Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.
I went to a private "college prep" high school, and the amount of assigned, mandatory reading was insane. I spent so much time reading assigned novels that I just didn't have time to read for pleasure. (And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my homework?)
Once I was out of college, I rediscovered reading.
Another thing is the mandated reading comes with punishment attached. One goes into it knowing that they’ll have to puke out some key points, contort bullshit into an intro-body-conclusion format, or worse, overanalyze it for “meaning”.
Early in high school among other things I had to read was “The Veldt”. Of course I hated dealing with it like everything else. I couldn’t have even told you who the author was a few weeks after the assignment.
In late high school, I discovered Ray Bradbury as I began exploring my local library, branching out from comics (Calvin and Hobbes, pogo, bloom county) and nonfiction books into fiction. He quickly became one of my favorite authors due to the sheer volume of short stories he had. Many were good, some were bad, and some were great. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to encounter “The Veldt” again without a teachers whip at my back. It was sad to finally work my way through the last of what he wrote knowing there would be no more.
You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine.
There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and youth, but I have to believe that good fiction would still trump most everything else for the time period.
For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I would notice a mismatch between my own gut reactions and that of the character which would make me stop for a second and try to dissect what the differences were between my interpretation and that of the author.
Not to even mention that reading is a way to escape and explore without leaving the comfort of your own home.
The only downside I find currently is that reading new things is quite expensive and I haven’t found a great digital solution yet. My phone is too small but carrying a book or a reader tablet is not practical every day.
8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger.
I purchased a Kindle after that trip. I read a lot more than I used to because between my phone and the physical Kindle I always have my current book ready to go. Physical book purchases can now be hardcover-only because I'm buying for a permanent collection, not endless consumption.
Yea, I'm also a fan of epic fantasy! I largely find myself moving to audiobooks to get around carrying books everywhere.
Do you have experience with devices that aren't kindle? Not super thrilled about the Amazon ecosystem, though I know it's not terribly difficult to jailbreak them.
I loved the approach my “high school” (in The Netherlands) took around 2002: you had to pick a few books from a list of books the teacher read. Then read those books and have a 30 minute “free format” discussion with the teacher about them. She’d ask for shared themes between the books, or differences in the way the stories were told, what it showed about the approach or background of the authors etc. Basically a teacher-student one-time book club.
>>overanalyze it for “meaning”.<< I doubt overanalyzing actually happens. But pupils, including younger me, just don't understand how much more work and thought have gone into the legends they are reading. Yes, it's a 500 page tome. No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." Yes, a work like this happens only once a decade on one continent. That's exactly why it's one of the maybe 20 books that you read in full during your schooling.
> No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit."
I firmly believe that most of this stuff in schools is massive over-analysis and that most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. And that's exactly what we did - assign meaning to any meaningless detail and somehow connect it to the character or plot. The curtain is blue? It must signify the protagonists deep longing for love.
In short, 99% of it is indeed overanalysed bullshit.
I was always astonished at how much my literature teachers could seemingly hallucinate at-will on a piece of text and come with some hidden meaning for every word, comma, or rime.
I did not seem to be blessed with the accepted form of creativity for literature analysis, and, with every rebuttal, the pleasure of exploring those texts became less and less..
After many, many, many years, I'm slowly coming back to some of them to read on my own terms, and most books have been a pleasure to re-discover.
I remember Kurt Vonnegut being interviewed and clearly saying that he did not have any hidden meanings in his writings. Yet, I remember how my English teacher would go on about x passage as a metaphor for y. I think we were discussing a short story of his. We would spend hours finding the hidden meanings in authors' writings. I'm sure that's the case for many of the books we read in school. I'm sure many authors are more philosophical than others but definitely not all of them. True, overanalyzing authors' writings is a thing. It's a shame because reading becomes a chore rather than a joy.
Indeed. To me, a lot of stuff like this (the kind and color of a blooming flower) is basically a way for the author to create or maintain an atmosphere/background to the book. Mentioning flowers a lot makes it clear this is not an action packed plot driven thriller. Mentioning military ranks and insider jargon and abbreviations paints a military atmosphere.
Basically a lot of words are “set pieces”. Very important for the general atmosphere but not overflowing with meaning and significance per se.
Is it so hard to accept the fact that an author might not be completely 100% conscious of all the things influencing them when creating a work of art? That some choices they made because they just felt right in the moment come from somewhere else? And that someone else can see this happening from an external perspective and propose that way of reading the text that the author didn't think about?
At the same time, is it monstrous to put forward the option that you, as an audience member, are not a passive brainless drone, but you are collaborating in creating the meaning of what you experience? That your inner life and meaning and interpretation stemming from being exposed to art are actually interesting and worth talking about?
Why do we have to live in a world where we assume words written on a page or colors dripped on a canvas have a single truly objective interpretation? Why do we have to beat with a stick on the head of someone telling them "no, you're enjoying this work in the wrong way because the author said so"?
If such things influence works of fiction, they must surely influence works of nonfiction just as much, if not more so — yet I never had a schoolteacher ask me to analyze nonfiction writings anywhere close to the depth I had to analyze novels.
It wasn't until the tertiary level that I first analyzed science writings and related philosophy writings to a similar depth (albeit for a different purpose), and discovered to my delight how many of them are written with a beauty and a kind of humanity that verges on poetry. It moved me in ways that fiction never has, I think in part because of the purity and honesty of my discovery — so unlike the trudging hours I spent miming proundness in school until I could no longer recognize it.
I am truly glad that nonfiction analysis was neglected in school, because it otherwise would have been robbed of all its spirit and magic, too.
Why do we force students to analyze text in this manner at the cost of killing their love for recreational reading? So many children, who once loved story time best of all, grow up to hate books and poetry. Yet they still love the search for meaning in cinema and music which, as yet, still remain mostly beyond the killing touch of involuntary study.
Is it any wonder literary analysis feels fake to so many people?
If you look at it, I'm sure you'll find equally plenty of people rolling their eyes at film critics for "making that up".
But I broadly share the sentiment of your message, and I personally blame some sort of variation of Goodhart's law. School curricula take an unquestionably good thing ("the critical search of meaning is an important skill to have") and have to pigeonhole it into something standardized and quantifiable (otherwise, how can you stitch a grade number to it? The horror!). The result is this desolate widespread contempt for everything that is not a literal interpretation.
There isn’t any symbolysm. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is s*t.
I had a similar, but different, experience. My issue is that in school I approached reading as a task to be completed in the most efficient manner possible - consuming as much as I could, as rapidly as I could, while ensuring an ability to regurgitate on demand. So I never really got to experience the joy of actually reading; in many cases I never even actually thought about what I was reading. So many books have amazing moral tales, metaphors of major events, and so on - yet one can completely consume books and remain absolutely clueless to what you're really reading.
Then as I aged, at some point I ended up getting into classical literature somehow, and now that I actually "got it" and could see and understand what it was saying - beyond the words themselves, it became a complete joy to read. For instance reading "The Republic" in modern times can make one think Plato was a prophet more than a philosopher. Or reading Aristotle's "Politics" can give one such an incredible amount of insight into thinking in the past, society, and even into your own thoughts. Or reading Aurelius' "Meditations" while bearing in mind these were the inner thoughts, never meant to be published, of not only one of the greatest leaders in history, but also arguably the single most powerful man alive at the time. It makes reading feel amazing. Another less well known example would be The King's Mirror [1]. A Norwegian text from 1250 that was a training/philosophy manual, in the form of a Q&A, intended for King Magnus VI. Highly recommended.
Now I see things like middle schoolers being assigned Animal Farm and I just kind of sigh, though it's not like I can think of a better solution!
I fully agree with your point, and your experience is similar to mine in a sense.
I got lucky in never "bending" to the task of reading because I had to, just reading the school curriculum books if they were interesting to me. And I enjoyed reading greatly. But some books Ichose to read I slogged through and could not enjoy them because of my lack of maturity and perspective. Revisiting them revealed a lot more depth. And my reading of them grew with my understanding of the world. So I guess the experience is normal. And I wonder if I did not slug through those books at that time if I would have ever reached the insight I had on subsequent reading.
I am certain things from a good book stick with you, even if you don't recall it explicitly. It just lingers there in the back of your head, like bricks that are piled up on each other until you don't see them anymore but you do see the wall they form.
I agree as well and had a similar but slightly different experience. I think that some of the material that I read in high school was great; but not appropriate for my age. While reading that material in school, I was bored and frustrated because I did not have enough life experiences (and empathy) to understand the emotional delicacy that the piece was bringing to my mental palette.
When I grew up (just by a few years) and accidentally re - discovered a work that I hated in school, I found it extremely deep and thought provoking.
Maybe high school students are not a great audience for appreciating a lot of literature, at least I wasn't.
Any book or movie that I enjoy I end up doing a deep dive on it's author, their situation in life, what was going on in the world at the time it was written, etc just to get a context for what may have inspired the creation. Sometimes a single detail about someone's past can instantly click the meaning or moral or conflict they were trying to portray.
I never understand why we are forced to read so much of the literary canon. Most of it is so hard to read, and so unenjoyable. Many of them could be re-written in a more enjoyable way for young children, through teenagers. I am exactly like you: I hardly ever read for pleasure when I was younger unless there was a blatant bride ("award") awaiting me. Most of the time, I was underwater reading some garbage prose from 1850 that doesn't stay with me today.
As an alternative perspective, I am glad that my middle and high school curriculum included several works of Shakespeare, especially Macbeth and Hamlet, and several 19th century classics.
They really do require time, they’re hard to make time for, and while reading them wasn’t exactly fun, I’m glad that I did it. Many of the themes are timeless, the prose is elegant if difficult, and there are cultural references to these works everywhere.
They form a big part of the English speaking world’s cultural history. I think it’s worthwhile for children to be exposed to that history.
And if not then, when? I couldn’t make myself do the work now; I’m too busy and tired to read anything but easy/fun fiction after work. And I’m not sure I would have had the focus then if it hadn’t been assigned. Sometimes education isn’t fun or easy. That doesn’t make it less valuable.
My point is the prose is a huge turn-off for most people and serves very little purpose in a modern society. As I mentioned in my post, I recommend to re-write these titles using a prose that will be more appealing to the age group. You can keep all of the same lessons to be learned in the re-write. I do not support this idea that learning needs to be painful or needlessly difficult. For most people, success in education is a positive feedback loop: If you do average or well, you look forward to more of it. And vice versa: If you below average, you try to avoid it and see it as a chore. I'm not saying to dumb down everything, but this "pain == good learning" seems from the 1980s and before -- outdated.
I wouldn't use the term "garbage prose", but I do agree that many books from the literary canon aren't the greatest choice to assign to kids.
Steinbeck and Faulkner come to mind.
I understand that they're important, influential, and well-written. But I just didn't relate to them. There was almost nothing about the main characters' challenges or desires that I could understand.
My son was assigned "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton - he didn't mind reading it, but he said he just didn't really relate to any of the characters. Even though it's set just 50 years ago, the culture it describes bares basically no resemblance to modern-day life for a teenager.
The Great Gatsby is the one that comes to my mind. How exactly is a modern high school student supposed to relate to any of the characters in this book? Even when I was reading it in school I kept stopping and questioning just what these characters even were. It felt like reading about aliens, totally disconnected from reality. I not only lacked the historical context, I didn't have enough social context to grasp the character motivations or actions.
