Let Books Be Large And In Charge
Published: October 13th, 2009
By: Jim Mullen

Let books be large and in charge

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.

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