective literature, whether its for children or adults, is effective partly because of that universality - that there is something accessible in that character that we can all connect with."

Harkey is the author of Genuine Sweet, a book a girl and her unlikely vocation. Marcia Wells’s novel is Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery in Mayan Mexico. Both were in town recently for a Middle Grade Mania event and spoke with Lake Effect's Mitch Teich.