Robin Writes: Bathroom reading week

By Editor | June 4, 2025 |

By Robin Garrison Leach

It’s National Bathroom Reading Week. The first full week in June is set aside to commemorate the educational value of bathroom “literature.”
I don’t know about your family, but “War and Peace” has never graced the top of our tank. No encyclopedias. Not a single book with an index.
And even though we’ve learned lots of neat stuff while sitting there, most families would agree that bathroom reading is not an educational endeavor.
Reading material for the bathroom is individually tailored to each visitor. I could leave an issue of “Birds and Blooms” magazine in there for years, and I can guarantee John would not leaf through it. Even in times of dire need.
His required reading list is as predictable as the seasons: If a magazine has a wild animal on the front and a man in hunting clothes grinning goofily, next to that animal, I know I’ll see its glossy carcass in the bathroom.
We do share “Reader’s Digest.” It’s the definitive bathroom text. Stories short enough to finish in a sitting. Jokes that can be told later, in other rooms. And that nifty Word Power quiz with answers on the next page (my favorite section).
What more could you ask for in bathroom reading material? Works for us.
If you’re one of the more than 40% of Americans who read in the bathroom, and you wear reading glasses, you know what a big production the entire bathroom “experience” can be:
You head toward the bathroom, favorite magazine in hand and near the throne. As you reach step inside your sanctuary you realize you’ve forgotten to grab your glasses on the way inside.
I’ve been there. I’ve danced to the “call of nature” tune, hunting for my bifocals. But there have been times I’ve had to abandon the search. Then I am forced to squint at the cover of my magazine, looking at a picture of some blobby object and wondering what the caption below it says.
I stretch out my arms and tilt the page like a holographic card, hoping another angle will help. Nope.
There are also those occasions when, by necessity or inattention, a bathroom visitor finds herself in the bathroom without reading material. In the case of such emergencies, any printed surface in the room is fair game. Directions on air freshener cans. Numbers on the scale. Words stamped inside shoes.
But these emergencies have gifted me-and others, I’ll bet, with a perfect recollection of the “Crest” toothpaste motto: “Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentifrice…”
Admit it…you know it too, don’t you?
I’ve also learned the main ingredients in most antiperspirants, and that I should NEVER puncture or incinerate aerosol cans.
Bathroom reading is a family tradition at our house. All our children, when new to the bathroom process, were encouraged to look at picture books while seated. I think Dr. Seuss must have been the doctor of regularity. His books were favorite companions of my budding bathroom sitters.
I could hear little voices now and then, muttering a few memorized words as they sat: “I do not like green eggs and ham…” I knew they were doing fine.
Unfortunately, a little reader can’t carry the good Dr. Seuss everywhere she goes. My younger daughter faced this situation for the first time when she was 3 years old.
As I waited outside her stall at McDonalds, hoping her little bottom wouldn’t fall into the big hole beneath her, I heard her rooching around. Tiny sneakers, tangled inside bunched up, flowered bloomers, slapped down onto the floor behind the stall door.
I heard Andrea scuttle closer. A stubby little arm reached toward me from beneath the door and a handful of chubby fingers wiggling frantically:
“QUICK, MOM! HAND ME A DOLLAR BILL!”
Bathroom Reading Week. Grab a magazine and celebrate.
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■ Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].