The whole book was like the allegory of the cave.
Steinbeck is a close second, though. I had to read three of the man's books (The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, and Grapes of Wrath) and I don't think I enjoyed a single page of it. I remember finding a copy of The Pearl as an adult and being shocked it was less than 100 pages. We somehow extracted 18 weeks of discussion and essays and tests on that book. No wonder I hated it. We tortured every word of it.
“ My son was assigned "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton - he didn't mind reading it, but he said he just didn't really relate to any of the characters. Even though it's set just 50 years ago, the culture it describes bares basically no resemblance to modern-day life for a teenager.”
Maybe that’s ok? I read the Outsiders when I was young (25 years ago or so) and although I thought it was a bit weird, it wasn’t bad. My life bears little resemblance to many current contemporary people’s lives the world over, but exploring those differences can be good. I am all for giving the kids a chance to see a different world and get a sense of how things can change.
> I am all for giving the kids a chance to see a different world and get a sense of how things can change.
Not if you're discouraging children from reading as a hobby by assigning the driest works there are. With the exception of Faust, all 'homework books' were horribly dry and frankly boring. For example, The Sorrows of Young Werther - utterly irrelevant. I would understand any child or teenager who gave up on reading if they were forced to read books like these - and even worse, spend endless hours discussing and being tested on them.
1) There's no way to have a set of readings that every Xth grader is going to enjoy. It's just impossible. There is a wide range of interests and predispositions and reading ability among people of the same age. It's obvious just from this sub-thread; everyone pipes up with a different set of books they disliked in school and they therefore think no one should have to read. I loved reading Julius Caeasar in high school and hated The Catcher in the Rye. I loved Dandelion Wine and hated Absalom, Absalom. Them's the breaks.
2) Part of the point of reading literature is to see things from a different perspective. i.e. to read things that are not necessarily "relatable", and thereby possibly expand your mind about the range of human experience. It's an opportunity to learn about history and learn about cultures other than your own.
I hated Romeo and Juliet. Teachers loved to explain how this was so relevant to us teenagers and yet it’s two people in a deeply concerning relationship who die for each other for pretty stupid reasons. Modern interpretations are far more interesting.
I wouldn't say it's "garbage prose" but I read A Tale of Two Cities in school and found it impossible to form a mental image from the text in some parts.
I'm still struggling to understand what "Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail." means.
Or more recently, the run on SVB last year where everyone started panicking that the bank was no longer able to hold its deposits, just because it announced that it had taken action to generate something like $40 billion in liquidity. And then the next day alone, customers withdrew $42 billion.
All of this was much worse during the Great Depression, before we had FDIC insurance guaranteeing deposits up to a certain threshold. If you've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life, it depicts a bank run during that era as George Bailey is about to go off on his honeymoon. (I remember my 6th grade history teacher describing this as we watched that movie around the holiday season.)
Not really the media were covering it a lot in 2008 - Front page headlines in newspapers and first story on TV news.
Ok people did not lose money directly. But they were withdrawing from some banks (e.g. Northern Rock) and it made massive economic and political issues.
I wasn't familiar with the passage but having read it I think it means that the sounds and sights of the nighttime mail carriage ride made the bank messenger fantasize a run (i.e. an excess of customer withdrawals) upon his bank. The wider context is that the shadows of the night are cast as various phantoms in the minds of the people on the carriage, and even the horse pulling it:
> While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of HER private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road.
> What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested.
> Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger—with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt—nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them.
I actually think it's a really neat passage, it invokes the surreal more than I would expect from 19th century prose. Also, this part just before is very vivid and quite funny:
> Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.
Shakespeare and Chaucer were fucking awful. They did nothing but make me hate reading and English class. It took me years to enjoy reading after the "classics". Many of my classmates were similar.
Out elementary and middle schools have a no to low homework policy. By high school the most they assign to non AP courses is 15 min per class.
Only assignment is reading 30 min a night, any book they want (including graphic novels). Yet that does not foster a love of reading.
I had a ton of homework, but still read a book a week (though I did not do sports, only band, so had way more time than most mainstream students in that regard).
My reading waned when I had kids, basically as working parents I am always too exhausted to read, I always doze off. So I can’t set a good example, which I wonder if that is part of the problem — my mom was always reading.
15 mins x 7 periods so 2 hours of work after working from 7-3, some light sport or after school activity until 5. Home, dinner, and more work? Absurdity.
This isn't really advice, because ymmv, but young me just ignored homework (with minor exceptions).
I started programming at age 12, and that was more interesting. School was mostly boring so I didn't feel the need to extend it at home.
Looking back I recognise I was fortunate. My teachers didn't seem to over-mind (perhaps because I was well behaved and engaged in class, and did ok in tests). My parents didn't seem to mind as long as my teachers didn't complain too much.
I also now recognise that I went to a school with progressive values, good teachers, and a focus on flexibility (to a point).
I used to joke afterwards that I had a "unspoken agreement" with my teachers. They could hand out as much homework as they liked, and I would quietly ignore it all.
Yeah, and the worst part is that 15 minutes per class isn't enough to actually do any useful learning. It's just going to be two hours of pointless busy work.
I wouldn’t expect it to be 15 minutes from each class each night - more like a weekly assignment from each class that means each night you do 1 hour of one class, half an hour each of two others, rotating.
For many classes though, 15 minutes/night would be very useful. Language learning, for instance, or music practice. Most kids would benefit from 15 minutes of writing prose for any reason, and I think even high school math topics could provide 15 minutes of worthwhile practice questions each evening. All of these are things that you get better at with repeated practice.
> My reading waned when I had kids, basically as working parents I am always too exhausted to read, I always doze off. So I can’t set a good example
I don't know if you want to set a good example so this advixe is certainly unsolicited, but in my case reading really took off after having children. First when they were tiny and needed to be carried/pushed around which is great for reading, and now that they're toddlers and I'm in the habit, I squeeze it in where I can.
I hope we can read together more as they get older. I'm really looking forward to re-reading some classics like the Hobbit and the books about Narnia. For every year, the space of literature they are capable of expands massively.
My 9 and 11 year olds have no real homework (primary school in Australia) which seems to be public school policy for this age group. Rarely, it's 10 minutes on one night in a week; they often ask for homework and are enthusiastic if given worksheets. They read for literally hours a day.
I read huge amounts as a kid but then lost the habit as an adult. It takes any number of habits and tricks to try and get it going again. Like someone upthread, I'm often fighting tiredness, and one trick that can work is prioritising reading in the morning and leaving news and social media for when I'm tired.
At the same age in southern California, my kids had what was supposed to be 1-2 hours of homework a night. Which was made worse by ADHD. And, additionally, I had to teach my son basic skills that school failed to teach him. Like spelling and his times table.
I attended school in Georgia (the US state) and it was similar for me at that age; their goal was to assign about an hour of homework each night.
By the time my sister reached that age (she is 10 years younger), it had gotten so much worse: they were aiming for about two hours of homework. It realistically took closer to 3 or 4, and with many tears shed, even with me and both our parents helping. (She has since been diagnosed with ADHD.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and I have both decided to not have children. Being a kid really fucking sucked then, and it's probably even worse now.
I never really had any homework, or I never did it. I never read for pleasure either. I don't think it's that, but I get your point. Too busy = no time for reading for fun
Not just no time, but making even otherwise fun things mandatory with a volume that's overwhelming can suck the fun out of it and/or make it seem dull.
At one point I came to the realization that "reading is supposed to be fun". But it wasn't for me during school. At all. I hated every minute of it.
It made me wonder if children in the future will be forced to watch movies and play video games in their "literary education" and whether they will hate watching movies and playing games because of that.
Funnily enough I recently came across an online discussion asking why people used to like khan academy, when today “everyone hates it”. The poster was about 15, from memory, and apparently it was standard practice in their experience to use khan academy within classes or as assigned homework.
The thread seem to be missing even stronger case, that was true for me: making otherwise fun things mandatory, period. The volume doesn't matter; that a book was assigned as mandatory at all deterred me from reading it. Same with homework, which I was spectacularly good at avoiding.
Same here, absolutely. And the fact that that highly appraised literature seems to be mostly a fringey group of self-centered 'intellectuals' that think they're so important that their drivel must be spoon-fed to teenagers.
Yup. I initially thought that it would be a good idea for me to major in Computer Science.
For some reason I majored in Finance after a few years of electrical engineering courses.
I don't think I'd be programming today if I had to be force fed programming assignments.
Computer Science is actually kinda of lousy for teaching the things most programmers can do. To the point where if I was hiring, I'd rather hire someone who's less experienced and self-taught, but with some sort of "interesting" background, where "interesting" is almost anything that teach's critical thinking about abstract concepts and how to articulate ideas. Could be anything from a Journalism degree to someone who spent a decade working their way up the ranks of a machine shop from operator to foreman.
I can tell you the last time I had to write a singly-linked list implementation though. October 17th, Nineteen Ninety Never.
Yes, but the most important lesson about data structures is to let someone smarter than me implement them, and just use the widely known, well documented, battled tested one.
I decided to jump on this bandwagon a while back and asked ChatGPT to do some tedious legwork for me with a bunch of geo-search primitives. I'll say the CS and general CS expertise came in very handy because boy this thing was wrong. Not obviously wrong but subtly and confidently wrong. :-)
Agreed. The things I look for most when hiring programmers (assuming they have a resume showing they have the skills) are attention to detail, empathy, and ability to communicate without feeling like I'm arguing all the time or pulling teeth.
Empathy tends to win here: you need to understand why people are using the software and how they are using it to make good decisions.
Communication tends to be better with people that have empathy.
> I can tell you the last time I had to write a singly-linked list implementation though. October 17th, Nineteen Ninety Never.
The point of writing (and working with) linked list implementations in a CS2 course is not because linked lists are something you'll have to implement yourself later (although there are certain areas of systems programming where return values of various system calls are, effectively, linked lists).
The point of working with LLs in CS2 is because they are an extremely simple data structure that you can inspect the entire implementation of; and their use of references/pointers gives practice with that concept before upgrading to the concepts of trees and (linked) graphs; and their fundamental structure and properties are so different from array-type list implementations that they provide a good first example of two different implementation strategies that can produce exactly the same output/result but with different space and time usage properties; and the parallel implementations are also a motivation for abstracting interface away from implementation and keeping data private and interface public.
So, that's why I teach linked lists in CS2. I try to be very up-front with my students about that; sorry to hear that your professors maybe weren't. I pretty solidly agree that a LinkedList per se is not particularly useful to a working software engineer; but that's not why we teach them.
Yes, I also find that physicists don't make the best auto mechanics. Mechanics never need to derive the equations of astronomical motion when repairing an engine block.
Why do you believe that Computer Science is less "critical thinking about abstract concepts and how to articulate ideas" than Journalism?
Is 30 minutes really the amount of novel reading we find unacceptable these days? I’m not asking quite as snarkily as that sounds.
Do you think the problem would be alleviated if the hours of class time were shorter and (maybe) handed over to a study hall period or even to just being sent home? In college I know the theory is supposed to be that one hour of class time equals two hours of homework (though that rarely happens in practice, in my American experience). But high school has far more hours of class time.
For me as a kid who loved reading and fell out of it by the time I finished school (and then re-found that love decades later), the biggest contributing factor wasn't 30 minutes of reading for school. It was forced reading of books that were uninteresting to me in the first place, and then having to engage with those books in a wholly artificial way.
