Thom
Battisto

The child wanted to watch television. Thom Battisto suggested reading a book to Sydney instead.

Sydney was his dog, an adopted Australian Shepherd–Chow mix with a gift for making children comfortable. That small exchange helped lead to Read to Sydney, the literacy program Battisto started in 2011.

A South Lake Tablet profile traces the idea to visits with friends and their children. Battisto, who moved from Chicago to Central Florida in 1998, recognized something in the way children responded to the dog. He also brought his own experience with dyslexia to the work. Reading difficulty was familiar territory, rather than an abstract problem he had decided to solve for somebody else.

There is a reason the idea is immediately appealing. Reading aloud can feel like a performance, especially when the reader is already worried about getting it wrong. A dog changes the audience. The page still contains difficult words, but the listener is considerably less interested in judging the pronunciation.

Battisto built a way for children to practice in that company, then kept finding places where the practice could happen.

I admire the kindness in that change of audience. A child who is anxious about reading already has enough to manage on the page. Being welcomed while still learning gives that child a reason to stay with it. The next attempt becomes a little easier to imagine.

Battisto’s idea makes space for the unfinished reader. That is a generous thing to offer someone at the beginning of a lifelong pleasure.

The animal is what catches your attention. The book leaving with the child is what makes the visit extend beyond the room.

Read to Sydney’s work has included donated books, pop-up reading events, school and library visits, and community lending libraries. A 2023 account of the program’s fundraising describes donations paying for books and materials, with Battisto also using his own money to support the organization.

By then, the original Sydney had died and other dogs had continued the work. The article introduces Sunny as a young dog training to follow those earlier reading partners. The name on the program stayed, while the living, everyday responsibility passed to new paws and the people caring for them.

Battisto also wrote Sydney Finds a Job, a children’s book published in 2015. That choice has a certain consistency: the dog who helped children become readers could become part of what they read.

Books require a quieter kind of logistics than a public event. Someone collects them, finds places to put them, and keeps those places supplied. The cheerful photograph of a child and a dog rests on that less photogenic effort. Without material a child wants to pick up again, a lovely afternoon can remain only an afternoon.

The program has also found ways to connect reading with the places children live.

In the summer of 2021, the Clermont Historical Society announced a series of Read to Sydney visits at the Historic Village. The announced visits brought together Battisto and Toby, one of the program’s dogs, the Kiwanis Club and the historical society for reading sessions, book giveaways, and a scavenger hunt. The planned settings included the old library, the railroad depot, and the World War II Quonset hut.

That combination gave families several reasons to come. A child could meet the dog, choose a book, and explore buildings that made local history less remote. The partners each brought something distinct: a place, volunteers, books, an animal accustomed to children, and a reason to spend time together.

The audience eventually expanded to cats. The Orlando Cat Café describes its partnership with Read to Sydney and the Kiwanis Club of Clermont through a children’s reading hour, crafts, and access to a free lending library. Its account is written in the voice of a resident cat, who seems predictably pleased that books provide both entertainment and somewhere to sit.

The setting changes the appeal, but the central activity remains recognizable. A child has time with a book and an animal. Adults have arranged the visit so that reading can be part of something the child wants to do.

When the Kiwanis Club of Clermont honored Battisto with its 2023 George F. Hixson Award, fellow member Joan Kyle described a volunteer whose activities went well beyond his own nonprofit. He served as club secretary, supported youth programs, and advised Aktion Clubs, which provide service opportunities for adults with disabilities.

Kyle also remembered him bringing a pizza oven to children’s events so the children could make their own pizzas. Apparently, pineapple was outside the accepted curriculum.

Here is a person willing to transport the oven, organize the food, and make the gathering enjoyable. His neighbors knew him through that combination of useful work and personality.

Battisto’s story belongs to Clermont and the surrounding communities: books collected, partners recruited, children welcomed, and a reading program carried forward after its first canine partner was gone.

The invitation remains easy to understand. Bring a book. Sit near a friendly animal. Try the next word. Someone has done the work to make this a good place to begin.