This article looks closely at a subset of books about literacy in and out of school by analyzing images of children learning and struggling to learn to read in realistic fiction. There are several books in which characters wish to learn to read, worry about being poor readers, and work hard to learn to read. These books raise important questions about the messages that teachers and parents send to children about the nature of reading and reading difficulty. The article analyzes these texts against the backdrop of two bodies of theory: literary (cultural) theory and critical literacy. (Contains 1 table.)