There's a lot of interesting things to be gleaned from books and certainly expanding students horizons is not in and of itself a bad idea. But school reading is painful, whether it's 10 minutes or 4 hours. You're given pre-selected material with pre-selected lessons to be taken from that material. You are expected to write summaries that explain why the curtains in the foyer of this book were blue (regardless of whether there's actually a reason the author did that or if the lesson planner just hallucinated some meaning out of thin air), and then discuss obvious lessons in non-fiction materials as if there was any other purpose to writing the book in question except to present that lesson. Sometimes you're given books to read that match whatever the current hot social topic is, again without regard to the quality of the books, and then expected to regurgitate the correct opinions on that topic as if the book presented those opinions, and again without regard to what the book actually said (or failed to say).
Reading in schools is presented and treated with the rigor of a mathematical proof, and the soullessness of dispassionate scientific observation of dying rats. It should be no wonder that what that is the experience of children with reading, so many fail to find a hobby or pleasure in it. We don't seem surprised when most students don't do mathematical formulas in their spare time after learning it in school, why should reading be any different?
Everyone always complains about the "blue curtains". Did everyone but be ready the same book, or are you just repeating a meme? (for what purpose?)
But I do analyze literature and study mathematical formulas in my free time, so maybe I'm built different.
It's hard to say what school is doing in wrong when students aren't interested in study. Maybe the answer is to let the mom studious students leave school.
I can confirm, we ”analyzed” the color of the curtains in some novel I now forget. I believe they were, in fact, blue. The teacher was adamant details like that were always meaningful and certainly not just to paint a scene. It was far from the only instance of such “analysis”.
What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
>What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
I find it disappointing how poorly the lesson is taught. The question shouldn't be 'Why?' [The author did something] it should be "What?" [did the author do]. Whether they were colored for a purpose or not, what does the blueness of the curtains convey?[0]. The point then is to be able to generalize to 'what is this media conveying,' occasionally with intent[1], and 'how do I create media with my intended conveyance'.
[0]'Nothing in particular' is a valid answer, that the protagonist's favorite color was blue could be another.
[1]e.g. in a commercial: actors, wardrobe, setting, et al are all very intentionally selected to convey the message 'this product will make your life better' or similar.
> What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
Same in german. Die Leiden des jungen Werther - dry, boring, irrelevant.
It's certainly possible that "blue curtains" specifically is a memetic reference that I've absorbed via osmosis, but the experience of having to analyze minute details to a ridiculous extent was very much a true one, regardless of the specifics of the example.
I feel like the "blue curtains" problem with reading in schools is akin to the "shape -> rectangle -> square" problem that early OOP education has. It might be a very basic and simple attempt to explain a concept (inheritance in the case of OOP, symbolism in the case of books), but its simplicity and inoffensive genericness is so overwhelmingly devoid of any of the usefulness that the concept brings that its more harmful to the students than helpful.
I've long argued that programing courses are broken. They present a concept with a hugely simplified model, and then tell you when you don't understand why you'd want to do it that it will make more sense when you build a "real" program. I think they would be better served in a lot of ways by having you write "real" code the hard way first, and then introducing the concepts that OOP (and other patterns) benefit from by showing how those things address the very real pain points the programers experienced. A sort of "in medias res" method of teaching.
I think something similar applies to a lot of the way literature concepts are taught in schools. Boring books that don't connect with the readers and students are assigned, and then terrible examples that are either overly contrived (blue curtains) or blindingly obvious (the bad guy kicks the puppy which shows he's bad) that they just turn the students off. There's no excitement or interest nurtured into the concepts because the taught examples are so lifeless and far removed from what is actually possible.
>It's hard to say what school is doing in wrong when students aren't interested in study. Maybe the answer is to let the mom studious students leave school.
My personal opinions on the matter are
1) "too much mandatory study". Yeah when they're adults, they'll need to work 8 hour jobs, but kids need time to be kids and they need time to let the things they're learning sink in and discover real world applicability in their own lives. 6-7 hours of schooling + 1-3 hours of homework + projects + "extra curricular" programs adds up to a lot of time where students don't have any time to find anything interesting in what they've learned before they're shuffled off to the next things. School is stressful enough when you're just learning, but all the other stuff that's piled on and the regimented testing just burns them out. I was turned off of math courses for half of my schooling because 2nd grade math was full of timed tests in which failures were punished by loss of recess time.
2) Related to that, recognize that education is highly individual and offer more tailored schooling. I had friends who were held back from advanced classes where they would have been challenged and engaged because early in elementary school they performed poorly on a handful of standardized tests and were locked forever in the "standard" track. So much of what you want to teach as a skill can be taught via multiple different avenues, and we should offer schooling that takes advantage of that. Literary concepts like foreshadowing, metaphor, symbolism etc can be taught via film, books, poetry, games and even music. Why does every student then need to go through the same literary courses with the same set of books to learn the material? Math concepts can be taught with money, or physics, or chemistry or computer programming or wood working. Why does everyone need to go through the same math textbook?
The most memorable teachers I ever had were the ones that stepped outside the books. The ones that explored teaching a concept from multiple angles, and who understood that often it was necessary to let the students see the deep end of the pool to get them interested in learning to swim at all. Those teachers worked well for me. They didn't work for others. And some teachers that I found staid and boring and that failed to leave me with any love for the subject they were teaching were ones that connected with other classmates. But we were all crammed into the same set of lessons with the same teacher and teaching styles.
Education smothered my love for reading by forcing me to read material that didn't connect with me and analyze and report on that material in a way that was unnatural for me. The ember that was able to be rekindled was only kept alive by the occasional tending of a teacher that would from time to time allow me to step outside the box to engage with books the way that worked for me. I was lucky in that regard. Many students aren't and that's a shame.
Disclaimer: I live in The Netherlands; perhaps the situation is different in the US. It would be great if it was.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on your wishes. I didn't necessarily have the same experiences, but that's mostly beside the point. But as a very junior university teacher:
> programing courses are broken [...] I think they would be better served in a lot of ways by having you write "real" code the hard way first, and then introducing the concepts that OOP (and other patterns) benefit from by showing how those things address the very real pain points the programers experienced.
There is no time. I want to teach what you say, and as a student I wanted to be taught what you say, but that takes more time, especially if you want to cater for the whole class — that "the hard way" programming is less efficient than doing it the right way, unsurprisingly, so it takes more time (not only that, you're asking them to do the same assignment twice, which is anathema — no time for that!), and the curriculum is already chock full.
> My personal opinions on the matter are: 1) "too much mandatory study".
Sure, but then you have even less time. You'll make the previous problem worse.
> 2) Related to that, recognize that education is highly individual and offer more tailored schooling.
Yes, everyone knows this would be good, but there is no money and there are no teachers. Skilled primary school and high school teachers are incredibly hard to find, and even if you'd find them, there is no money to pay for more teachers than we have now.
Yeah, I have family and friends who are teachers, definitely aware that there's no time. Fundamentally the modern way we deal with education is broken. It's not even mostly the funding, but the way we try to measure it, package it and distill it and spread it around equally. The only way to do that is the same way McDonalds does, strip it down to the barest essentials done by rote , crammed into as small a time unit as possible with as little variation as possible. It works, but it has all the same problems.
Education as a whole needs a re-work in how we approach it, for many reasons but also to make time for this sort of careful nurturing; even if it means we don't cover as many things. We can no more teach all the children all the things in 18 years than we could have them listen to all the music ever produced in that same time. And to my mind then we'd be better served doing everything we can to nurture and encourage children's natural curiosity and desire to learn and do on the absolutely necessary of the things necessary that will quash that curiosity.
How do we do that? I don't know. I have thoughts, but there are certainly going to be no easy answers, and decades of bureaucracy and infrastructure around the current system will not go quietly even if we had the answers in the first place.
Several high school teachers I know don't assign long reading sessions because their students are dealing with some kind of unstable home life (or are homeless) and don't have an appropriate setting for it outside of class. That is, they avoid it because it injects a class bias into their grades.
Given that, making space within the school day for such things seems like a good idea.
It's not so much about competition between the students as it is about competition between the schools.
If your curriculum puts economically disadvantaged students at an academic disadvantage, and your school has many of such students, then your school ends up with less funding because your students do poorly on tests compared with the well off schools. So if you want to help the students you've got, you come up with curriculum that doesn't penalize them for having jobs, kids, or other outside-of-class reasons that they can't sit down and read at length.
Half an hour is fine, it’s really the cumulative volume. If a kid has 7 classes and each gives half an hour of homework, that’s 3.5 hours of homework. Add on the classes and they’re “working” 11.5 hours a day or 57.5 hours per week, every week.
That would be concerning for adults, it’s well into burnout territory. Then we want to act surprised when kids don’t want to read on their own and only want to play video games, as if all us adults are working 60 hour weeks and then excited to keep doing our job in our free time.
My novel approach would be to cut out a bunch of shit that kids don’t strictly need and hope that gives them the time and freedom to explore those things on their own.
We do not need 12 years of history classes. They’re nice to know, but widely forgotten anyways. That could probably be cut to like 4; I do not and will never need to know about Sumerian burial rites.
We do not need most of the flowery English classes. Reading comprehension is important, identifying symbolism is not. No one has ever asked me to check if an email contains a motif.
Much of our science classes are generally useless; chemistry comes to mind. I have never, even once, used anything I learned in chemistry. I know too little to do anything practical with it, and yet it was a year long class.
The other option would be to just kill summer break and use that time for teaching instead of homework. I don’t care for that, though. In a decade we’ll be back to having homework and summer break isn’t going to come back.
I would dissagree on the chemistry. A working knowledge of chemistry is quiet valuable in the kitchen. Understanding of the maillard reaction, or of caramelization is useful for making better tasting food. I keep pH strips in my kitchen for use in making ferments, understanding chemistry will make it intuitive which foods to cook on cast iron or not to because the acids will eat the pans seasoning. Knowledge of polymerization lets know you can wash the cast frying pan despite the folk wisdom to the contray.
I had AP classes in high school and a 20 hour a week part time job - easily 10 hours a day on the week days including homework and ongoing projects. So at 17 I was working 70 hours a week. College was more of the same - honors classes and projects.
I graduated college and was like "I only have to work 40 hours a week? What's the catch?"
One thing that standardized education does is guarantee that the majority of people will be somewhere findable within the middle of the bell curve of the social status quo.
You know the same things that your neighbor knows, within a reasonable margin of error. Therefore, you have social compatibility with them.
You feel that if you took the money out of the equation, you could rub shoulders with Biden and Bezos, Musk, Gates and Powell and not be too far out of your own depth.
That's valuable, right?
To get that, you had to go through the same 12 years of history and bored idiot English teachers telling you about symbolism and metaphor and giving you terrible 5 paragraph essays to fill out with the same dumb rote formula.
If you look at the overall social outcome, for the majority, this is a good thing.
If, however, it turns out that you are special and of a rare breed, then for your own children you should hire private tutors or school them overseas or do something somehow to cultivate their greatness.
If you can show us a better path we'll start to move towards it, but until then accept the fact that there are thousands of minor and major pleasantries provided by standardized education that you get to enjoy every day as a matter of course thanks to the social conditioning it provided.
> One thing that standardized education does is guarantee that the majority of people will be somewhere findable within the middle of the bell curve of the social status quo.
