This summer, 7-year-old Jackson has fallen head over cleats for soccer and the frenzy of the World Cup.
Now he is in his backyard kicking around a blue Culver’s soccer ball while imagining himself as a grown-up professional player. He is poring over an atlas at the kitchen table, drawing accurate flags in a book he’s writing, titled The 2026 Nonfiction Soccer Book, which features hand-drawn flags and photos of the best players for each of the 48 teams playing for the Cup. But the more he learns, the more questions he has. So one morning, he sets down his crayons.
It’s time for a trip to the library.
According to Jackson’s mom, Krista, this well-worn pattern of curiosity and discovery began about seven years ago in the pediatrician’s office. As a brand-new parent to a brand-new baby, Krista sat cradling Jackson, feeling unqualified and clutching a list of at least a dozen questions for the doctor. At the end of the visit, Krista vividly remembers asking her last question: “What is the most important thing I can do to help him be successful and grow?” She recalls, “In total seriousness my pediatrician responded, ‘Read to him every day.’ In the midst of being overwhelmed by all the things I felt like I could never accomplish…this seemed achievable. So it’s what we have done.”
But she didn’t stop there. Krista says, “As Jackson got older we really encouraged him if there was a topic he wanted to learn about, he could find out about it in the nonfiction section of the library.” Now when Jackson peeks into a new pocket of this great big world, he heads to the library to explore. He plunged into cars for quite a while, then birds, then sports. Lately he’s been keeping up with whatever the current sports season is: football in the fall and winter, basketball in the spring. And, according to Krista, he was “really getting into baseball until everything got put on pause for the World Cup.”
As a global cultural event, the World Cup pulls millions of people into its orbit every 4 years, and it found Jackson while he was 30,000 feet in the air. On a family trip to Wyoming, he spied a fellow traveler on the plane watching one of the games, and that set a passion in motion. His questions began with, “Mom, what is that?” (the World Cup) and evolved into “How long do you need to live in a country before you can play for their national team?” (5 years).
On the morning of the library visit, Jackson walks through the doors and heads for the help desk. He approaches the librarian confidently, says hello, and then asks for assistance finding books about the World Cup. As she searches, he bubbles over with facts he’s learned so far and details about the book he’s writing.
After they walk over to the shelves of children’s nonfiction and locate the soccer books, Jackson sprawls out on the floor with a small stack. This is where the real fun begins, as Jackson eagerly flips pages, forging his own path to discovery.
Fast-forward sixteen years. Maybe Jackson is kicking a goal for his country in the World Cup. Maybe he is a mechanic or a racecar driver or an ornithologist. It is a mystery to us right now, but what is not a mystery is that his passion will have begun with a trip to the library. 💙🧡💛
Fun facts about Jackson:
- Favorite flag – Nepal. He loves the unusual triangle shapes and is disappointed that the flag won’t appear in his book.
- Favorite player – Lamine Yamal, who plays for Spain, because “he has a cool symbol and he was voted the best young player in 2024.”