David Read

David L. Read is the father of Arthur, D.W., and Kate, and the son of Thora Read. He is married to Jane Read.

Physical appearance
In short, he looks like an older version of his son Arthur, just without the glasses. His usual outfit is a white top with blue borders with corduroy pants with brown loafers. He was originally bald-headed in the earlier books but was later given clumps of hair that were brown in the books, although it was restricted to black lines in the cartoon in order to simplify animation process.

Personality
Although not very strict, David urges Arthur and D.W. to try new foods that he bakes; however, the foods are usually weird and exotic ones that Arthur and D.W. do not like.

As with all father figures, David sometimes tends to come across as hard on Arthur and D.W. a lot of times, but that's only because he only wants them to do their best in life.

But all the same, he has a great relationship with his wife, children, family and other associates.

Past life
When David was a baby, he wore a pink shirt, white cloth diapers with a pin, and brown shoes. During his high school years, when he started dating Jane, as seen in a photo album in "Arthur's Eyes", he had a brown mullet hairstyle and a mustache and goatee and wore white and blue disco clothes that were fashionable between the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Other Media
In the Living Books computer games, he had a light brown complexion in Arthur's Teacher Trouble, and it was changed to pale in Arthur's Birthday. In these two games, he was voiced by Tony Fardella before the cartoon show replaced him with Bruce Dinsmore.

In the later games during the 32-bit era of computers and software, such as Arthur's Thinking Games, his appearance was the same as he looks in the cartoon show.

Career
Mr. Read works for a catering business (it's not known if it is his own or if he works for a company). He usually works at home or he gets calls for special gatherings. His usual customer is Ed Crosswire.

Family
The Read's family consist of 6 members of the household: David Read, Jane, Arthur, D.W., Baby Kate and the family dog, Pal. His son Arthur always refers to him as "Dad", but D.W. usually refers to him as "Daddy", because D.W. is younger than Arthur. David has a mother also living in Elwood City, Thora Read. He has an older sister named Loretta who only appears in the segment "Arthur's Cousin Catastrophe". His father was never seen or mentioned, and it is likely that his father may be deceased. He also had three uncles, who are shown in the segment "Clarissa is Cracked" and some or all of them may be deceased.

Friends

 * Ed Crosswire - A friend and usual customer of both the Reads' businesses.
 * Ramon Molina - They quickly become friends when they meet each other the first time. They both have a passion for cooking exotic foods.
 * Tatsuya Matsumoto - Tatsuya used to be David's pen pal when the two were children. Given his nostalgic moment when he rediscovered one of Tatsuya's letters, it can be assumed that the two were good friends when they still wrote to each other.

Trivia

 * In D.W. Aims High David said he was Arthur's age when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, meaning he was born around 1960 or 1961.