I’m not saying that we completely get rid of public education, just that we stop appending things to it and pretending they’re important.
Nobody remembers most of this alleged common ground anyways. Go ask around what the 5th amendment says, or what a high pH means, I’d be shocked if a quarter of people remembered.
> You feel that if you took the money out of the equation, you could rub shoulders with Biden and Bezos, Musk, Gates and Powell and not be too far out of your own depth.
Sure, if we’re talking about something covered in high school, but for any topic I’d be realistically interested in hearing them talk about, no. Why would me or Bill Gates want to discuss symbolism in Catcher in the Rye? I’m certainly not going to talk to Musk about chemistry; I’m doubtful he’s a through and through rocket engineer, but his tangential knowledge likely trumps my very limited recollection of valence bands and I have no idea how that relates to the energy density of rocket fuel.
This is just a veneer of equality we tell ourselves. Sure, we’re all equal in the sense that we’ve largely ignored our high school education and probably haven’t really advanced our biology knowledge.
That doesn’t imply that we’re all going to sit around and suddenly want to talk about that instead of rockets or operating systems or investment strategies; I am not on the same part of the bell curve for the topics that make them interesting.
> If you can show us a better path we'll start to move towards it, but until then accept the fact that there are thousands of minor and major pleasantries provided by standardized education that you get to enjoy every day as a matter of course thanks to the social conditioning it provided.
I don’t disagree there are pleasantries, but at what cost? We’re pushing children into working near-slavery workloads, with no recourse to change that, and our means of motivating them is primarily threatening their entire future if they don’t play along.
It’s like the worst job in the world; Amazons warehouses look like a vacation comparatively.
Children can’t switch schools on their own like adults can switch jobs. Children’s records follow them when they do switch, so they can’t escape even if they switch schools. I’ve never had HR records follow me across companies. And any employer that tried to control their employees by threatening to ruin the entire rest of their lives would have the NLRB crawl up their ass and build a branch office.
We’re trading the happiness of children for what? Me and my neighbor having equally shitty recall of the French and Indian war?
I still remember being in high school, and I still remember how miserable it was. I remember kids showing up with huge bags under their eyes because they had to go into “crunch time” and work til midnight because they got a bunch of big assignments at once.
I remember meeting most of my high school classmates and how bright eyed and cheery we were. I also remember senior year, and how many of those smiles had faded into blank, exhausted stares.
I remember the kids who had problems in their family lives whose personalities either disappeared or curdled into sour milk as they tried to cope with 60 hour weeks and just didn’t have the spare time and energy to try to process their parents divorce.
I remember the suicides and addiction the most though. The kids that had bottomed out so hard they would do anything they could to escape the loop of stress, failure, threats about their future, and back to the beginning. The only options we offer them are death or complete desperation, and some kids picked one because they just couldn’t do it anymore.
There were multiple suicides while I was in high school. 3 that I can recall, and one kid that ran away from home and overdosed while sleeping in a public park.
It’s awful for the kids that die, and it’s awful for the kids left behind who now have to figure out how to emotionally process a friend’s suicide while working 60 hour weeks knowing full well that college admissions won’t give 2 shits about why their GPA was low that quarter.
The highschool was ranked in the top 50 public schools in the US when I attended. This wasn’t a backwater dump wrecked by phasing out coal, this was a school held up as an example for other schools.
I don’t find nearly enough value in making a neat bell curve to put kids through that. I wouldn’t put adults through that, and the existence of unions tells me that others feel the same way. Unions would pitch a huge fit over the least egregious of our expectations of children.
There are enormous flaws in public education, some of which you have addressed, but eliminating the study of history and english is going to do bupkis to address any of that.
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, stated that living in a warbound society:
"In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Obviously, our governments are always in war. Our schools are always in war. Millions to the football stadiums and rarely even pennies for the arts. Churn out grist for the malady mill and milk the survivors of every drop of value. Every business and enterprise of man is but war in a capitalist society.
Taking away the seeds of the arts because they might not grow into more juice for the war machine is at best a shortsighted thought and at worst the hateful demands of a small and selfish person. They didn't benefit you, but others they do.
The flaw in public education that I'm trying to address is its tendency to grow to occupy any potential free time, largely because children are powerless to prevent that.
> Taking away the seeds of the arts because they might not grow into more juice for the war machine is at best a shortsighted thought and at worst the hateful demands of a small and selfish person. They didn't benefit you, but others they do.
I haven't the faintest interest in taking away access to art or English or history. I don't generally believe in removing access to things. I am interested in not forcing a vulnerable and powerless group to donate their time to the cause of "keeping art/English/history alive" if they don't want to.
There is some subset of knowledge that is a practical requirement for being able to navigate society. People need to know enough English to communicate, enough math to make change, enough science to have a basic understanding of the world we exist in. Those are basically untouchable if we want society to continue functioning.
Art knowledge is not a necessity for living a normal life. A person can pursue an immense number of paths in their life without ever encountering a requirement to know things about art. It's honestly notable for someone to have encountered a situation where they needed or were aided by having taken art classes. Creative writing and the analysis of creative writing are much the same.
If hours in the day were limitless, or children stayed children for longer, I'd agree with you. Knowledge of art has value, as does creative writing and history; I firmly believe that all knowledge has some degree of value.
I do not agree in light of what we're putting children through. Something has to give, and it's either going to be the school workload or children's mental health. The teen suicide rate has nearly doubled since 2000, and I don't feel like playing a game of chicken with rising suicide rates to preserve art or ancient history or creative writing or like a dozen other things.
Give the kids back their free time and I'm sure a lot of them will gravitate towards art or creative writing naturally. They naturally appeal to a lot of kids and people, if we'd just give them the room to get there themselves instead of force-feeding them a list of Baroque artists to make flashcards out of.
It seems like you would be better served in a Montessori or similar education system.
I had a lot of issues with public education in my life. I don't regret the information I learned, no matter how trivial, but I do regret the time wasted, being a student who easily absorbed the entirety of the semesters knowledge for all non-stem classes by reading the book in the gap before classes started.
I would have appreciated being able to go further faster rather than wait for my classmates to make it to the starting line.
That being said, school isn't just about knowledge. We live in a society and we have to have a standard by which to relate to one another. Like it or not, our fellow humans are dark forests with gaping maws yearning to devour us, and we are the same to them.
Without some trauma bonding, some common fountain from which we draw our waters, we would willingly or not destroy one another until only our little clans remained.
Modern society has blinded us to the travails of our forefathers, where the people who live a few miles away might rise up and slay us if they have a bad harvest one year.
That we have come so far as to reduce the occasional rampages down to traumatic school experiences is quite amazing from a neutral third party viewpoint, even though it definitely doesn't feel that way from someone who has experienced it firsthand, but compared to being murdered and eaten by the person who happened to be my classmate, getting picked on and feeling some long term anger over the situation is vastly preferable to me.
All of that aside, we can do better. That much is obvious. We could do better easily if we could get everyone on the same page and standard, and make the standard "Maximally educated according to your individual ability" so that it would adapt to the learners potential rather than being concerned with the easier to manage yet still brobdingnagianly difficult standard of "minimally viable high school graduate".
Any tips? I didn't, somehow. After leaving high school, then university, my brain went into full on "be productive all the time" mode. My brain somehow doesn't think reading is a good use of my time, so I've settled for audiobooks when falling asleep or on long drives.
The last book I was able to devour and actually enjoyed was the Harry Potter series, which ended just before I went to university.
Setting aside time for relaxation and leisure activities is highly productive, but unfortunately that isn't something that becomes obvious until your work visibly suffers from "all work and no play". The costs of overworking yourself truly are insidious. It really is akin to a rogue wave - you don't know how deep it runs until it finally hits.
It sounds like you enjoy books, the problem is convincing yourself you deserve to take time to read them. To quiet that anxiety:
> The habit of reading is a meaningful way to meditatively intake large portions of information. Reading helps with creativity, focus, and communication. Reading light-hearted, entertaining books increases these skills while preserving focus for work in a way that reading the latest O'Reilly book does not, while making reading non-fiction books in the future easier because you've been practicing reading.
Separately, humans are not machines. In general, we aren't wired to constantly be doing things, and taking time to play or to enjoy stories or to do absolutely nothing is an entirely necessary maintenance task.
Removing joy and rest from your life for productivity is the biological equivalent of accumulating technical debt. This debt can intensify until you need a complete rewrite; when this happens, it's called burn out, and it's kinda really bad.
> the problem is convincing yourself you deserve to take time to read them
This hits home in so many more ways than just reading. I find it hard to do any leisure activities because doing them means I have spare time to do any of a thousand items on my personal backlog. It's very stressful.
the average audio book is 10 hours long. let's say reading a book takes 10 hours. then you only need 20 minutes per day to read one book per month. it should not be hard to find that time.
what you say suggests that you have a backlog of non-leisure activities that you feel are more important.
i solved this by making leisure activities more important. call it work-life balance if that helps. leisure is part of a healthy day. i started going for a daily walk for exercise. i considered important for my well being. i watch one tv show per day. and only one. i simply decided that is part of a healthy routine. and i made a list of what i want to watch so i don't waste that hour on random stuff. i still do spend more time on random stuff, eg youtube, but that is a different problem. when i run out of time, i stop wasting time on youtube, but i don't stop that one tv episode. i figure i have earned the break after being busy for a day. i should do the same with listening to audiobooks/stories but i haven't been able to re-establish that routine yet.
One key thing is: don't feel like you have to suffer through reading an entire book if you don't like it. If it's a chore to read it, find something else - different author, or different type of book.
I would add: don't try to convince yourself that you actually like this book because it has great reviews or your friends recommended it. Plenty of novels with great reviews are actually trash (IMO, of course, but also in yours, which is the point). Admit to yourself that you don't actually like it and that's OK.
If you need shitty books to practice giving up on, I can autograph and send you some books written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author who shares my name and writes terrible books. Email in profile.
Here's a trick that helped me after a ten+ year hiatus and having my attention fried by social media:
A lot of people who have lost their attention span to technology will find themselves reading but not absorbing, their mind wandering, until they realize they'd "read" 3 pages and don't remember what happened.
So read slow and with purpose, but most importantly at the end of each page, ask yourself what you just read and have a conversation with yourself about it. This helped rebuild my comprehension and focus. This is similar to how English classes will read a book as a class: Reading then discussion, reading then discussion. But instead of as a group, do it as an internal dialogue.
One of the things that helped me was to have an actual dialog with the book.
For non-fiction books, this means pushing back against claims that appear to be unsupported. When I read in a paper book I do so with a pen to make notes in it (I don't sell my books, and I obviously don't do this with library books), but ebooks just get marked up in my ebook reader and it's very nice. It's also good when reviewing a book because I can see all of my thoughts and questions and often can answer them by the end of the chapter/section/unit.
For fiction books, this ends up being a "what would I do there/what would an ordinary person do?" It's very helpful to try and place yourself in the character's shoes and see how you may have reacted differently or if you agree with the character understanding _why_ you agree with them.
it takes some practice. and i find it's more difficult with short stories because there every detail counts. if you miss a few details from a longer book, it tends to matter less.
and then while listening i need to do an activity that doesn't require mental focus.
so i can't sit in front of the computer, unless it is mundane photo editing or some other repetitive task that doesn't make me think.
going for a walk and housework work for me. especially housework. there is nothing else i can do while washing dishes, cooking, doing laundry or cleaning. the work doesn't require much focus, and is quite repetitive. that makes listening easy.
