Excerpt from The Sacramento Bee December 2, 2021
For Newsom, who wrote a children’s book about dyslexia that comes out next week, the trauma of going through school struggling to read still haunts him. Amid all his success, he continues to read materials as many as three times to master them.
Shortly after becoming governor, Newsom told a class of Sacramento elementary school students he remembers his heart beating hard while sitting in class in Hall Middle School as the teacher went down the row of students asking each one to read a paragraph.
He watched the clock, sweating, urging it to move faster so the period might end before his turn. His luck ran out. He stood up, stammering, unable to find the words, as his classmates laughed.
“People literally started laughing at me because I couldn’t read,” he said. “I’ll never forget it the rest of my life.”