My library has a gargantuan large-print book collection. Here’s my question. Why aren’t all books large-print?

Guess who has got the best eyesight in the world? Children. The library has a huge children’s section. And guess what – children’s books are printed in type THIS BIG! (AT LEAST!) Yet you rarely see toddlers wearing reading glasses.

Now go over to the new-release section, and all you will see are people wearing bifocals and trifocals browsing through the books with type like this. (Imagine that the words “like this” are really tiny.) I’m not talking about a new idea. When John Hancock put his oversized signature on the Declaration of Independence he said, “There, I guess old King George will be able to read that without his blasted monocle!”

Walk through a library or a bookstore and look at the shoppers: It’s the bifocal set. The only time you’ll see a teen or a 20-something in a mall bookstore is if they’re using it as a shortcut on their way to the piercing parlor. They don’t buy books and they don’t read them.

Oh, I just heard a parent ask, “What about ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’?” So I will inquire in turn, “What are they reading right now?” The tattoo on their boyfriend’s arm? The notes on a Guitar Hero game? The instructions on how to dye their hair blue in the kitchen sink? I like “Harry Potter” as well as the next former high school wallflower, but do you want your child to be one of those people who can grow up to say, “I read a book, once?” Besides, the more children read, the less chance they will have of misspelling their first tattoo.