I would up vote trying audiobooks.
They are great for traveling, also cleaning up and other chores.
Classic narrators make everything fun to listen to. There are voices for lulling you to sleep. Others to make the stories exciting.
The Harry Potter books have two narrators -they are both great, in different ways.
Lord of the rings is much more fun in audiobook format.
Try to find audiobooks read by Simon Vance, for example - he reads the Master and Commander series, and the original James Bond series.
Have fun.
Oh yeah, I've listened to all of this and some of Dennis E. Taylor's other stuff, as well. I've also listened to all of ExFor and everything Andy Weir, almost everything narrated by Travis Baldree, too.
Its the next blockbuster series. If my mother, who claimed murderbot was too complicated and has never played video games loved it... the series has legs.
General change to my habits has been that if I’m not feeling a story, it’s okay to put it down. The amount of reading I have trudged through because I was afraid of quitting…
I suggest Stephen King as a reintroduction for general audiences (since a lot of people have a hard time vibing with high fantasy, I know I do).
He's not the greatest writer of all time, but he's enjoyable while not feeling like you're reading YA or something age inappropriate. And his classics are classics for a reason.
Can't go wrong with Carrie, The Stand, Misery, The Shining or Salem's Lot.
> The last book I was able to devour and actually enjoyed was the Harry Potter series
Actually, it was Harry Potter that got me back into reading. I read the first 5 books over the course of 2 weeks the summer after I graduated college.
In some cases I'd see an interview on late night television and read the book the guest was promoting. More recently I read a book that was discussed on the radio during my commute.
In other cases, there was a subject I wanted to learn about, so I'd read books about the subject, or biographies on people who were known in the subject matter.
Sometimes I'll see a movie / TV show based on the book, and like it enough to read the book.
And: J. K. Rowling's new series about Coroman Strike (written under a pseudonym) is excellent. Read it slowly, though. I'm also slowly re-reading Harry Potter to my kids and it's a lot more enjoyable in bits instead of as a binge.
Seconding the "audiobooks count" that Imzadi said, I'd like to note that the Martian audiobook is exceptional, and I've heard that others by Weir are excellent as well.
You might enjoy reading _short_ novels. I really liked the "All Systems Red" series, each of them feels short enough to read in a day. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, you might also enjoy the Invisible Library series, or maybe the Harry Dresden novels. They both felt like fun-pulpy romps through magical worlds.
Maybe you can convince your brain that reading at bedtime is a good use of time because it promotes healthy sleeping by not being on a screen. ;) (It hasn't worked for me, I still have a backlog two shelves long.)
I'm not an avid reader, but I've rediscovered reading in the past couple years. A few tips that help me:
1) Keep a list of book recommendations mentioned from HN, podcasts, friends, etc. Eventually, some will be recommended twice or more, and that may be enough to tell your brain "this will be worth it."
2) Try non-fiction if you're usually a fiction person, or vice versa. I grew up enjoying only fiction. But now I realize I enjoy non-fiction a lot more.
3) Don't stick with boring books for more than a couple chapters. I've been using thriftbooks.com, so it's affordable to toss a few dollars away and try again.
Maybe it's a problem of taste? Maybe you don't like the books you've tried to read because of the contents of the book?
From what's popular these days I think you should try reading: The Martian and Cradle. If you don't like it then stop reading and go for something else.
If you want to try a lot of different stuff I would recommend trying web novel on sites like RoyalRoad, Web novel, Scribblehub. Just pick something, read a bit. If you don't like it, find something new.
- Try something entertaining instead of something useful. Pick books out of interest, not out of pragmatism or obligation. If a book doesn't work for you, try another.
- Make it a special time. Start your bedtime routine early, light some candles, make tea and have a go at it. Or sit in a nice café, or after a nice picnic. I love reading myself to sleep, or with tea on the balcony in the morning.
- Remove distractions. I read on a disconnected iPad with no internet and no apps except for reading and notetaking.
If you want to put it in productivity-over-everything terms, reading before sleep is a really good way to wind down and get solid sleep. It's also a great way to build vocabulary, get different perspectives, and enjoy idle time without doomscrolling.
Read when you're fresh (set your alarm earlier and read before you get out of bed) rather than when you're tired at the end of the day. Use a habit tracking app (mine is Streaks on iOS). If tired, walking around the house while reading ticks off pages and steps. Read books you like; quit anything that you feel is a waste of time. Read while eating breakfast if it's not antisocial. Pick shorter books to get momentum (Old Man and the Sea, Into the Wild). Read on your phone, so it's always an option. Put your Books app prominently on the home screen and relegate social media apps out of view.
Regarding time reading is faster than listening. Also way more efficient than movies, series or video games. I can’t play story based video games anymore like Witcher 3 because at one point I’m like I’m wasting so much time compared if I was just reading the book.
Also books are less isolating than listening, for example if you are in a park with nature sounds.
If you enjoyed The Expanse you could try the last 3 books. If you haven’t read for a long time it’ll be hard at first to stay focused but by the middle of the book you should hopefully get the feeling of wanting to pick the book anytime like a new episode of the show just dropped.
I wouldn't call audiobook "settling", I enjoy them more than books with a great narrator.
What got me back into reading was Harry Potter. I hadn't read a book for fun since middle school and had grown to loathing reading of any kind from all the assigned reading. (just give me the cliff notes).
HP was new, all the rage, and wife convinced me to give it a try (she had always been an avid reader). I had maybe 3 books to catch up on and I read them all back to back and was eagerly awaiting the 4th. We'd do midnight releases and each buy our own book and didn't sleep till we were through.
i was an avid reader in my youth but stopped when i entered university (and got a computer (guess where i spend most of my time instead of reading books ;-))
about a decade ago i discovered audiodrama, short story audio magazines and finally whole audiobooks. i mostly listened to them on my commute. later when i had no commute i started going for walks (to get out of the house and move) and i also listen during housework or other mundane tasks. i tried listening before going to sleep, but that didn't work because i would doze away and miss sections while hearing others. that meant hi had to relisten the next day to catch what i missed.
i get about an hour of listening time on average, sometimes two, when i have a good daily routine, less otherwise.
one hour per day is enough to listen to 2-3 books per month. i alternate between all three types so i usually only get one book in a month, sometimes less. but that adds up too. my reading list has almost 80 titles. with an average of 10 hours per book you can finish a whole book in a month with only 20 minutes per day.
In my mid twenties I had a mundane 30 minute commute in a crowded London tube which meant no internet (maybe thats different now). I cranked through so many books in that ~2 year timespan.
It's not reasonable to do a cognitively demanding job all day and then expect to do cognitively demanding leisure at night. Unemployed people are great readers.
Yeah, don't read "worthy" stuff, or things to enlighten yourself, find your particular brand of entertaining trash and mindlessly consume it.
I recommend bad litrpg and progression fantasy personally. Mother of Learning is a good one to start, it's free on royalroad.com or available on Kindle.
Absolutely agree. The definition of "worthy" comes from a narrow group of haughty English majors. That may be your thing, but there's a huge world of non-worthy stuff out there.
Those chinese cultivation novels are my guilty pleasures. I still look for a good translation, but they what I reach for when I just want to pass the time (and they're really long).
If you're into fiction, can I suggest looking for short story magazines in your preferred genre. Look novels are great and all, and I love devouring a book that really hooks into me, but the modern publishing landscape is full of 500+ page books that are part 3 of a 48 book series. That can be overwhelming and certainly difficult to drag yourself into if you're not in the habit of reading.
Sort story magazines introduce you to multiple authors and multiple stories, most of which could be read in 30 minutes before bed, and give you a chance to enjoy reading for fun without committing to a who "extended universe" of material you feel like you have to know.
If SF&F is your preferred genre, "Asimov's", "Analog", and "Fantasy and Science Fiction" are old staples that are still being published. "Locus", "Lightspeed" and "Strange Horizons" are also options, with Lightspeed and Strange Horizons being relative newcomers to the field. weightlessbooks.com carries a couple of those and some magazine in other genres too if SF&F aren't your jam.
This was my experience as well. Loved reading when I was younger, but lots of assigned reading from elementary onward poisoned the well, so to speak.
In retrospect, it's surprising how rigid the required reading was at my school: no choice in the material whatsoever, so the most important engine that drives reading (curiosity) was held out of the equation.
I think a lot of it is what goes on at home (surprise, this is basically for all education). I know I did reading as part of my schoolwork and homework. The reading I most remember was during the summer. A few were summer work related and needed reports, but the book choice was open ended. Many were not school related but encouraged by my parents.
As an adult who does a gargantuan amount of reading for a living - while work is busy i cannot fathom reading for fun but during breaks I start up again. To me this is all quite sensible and a bit bit of support for the argument we need to slow everything down a bit. Fix work-life balance accross the board.
When can we change our education to promote better educational outcomes instead of training for the test or alternatively being devoid of fundamental knowledge/skills? It feels like we should be progressing in this area much faster then we are. Yes - i know - its way to broad of a question.
I'm sure it's more complicated than this but something that definitely has had an influence -- when budgets for a school district are determined by how many students pass vs being left behind, there is an outsized incentive to prepare students for the test instead of for more broadly reasoning or for enjoying the practice of learning.
Some of us determined that school is something to be avoided. To squeak through it with absolutely minimal effort. Never do the assigned reading. Never do the homework.
Which leaves mountains of free time (an irreplaceable commodity, you will agree) for reading whatever the heck you like.
I also went to a private college prep school, and the workload was practically abusive at times. I remember some days when I’d work on homework during class, get home, then continue working on homework clear until 3 or 4 AM. Then it was back up at 6 AM to go back to school. Some nights were light and I got to bed at 12p-1a. The weekends following the hard weeks were mostly nonexistent because I was unconscious for most of them.
I confess I mostly just read cliffsnotes and sparksnotes. Felt a little guilty about it at first, but it helped me ace the tests, and saved a ton of time.
>What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.
It’s not just homework it’s outside activities… but also the time spent at class is often wasted so there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.
> Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.
Yeah. My nine years old goes to a school where there's no homework. She now reads a lot: kids at school all shares any cool book they read and then they all want to read it. Today she brought back a brick and started reading it. She devours book.
I stopped reading books because of mandatory reading.
When I graduated from high school one of the thoughts on my mind during the ceremony was "YES!! I will n e v e r have to read books again!!"
I also stopped reading around age 9-10 for fun.
My 'favorite' book during school was Crime and Punishment. I didn't like the book, but I knew the teachers liked it. So if it ever came up I 'liked it very much'.
Many years after school anime -> manga -> light novels -> web novels got me back into reading. Now I spend far too much time on reading, but I don't think I will ever read fiction in my native language again.
I had plenty of assigned reading and half-assed it because high school classwork was not hard l remotely hard. Writing an acceptable book report was trivial with only some brief scanning.
> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back things from the backlist. There’s not anything like that right now for the middle-grade age group.”
This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
> Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
At 9 I had no idea how to go into a massive thing like a library and make a selection for myself. "Word of mouth" made a lot of choices for me when I was young.
When I was that age my teacher had a thing where reading something like 3 books got you out of a lot of homework and your parent had to sign a paper listing what you read and you turned it in.
As a kid who already hated school, and used reading as an escape from a pretty shit childhood, I was clocking in 5 books a week.
