Dyslexia Made Henry Winkler Feel ‘Stupid’ For Years. Now, He’s A Best-Selling Author

You may know Henry Winkler as The Fonz from Happy Days or the “very good” Bluth family lawyer from Arrested Development. Or perhaps, more recently, for his Emmy-winning role as the eccentric acting coach Gene Cousineau on the HBO comedy series Barry.

But what Winkler is most proud of is, he says, may be his least recognized body of work: his best-selling children’s book series Here’s Hank, which follows the adventures and struggles of a dyslexic kid named Hank Zipzer. Winkler, who has dyslexia himself, pulls from his own experiences to write the series along with Lin Oliver.

“It never dawned on me that I would have my name on a book,” Winkler says in an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin. Reflecting on a life with dyslexia, he says that until relatively recently, “I thought I was stupid … You take that mantle with you when it’s said often enough and when you’re young enough. There is an emotional component, I think, that comes along with learning challenges, where I had no sense of self.”