- Walk into any bookstore or library, and you'll find shelves and shelves of hugely popular novels and book series for kids. But research shows that as young readers get older, they are not moving to more complex books. High-schoolers are reading books written for younger kids, and teachers aren't assigning difficult classics as much as they once did.
I think the article seems to be a little to eager to blame popular books on the problem. I don't think this problem is really that different than it was years ago. They seem to be content with shoving books that kids clearly don't like and thinking that that makes them better readers. It does, but it short term type of way. I think it might be more important to encourage appreciation for reading itself. While I still think Shakespeare and the likes are necessary to challenge readers, books of a lower reading level that students enjoy should not be discouraged either.
I agree, but I do think a mix of both books of choice and books by assignment are good. Without being "forced," I would have never read books like Wuthering Heights, or maybe even The Great Gatsby, both books that I enjoyed quite a bit as a teenager.
I do think that kids need to be exposed to classics but I think the denigration of sci-fi, fantasy and horror is a little short sighted.
I think exposing kids to heavy short stories and short novels is a good way to show that the classics can be great. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, "The Stranger" by Camus and "1984" are good examples of stuff I had to read in school that was classic but very accessible.
If a kid likes horror set them up with some Lovecraft. Fantasy? Try Lord of the Rings or Steven Brust's "Phoenix Guards. Sci-Fi? Heinlein, Orwell, Neal Stephenson, Daniel Keys and a host of other writers. Plenty or doorways to great literature that appeal to a kids interest. Of course we don't have the time or resources in this society to figure out what a kid might like to read and put that book in their hand.
I guess my post was a big disingenuous because really I think kids need to be exposed to classic literature, but helping kids love reading isn't being done very effectively.