The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.
> The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.
> Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.
Lessons learned:
a) Incentives matter (economy 101)
b) If a market offers possibilities for arbitrage, market participants will attempt to make use of them.
c) By market laws, arbitrage opportunities will close very fast, so in the long term, markets can be assumed to be arbitrage-free.
d) Goodhart's law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
e) Authorities (or those in power) will attempt to cheat you. Don't trust them.
In high school we had to make a list of 12 books we read in the year. I was reading a few a week. My list contained 12 books.
(Side note, we lived some distance from the library in elementary school, but we got through the books -fast- so the librarians gave us extra library cards to reduce visits to like once a week. I also got adult-cards pretty young (like 10) because I'd read all the kids books and was already reading older fare. This was in the days before YA was a genre :)
Of course you had a poor teacher because they obviously desired to teach you something, but forgot to tell you what the lesson was. Other than they were a bad teacher, but i guess you may already have known that.
was there any benefit to reading more than 3 books in a given time period? if not i would have only reported 3 books. it's none of their business what i do beyond that.
the lesson is that overachievers are often not welcome.
Same - except many of my friends were reading for fun. Oh this has a skeleton on the cover? Guess I’ll read everything this guy/gal ever wrote.
All the libraries I’ve been to recently are very well set up for discoverability. Especially the kids section. There are hundreds of books on display with some indication of what it’s like and themed sections and all kinds of stuff
Everyone seems to say children should go to libraries more.
At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.
I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying around.
As adult I used Kindle for a while but got back to sourcing physical books, even though I have no permanent place and books are difficult to travel with.
> At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.
You know what isn't cheap in the 2020s? Space.
My grandparents had a full-ass room just for books. I can't even fit my modest blu-ray collection in my apartment, they sit in storage along with my DVDs and physical books.
I've got a Kindle and Calibre with hundreds of books and they don't take any space.
Your grandparents’ house must be huge. We never had a room just for books, not me, not my parents, not their parents. A family of 4 in 2 bedrooms, one living room. Shelves are not expensive and you’d be surprised, they can fit quite a lot of books. Over time some books were lent or given to libraries, others added.
When I was a kid we lived in a small apartment. We still managed to have room for books though. A single bookshelf or two takes up only about 10 square feet of floor space.
I've become an avid reader of web novels when I found out about them as a teenager sometime before 2010.
Idk, for me it completely removed the urge to get physical books. I've got a Kindle too at some point, but I felt the form factor was terrible for reading fiction. There is a reason why newspapers always put their publications into columns, because it makes for an extremely fast reading experience - which is great for fiction.
Another factor is that web fictions are targeted at people that just want to read for a short moment, so you're basically only gonna read for 5-10 minutes before the chapter is over and you're done until the next publication.
IMHO the biggest danger to the medium (written fiction) are LLMs. Since they've become well known, the amount of content has skyrocketed and most of it is without any point. No coherent story that develops with characters growing over the months/years you're following them.
I never got into reading web-native writing, though sometimes I wish I did. I also don’t piecemeal publishing, even though I know many classics were published that way initially. On the contrary, I like to read for as long as I want, finishing a book is always frustrating.
Agreed, LLMs are an issue and will probably reduce the amount of written content published in the open (or at all).
Going to the library means you pick what you want to read from a much wider variety of available books, not just the ones the adults in your life deemed worthy of purchase.
I would almost certainly be on a diet of some attractive but unchallenging fast food like teenage detective novels if I had that choice as a kid. Would my life actually have turned out better if I didn’t read the likes of Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Garcia Marquez back then? Perhaps, but at the time I was enthralled and didn’t mind being able to choose among the books adults in my life had around (likely knowing I would end up reading some of them).
> Nice humblebrag. Also, I find this hard to believe.
If they did, they didn't tell me about it. That might tell you how much the other kids talked to me. Not much of a brag now is it? :-D
However, I have good reason to believe it. I went to the public library every weekend when I was in elementary school. I never, ever ran into anyone from my class there in all those years. If the other kids in my class at age 9 read for pleasure, they weren't anywhere close to me in volume.
It's not a brag, and not a real achievement. The tallest kid in a class at age 14 might only be of average height in a crowd 10 years later. This is the same thing.
> "[W]ord of mouth" is probably mostly for girls. I never once had a boy tell me growing up that I needed to read a particular book
Crazy gender stereotype based on just anecdotes (nothing wrong with saying it tho, its always awesome to hear about different experiences)
Most of the books that changed my life, got me into tech, programming, got me into business, entrepreneurship, hustle, etc.
All the books, podcasts, etc were either shared directly to me by my male friends (im male too) who insisted i read those books for my betterment cuz those books were acc. to them : “Awesome” , or books that i discovered while exchange discussions about what books are we reading right now, exchanging reading lists, etc.
There are tons of girls out there who hate reading books, (my mom included, she always has hated books, outside of school homework and exams),
I do not like reading fiction books much, nor do my peers, we’ve exchanged book suggestions since childhood, now even more with more and more internet friends.
Ive had great books on gardening, or agriculture, or history, etc recommended to me either inside books by authors, or by random telegram groups consisting mostly of nerd men.
99% of the books recommended to me were by men, and im a man.
So i dont think its a girl only thing, plenty of people exchanging book, just go to any major reddit forum on reading and booksuggestions (like r/suggestmeabook) and you’ll find tons of men who are more than happy to give you suggestions, if you cannot find classmates or neighbours to share with
I don't really think it's a gender thing, my friends who were boys and I talked about books pretty frequently. They were pretty much the same as videogames, comic books, movies and shows to us so we'd talk about them in the same way.
I specifically remember that when the first Harry Potter (I was a child cut me some slack) came out I bounced off it because I didn't like it, and then one of my friends at school couldn't stop talking about it and got me interested enough to pick it back up.
And don't even get me STARTED on the LotR books. Or Star Trek novelizations (which I still consider books).
In the NYC public libraries there are kids sections where you just walk around and look at books. If something seems interesting then pick it up and read it. I preferred things with technical pictures so the kids section was quite boring.
That’s ok, part of the joy of going to a library is finding out about new things you’ve never even heard of. And we also already have human recommendation systems, they’re called librarians!
I ended up in the government section. Reading reports about arms and equipment transfers from the US Government to the Middle East made in the 1980s. It was definitely fascinating, especially because the Middle East was in the news at that time, but I really was only there because I had _no idea_ what to actually do.
I'm not saying the library doesn't have exceptional value, or that 9 year olds shouldn't be in it, but maybe for younger patrons a "concierge" type service or "first timer group experience" being available would help a lot.
Typically that concierge service would be the conversation you have with the librarian as you sign up for a library card. What kind of books do you like, are you interested in Middle East arms transfers, oh have you heard of this one, etc. If you’re 9 years old perhaps that would also involve guiding you to the children’s section, although it seems you’ve turned out alright regardless.
I assume they were talking about the school library, rather than a big library downtown somewhere. Certainly that is where I first fell in love with books. Sometimes all it takes to make someone a lifelong reader is a good librarian with a shelf full of curated picks, eye-catching covers facing out.
As the article notes, school libraries are getting defunded and politicized, which is extremely sad to me, and disproportionately worrying for the future.
At 9 (and before) i had bookit; where if you chose one of many of the sponsored books at the school (or public) library you got a personal pan pizza coupon.
An interpretation is book cos have cut physical benefit advertising for cents on the dollar internet advertisements.
Well my school did trips to the local library so that everyone could acquire their paper card for borrowing books. The process of borrowing and the different sections in the library were explained by the librarian and at least in my mind that helped a great deal to seek out books on my own.
> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
You also need "evangelism" from people in a position to influence. That's unlikely to be librarians; and parents/teachers are also not the best-positioned for that.
Overall the costs of social media likely still outweigh the harms here, but it seems to me like they've identified a legimitate "good" usage in encouraging reading in certain niches.
How to replicate that without social media? Gotta make a bunch of local kid "influencers."
Watching someone do a thing and doing the thing are different. One of the pitfalls of a lot of recommendation systems is that they don’t know or care about the difference. Watching a video about a book is fine, but then you need to go out and read.
It’s a little like reading an article before commenting. Most people don’t. You will get a lot more out of the conversation if you do though.
I'd like to propose an update to Godwin's law; call it NPC's Law or maybe just Trump's Law if we're being literal:
"As an online discussion of a problem grows longer, the probability of assigning blame to Donald Trump approaches 1."
Shall we wait for the factual rebuttal or just assume this offhand dismissal is all of it? I have yet to hear a word about the content being inaccurate, just people like you, that didn't like the presentation.
My apologies for not refraining from charged words when my country is being stolen out from under me, by some of the worst people in the world, that keep getting elected by the "fuck your feelings" crowd.
Also, it's germane to this topic.
You, however, remain above it all, so enjoy your pedestal.
Believe it or not, I feel the same way. But writing angry screed on the internet accomplishes literally nothing. Worse, it further entreches the people you disagree with.
That's bullshit. The people I disagree with spent the last decade yelling, "Fuck your feelings", and you think discourse is going to pull their heads out of their asses?
My rant won't either, but I feel better, and if any of them happen to read it, I hope they enjoy it.
Good luck with your campfire and mallows. I'll even send over an .mp3 of Kumbaya and you can hold hands with them, and discuss whatever you like.
I mean, they're literally banning books ... like, that was a major platform issue very recently ... "why does everyone keep blaming the cannibals for all the half-eaten corpses lying around!?" ...
Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea. Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea. Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries. Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
> Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea.
The book banning efforts aren't limited to keeping books out of school libraries for younger age kids, or even school libraries generally.
(Nor is it limited to books where that argument is reasonably applicable Even when it is in school libraries for younger children.)
> Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
Gender identity differing from gender assigned at birth is a low-rate but widely observed phenomenon across times and cultures. Stripped to this from what is either hyperbolic or driven by propaganda designed to obscure real issues in your description, no, its not something parents should be protected from in their children.
>Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea.
Except, this isn't what's happening. FFS, it's happening in all libraries, not just the ones meant for the kiddies. You know this, yet paint a different picture, in support of your position.
>Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea.
Now we draw the false parallel between non-pornographic books and actual pr0n.
>Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries.
Now the feel-good statement, providing us all with a justification for their statements. THE KIDS! All of this is somehow aside from the fact that the parents and other children and the internet are much more influential than a book by Gloria Steinbeck, that makes racists uncomfortable.
> Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
Finally, we draw another parallel between 2 things that are completely unrelated, because we have no real justification for our point, just feels.
I’d love to see your sources showing the data to support that books are being banned in “all libraries”.
This is mostly a conversation about morality and I dont think we’re going to convince one another to change our principles here so my instinct is to say “you win” and move on.
But for context, I personally despise Donald Trump and think he’s a symbol of the downfall of our country. And I mostly think the government should stay out of any choices about how we raise our kids.
The books in school libraries issue is part of a larger discussion about who gets to choose what our kids learn. I don’t have the full answer but I do know, for my kids, it is not “gender studies graduates and communists”.
Sources: The internet and news. If you look, you'll find it easily.
This isn't really about morality alone, imo. This is about attempting to legislate morality with a hammer, which is just as bad. There is no basis for many of the books being banned, other than Republican horse shit.
For the record, I'm not seeing Dems line up to ban books. It's activist clowns with an axe to grind.
It's all wrapped up in Jesus and FOR THE CHILDREN, but that's a lie as well.
I seriously doubt many 9 year olds checked out The Diary of Anne Frank, yet it's being banned, because some idiot thinks they know better than everyone else.
We do agree on the govt. staying out of child rearing.
The current crop of "people" that get to choose what people can learn are not the people any sane person wants making these calls, yet here we are.
Lastly, your kids, along with everyone else's are exposed to things, daily, that you have zero control over. You have zero input, when the event happens. You're sole option is to teach your kids to think like rational humans, have some compassion for others, and lastly, just leave people alone to live their lives.
So did you read that USA Today article? I did not see a single example of a book being banned from a non-school library. In fact, every example in the article was about a book being removed from taught curriculum, or a state passing a law requiring schools to notify parents when a book contains a sexual content.
Your last point makes me think maybe you don’t have kids? Because yes of course every parents knows that they can’t control every aspect of their child’s experience. This discussion is specifically about what should and shouldn’t be in children’s libraries. I think parents should have a say in that. Kids are like sponges. If you tell them it’s totally normal to kill puppies, some not-insignificant percentage of them are gonna kill puppies.
I loved the book Middlesex, and have nothing against transgender people. My concern is that a “movement” has started around this naturally rare phenomenon and it has become increasingly trendy to cut off your penis or breasts. This is not what sane parents want for their children.
This is still about legislating morality, which has never worked, in any circumstance that I'm aware of. This is simply minority groups imposing their personal views upon everyone else.
Why does a minority group get to decide what books are available?
Why does a self-described religious minority get to impose their values upon everyone else, in a country founded, in part, on religious freedoms?
A simple example of the fallacy of book bans is the Bible. The bible covers things that most people would not want a 9-year old to read about, yet, it'll never be banned, because it's special. smh.
People can censor things all they like, at home, but shouldn't get to determine who gets to read what, based on their own personal POV.
I think you dramatically underestimate the influence that TikTok has on young people. If you want something to be popular amongst young people, making it popular on TikTok is a huge way to do so.
Libraries already have thousands, if not millions, of books on hand. I don't think it's a funding issue.
There’s a lot more cost involved in running a library than buying books. Staff and building upkeep are big expenses. That said, you want to have some newer books coming in, too, if you want to keep kids interested.
> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
They need a library stocked with "books that kids will enjoy," recently published doesn't have anything to do with it. It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
I doubt that's the root cause. Frankly, all the other things seem more significant: making reading education more test-focused and less fun, screens (in a zillion different ways, subtle and obvious), the pandemic breaking peer-influenced reading, etc. They're all probably working together dis-synergisticly.
I also wonder if there's other missing social components. I remember in elementary school feeling that reading "chapter books" was important step to being more mature. Do kids still feel that way? Of course I also often read pulpy junk that was fun or interesting, not serious.
The OP said:
> Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”
I think that's always been true. IIRC, I always disliked the "important" books I was forced to read for school (e.g. the ones that tended to win important awards from adults and get articles written about them in the New York Times to this day).
Recent can be a generous time period, but it's not unimportant. When I was very young, I was able to enjoy the Hardy Boys and the Chronicles of Narnia, but even in the 90s, just forty years after the latter was written, they both felt very, very old. When I started finding more current writing, like Redwall or Animorphs, I never looked back.
> It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.
I’ve heard newer English literature evangelized quite a lot since older English literature gets more and more Eurocentric the further back you go. Usually on political grounds, but also with the claim that newer literature is better and more relevant to especially diverse children’s lives.
> They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
Sure. The next step is helping them making a decision on which book to read and provide a social environment for doing that. Libraries do not really do that and haven't done that even in the early 90s.
I am sorry your experience at libraries was so unfulfilling. To me, libraries opened up a world of knowledge. When I was a kid my mom would take my brother and I to the library and just let us loose. As a kid I could spend what felt like days looking at cool cutaway diagrams of castles or reading about how black holes worked. And at the end I took home 5 or 10 of the most interesting books. And it was all free!
It's interesting that all problems in America are due to "funding". It's actually quite curious because funding was a problem for electric vehicles, funding was a problem for space, funding was a problem for literally everything. But then sometimes people come up and succeed at things that others have described as a funding problem for ages.
I think I can conclude reasonably from this is that the lowest efficiency lever one can pull is funding. Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance. That's because the people there only know one answer to every problem: "funding".
> Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance.
It could also be because the schools with the most special / high needs children need the most funding.
Schools in poor neighborhoods need more help just to achieve median results. They need to contend with issues like teen pregnancies, drug use, violence, and kids who don't even have food at home.
Compare those challenges to rich suburban kids and of course the schools in poor areas need more funding.
The billionaires who look for every tax loophole possible certainly know the value of “funding”. They are currently funding their yachts to take them to their superyachts. Private equity controlled health care companies are extracting billions of dollars in profits (read: overcharging people who want to live) leading to “efficiencies” like understaffing and under training which cause thousands of excess deaths every year.
Elon Musk received plenty of government funding for his companies as well. And guess what? BYD sells more cars than Tesla now (a few years ago Elon said he wasn’t worried about them and now they’re suddenly a problem) because of what? Government funding. Governments have also funded the majority of fundamental research which made present day technologies possible. Even today NIST, DARPA, NHS, NSF etc continue to fund science and technology research.
This whole thread - and that whole chunk of TFA - is totally alien to me.
When I was 9, our school had a small library with a librarian (or at least an on-duty teacher), and if you wanted to read something you could always go and ask her what she thought you'd enjoy - and that was on the off chance you couldn't find something that looked appealing.
There are also public libraries where you could do the same thing with your parents in tow.
I think most of our problems are due to digital marketing....
it's not good for stuff.....something's....but it's not a panacea.... Meta and Google and Tiktok all claim otherwise.....but the cultural effects show.
advertising in the modern age is not good .....
it's not sticky.....
it's vapid and forgotten faster than the fly you accidentally swallowed at some point in your life...
If you don’t need TikTok to find good books, how would you recommend finding good books? Even if you’re at a library that doesn’t narrow things down all that much, I’ve been to libraries with several floors filled with bookshelves.
Long before TikTok and YouTube and even Google there was the Dewey Decimal System. We use it to categorize books into a hierarchical tree structure. So I think what most people do is to find a category they’re interested in and look inside that category for either subcategories or books they find interesting.
The Dewey Decimal Classification is terrible. It's an incredibly dated system with serious flaws like an pervasive European/Christian bias - for instance, notice that class 200 ("Religion") is almost entirely devoted to Christian topics, with a single subclass 290 for all "other religions" - and a lack of effective classifications for modern technical topics.
It's also basically useless at classifying works of fiction, to the extent that most libraries don't even bother using it for that purpose. Standard practice is to group all fiction into a few broad categories (like "mystery" or "fantasy", as well as a catch-all for general fiction) and shelve them alphabetically by author. Needless to say, this isn't conducive to browsing.
i was going to say that a detailed classification of fiction would not really help finding interesting stuff. apart from the broad categories as you mention, interesting books are more defined by writing style, characters, etc.
i am struggling with this as i keep looking for new books to read. being in a book club helps a lot.
That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.
The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated.
This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that there are LGBT books which veer close to the edge with stuff like explicit sex scenes.
It mentions other "proposed" laws, some of which seemingly setting a lower bar. But "proposed" laws aren't banning libraries now.
In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
> That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.
It says the teachers have to remove or cover up their classroom libraries until their books can be approved by the school. I don't know how you can honestly argue that that doesn't constitute removal, even if it might be temporary.
> In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
I don't know enough about the subject to comment, which is why I didn't say anything about such a relationship. I only responded to you because you were saying someone else was wrong and I didn't think you were right
I brought this up because the slate article cites book banning as a reason for decline of reading for enjoyment by age 9. I am arguing it is irrelevant and also essentially false in terms of classroom libraries generally not being removed on any significant scale (or at all, probably) even in Florida.
The article cited a particular school district directive which seems to be a temporary review procedure for its high schools. It would be disingenuous to say that means teachers can't keep a library, full stop, and even in that case it seems it was immediately backtracked. The law in question has since been clarified.
The fact that these laws are applied to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain - while non-LGBT books with sexual content remain unbanned and available to minors - is what makes it censorship[0].
Sure but that was backed off. The law does not, in fact, apply to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain. There was a March 2024 legal settlement clarifying many cases that are explicitly not prohibited.
Also, do you think these laws have been important regarding the "decline by 9" of 9-year olds reading for enjoyment?
One possible issue on the contrary side is promotion of kids' books involving racial diversity themes. Often such moralizing books are not very interesting for pure entertainment value. They are there to meet a market trend, some may be better than others but in general have not stood the test of time.
It’s a pretty standard pattern in right wing politics. Defund a thing, it becomes less efficient, politicians claim the thing they broke is better handled by the private sector, defunding continues. We have seen this with pretty much every public good since the Reagan/Thatcher era. The nice things we had in the West have been gutted and sold off for parts.
It should tell you something that these “concerned parents” never pressured Amazon to stop selling the books they complain about. It was never about the books.
I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?
What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.
There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below).
There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings.
So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs?
It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’
> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot.
That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.
Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved classic children's books.
> The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.
Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?
> Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?
No. I was only responding to the false hyperbole that teachers can't keep books in their classrooms anymore.
Also, the whole controversy around "banning books" is stupid and full of dumb propaganda. That extends to the term "book ban" itself, which is a bit of manipulative, misleading spin that rivals "death tax." If anyone was really against "book bans," they should demonstrate their commitment by fighting for a Hustler subscription and some "gender critical" books for every classroom. It's really a fight about who gets to do the banning.
I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.
This is why I ask beloved by whom and classic by what standard.
Look, Narnia has witchcraft in it and depicts Christ as a lion. It's probably blasphemous (though, yes, I get that it is intended as a regular Christian allegory and is not supposed to be blasphemous). It is not universally loved in the evangelical community and is a possible target for a book ban. It's also got racially insensitive stereotypes depicted and that's a target for complaints from a different direction.
The Hobbit is indeed a popular book, that has repeatedly been the subject of book bans, again for the magic/wizardry/witchcraft thing.
The point is, if your job is to be an elementary school teacher and people try to get you fired for having a book they find objectionable, it's a lot keep on top of. The books people object to vary wildly.
Additionally, when people make these classic book lists, they suffer from what I think of as "classic books that adults believe children ought to like" syndrome. Sometimes these books overlap with what kids actually like, sometimes not.
Interesting reply :) Some thoughts: (1) "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" contains in certain ways a re-telling of the Gospels in a way that speaks to children. But its a great story in itself, one can take or leave it's resemblance to the bible, its also enjoyed by atheists. I'd debate seeing it as blasphemy. Why would God object to the bible story being respun by an author who's themselves a Christian with such decent motives for writing? (2) Racial insensitive stereotypes- sure that's a problem in older books, some bad examples too in the highly entertaining "Just William" series, but these can be an opportunity to talk to children about what's appropriate to say , and how thinking has moved on in good ways. I'd support reprints of such books having extra text added to point out that some content would nowadays be considered racist or whatever (3) Hobbit being banned for witchcraft - to be honest, whoever is banning this is nuts IMHO. Should "Hansel and Gretel" be banned too then? You're probably gonna tell me it has been. Kids have enjoyed stories about witches for centuries. Who has the right to tell them that's not allowed? They know its fantasy. (4) I take your point about it being a PITA to look after a library as a school teacher, especially in the current climate particularly in USA. Maybe there needs to be a ban on bans? ;) Apart from restrictions due to age appropriateness, who is anyone to tell someone else what they're allowed to read? (5) "classic books adults think children ought to like" -its a fair point- I can imagine some adults might do that, sure, not all kids like classics. With our kids we just try to guarantee them access to the good stuff new and old, partly just take them to the library and see what they find. If one ever pushes a kid to read, or read a certain thing, they'll rightly push back. Not for adults to force them, just to provide them with quality stuff. I think the original article though was complaining of the market dropping out for content for 9-yr-olds, but really you'd want to read a mix of classics and modern though, right? Same as a symphony orchestra wouldn't play ONLY Beethoven or ONLY 21st century composers?
The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries.
But I guess in their words:
> the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically
Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.
Sure, but then you’re just reinforcing the attitude that reading is just for stodgy old people rather than a way to understand the world as it is today.
You need a bit of both old and new surely? I'd argue, that great literature, whether for kids or adults, is timeless. Our daughter loved learning Greek legends for example in school. The challenge I think with modern stuff can be, finding the good stuff amongst the crp. Whereas classic stuff has stood the test of time, the crp has mostly fallen by the wayside.
That pen.org article focuses on "number of bannings" but mixes together state law (predominantly Florida alone) and individual school district policy choices.
It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. Most of the support for including explicit sexual violence seems to be about high school, and even there it's not clear that explicit content is necessary to these purposes (I'm not familiar with the books in question).
Then there are the books by Kendi etc. and an example where that was required reading in an AP course (college-level). Sure, that's debatable but isn't of much relevance to reading, reading for enjoyment in particular, by young kids, which is the topic of this HN post.
The pen.org article says "books aren’t harmful—censorship is." So it gives no credence to any kind of concern about age-appropriate topics.
> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later,
This sounds like nonsense.
Sure, they may have to do this for books that are close to crossing the line, or they could simply leave out any controversial book.
Does that mean that the school library won't have some books? Well, yes, but they already don't stock "every book ever written".
My school, back in the 80s, did not keep Nabakov's Lolita. The public library had it, though.
School's aren't there to "teach the controversy". I said it back when the controversy not being taught was Intelligent Design, I stand by it in 202x when the controversy not being taught is LGBT.
Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations.
Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving.
They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America.
Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff.
The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all?
From first principles, it is normal to ban material. The ages and exact policies are debatable but these articles are entirely one-sided.
It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans. There are always bans. But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda. Others do not want that. Fight.
This recent WSJ article mentions primarily reasons of salary and student behavior, as any layman would guess from first principles. It did mention "political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed". Well, this is not going away -- the battle is fought from multiple directions. Another direction is the industry profits from institutions being morally obligated to buy a lot of new diversity-related books.
There seems to be a lot of "first principles" thinking in this debate which leaves out essential factors. It ignores that children have brains of their own with likes and dislikes who will readily decide for themselves how much they like a book. It gives no benefit of the doubt or generosity to school staff. And it ignores the fact that good libraries are historically a mix of lots of different content that is clearly not all good.
> From first principles, it is normal to ban material.
Sure.
> It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans
That is not true. The ban list is overly broad. The hobbit is banned in some locations. Harry potter and asoiaf... Maybe high schoolers and middle schoolers shouldn't be reading that stuff. Multiple teachers in multiple districts have been disciplined over books they did not expect. It is far more sustainable for teachers to avoid this issue.
> But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda
I am not going to judge this statement's veracity. Let's take it as true. As I mentioned before, the issue would then be that they are also banning other books that have nothing to do with this, and that still makes the jobs of teachers difficult. It is not feasible to have this much overhead on book bans because of political battles and also expect teachers to manage this overhead.
Thanks for sharing your first principles argument. If you have the time, please share some numbers.
Anime is an extremely lucrative market, and Westerners spend an absurd amount of money on it, with Hollywood missing out. It's not because it's Japanese, or its weirder quirks, it's just because Japan is making it and Hollywood isn't, because Hollywood is institutionally incapable of believing people want (a) weird fantasy (b) that takes itself seriously (c) in quantity over quality, or even that adult media can be animated in the first place.
I really don't think it's that hard to imagine the same is true of manga vs books. The manga section at any serious bookstore is the size of 3-4 other sections put together, and it isn't for no reason. Even if you assume it's a graphic-novel-specific preference, for every one Western hit like Bone, there's fifty more equally massive hits out of Japan, because they simply try more often. Authors making weird stuff in the West are unable to enter traditional publishing (with the industry learning the exact wrong thing from the YA phenomenon) and frequently settle for a web serial + Patreon model, whereas if they were in Japan there's a well established light novel to manga to anime to movie pipeline.
I love graphic novels but have almost no interest in superheroes, so I'm very thankful to Japan for hard carrying the industry in that regard. You can find Manga about pretty much any topic and level of sophistication.
Weird stuff in the west exists, but lives as amateur/fan fiction online, with patreon being the big funding method. I believe this is directly due to publishers hesitance to touch anything "weird", just like you said with Hollywood.
I don't know. As an Asian who has grown up reading manga I find anime generally very cliche. More than Netflix shows. Especially those adaptations from light novels.
Cliche is why people love it. We’ve become an overly analyzed, postmodernist hellscape with our media. A lot of people really want to see cute anime Waifus acting stereotypically. They really want to see it, badly.
They also like when women start to take notice and dress like the anime characters do. Women love anime because the men in anime usually look very attractive, and in the fujoshi anime that they often watch, the men are willing to be gay.
It's the variance in plots in Manga/Anime that's the thing.
Some of my very favourite anime have been about:
- Kid learning Go (the board game) from the ghost of an ancient grandmaster (Hikaru No Go)
- Baking bread (Yakitate!! Japan)
- Playing Tennis (Prince of Tennis)
There is exactly zero chance that "Hollywood" would make any of these.
What does "Hollywood" mean in this context? Cause there are so many western movies and TV shows about sports and cooking. Of course you won't see Hollywood make the exact Prince of Tennis because, uh, it has been made.
There are shows about cooking, but not many fun ones.
The Bear is definitely a good show and kinda about cooking, but it's definitely not a relaxing watch even though it's been winning comedy Emmys :D
As for sports Friday Night Lights is the only one that comes to mind, I watched it because it was good, not because it was about American Football (a sport I couldn't care less).
But the basic premise was that manga and anime allow the authors to go _completely_ bonkers with their ideas with no limitations on what's marketable.
Like One Punch Man shouldn't work, but it does. Or Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is one. Or Delicious in Dungeon another one.
They're all way too wacky to ever pass the gauntlet of middle management deciding what goes on air in the US.
Sounds like committees....animes tend to have a visionary person who writes the core story and characters.....
Hollywood is filled with board rooms of groups who are all incentivized in a way to 'get buy in' through concessions....
the first concession is the art...the vision....
Anime tends to have a pipeline. A lone auther (possibly with an illustrator) writes a light novel. Popular light novels get a manga adaptation. Really popular ones get an anime. At this point, I'm half convinced that most anime is made as an advertisement to sell more books.
This pipeline isn't exactly unique to anime. The book -> movie pipeline is very real in western media. The big difference I have noticed is actually that anime makers tend to be less visionary than western movie makers, and instead give you a much more faithful translation of the source material to the TV screen; whereas Hollywood adaptations tend to take much more creative liberty (usually for the worst).
> Sounds like committees....animes tend to have a visionary person who writes the core story and characters.....
Funny, I've heard the exact opposite complaint a lot, that every anime in the last 20 years is made by committee and that's why the vast majority of anime are just slavish adaptations of already-successful manga, and even the few original anime projects that happen tend to be retreads of genre cliches.
That's the complaint I've heard; I suspect it's slightly exaggerated. But the last real auteur anime I can think of is 2002's Voices of a Distant Star, and Shinkai has followed up by retreading the same ground over and over (thematically at least) ever since.
I was thrilled when Love Death & Robots came out on Netflix. I hoped mature animation would pick up a bit in western media. That didn't happen unfortunately.
The pipeline you mention has been a key factor in my kids learning to enjoy reading. They went from anime to manga because the manga often runs ahead of the anime and they wanted more from the world. Then they started reading more novels. They skipped the light novel step, likely because there's very little availability at Barnes & Noble or local used book stores.
When the local theater runs Studio Ghibli or anime like Your Name I make a point to go even though I'm not too fond of the theater experience these days because I want more!
Hollywood also appears institutionally capable of making movies where the actors enunciate properly, where the effect soundtrack isn't louder than the speech, and where nobody is mumbling.
I've given up on them. Sure, fine, that's not how people talk in real life. Whatever. I want to hear what they have to say, otherwise what's even the point?
My oldest daughter could read at age four. By second grade, in a Texas public school, she liked to read Nancy Drew mysteries on her own. One day she came home from school crying and told us she didn't want to go back -- she said she had got in trouble for reading her book. Her mom and I went to talk to the teacher. Our daughter had got "caught" reading a Nancy Drew book at her desk while the other kids -- many of whom couldn't read at age six -- struggled with their ABCs. The teacher took the book away from our daughter and shamed her in front of the other kids. The teacher told us that "policy" prohibited students reading "non-assigned" books at school. Our daughter was supposed to sit there bored waiting for the slowest kids to catch up.
Public schools have a bureaucracy you can't really fight. We didn't make our daughter go back, we withdrew her from school the next day and told the principal we had to move. We homeschooled her, and our two other kids when they came along. No regrets. All of my kids obtained high school diplomas (not GEDs) by passing the ludicrously dumb state tests. Two went on to university. They all have jobs and support themselves, and continue to read for fun.
John Taylor Gatto, a former teacher of the year, describes exactly how public school punishes and wipes out imagination and independent thinking, a process mostly completed by age nine when children give up on reading for fun.
I'll add that I could also read at age four (thanks, dad!). I went to Catholic private school in the '60s. When the teachers found out I could already read in first grade they put me in a program with other kids who had got ahead of the curriculum. We would go to the school library for a couple of periods and choose our own books, then write up summaries. When I had to move to public school in 6th grade I almost immediately got punished the same way my daughter was -- told that I couldn't choose my own books and forced to read along the approved curriculum at the pace of the slowest kids in the class.
Interesting. Having grown up in Sweden during the 80-ties and 90-ties I’m very familiar with this attitude. Here and back then it was almost policy to hold gifted students back, to promote “equality”. But I thought the US would have a higher tolerance for ability.
What do you think is the driving psychological force behind this attitude in US schools? In Sweden I’ve always thought it’s mainly a sort of crab mentality, semi-formalized in “the law of Jante”. But maybe there’s more to it, if it happens also in very individualistic cultures like the US?
Sometimes I get a feeling that many people in the “helping business” have trouble with self-sufficient people in general, perhaps because it conflicts with their self-image as “helpers”.
When I was in school, a long time ago, schools “tracked” students into gifted, regular, and special needs classes. At least in California where I grew up. I’m sure that varied by school district because in the US schools get managed locally and funded by property taxes, leading to lots of variation in quality and available programs.
At some point in the ‘70s tracking got abandoned. I think it happened because of a desire to eliminate inequality but I’m not sure — could have happened due to lack of funding.
Americans have private school options but those get expensive so that’s mainly an upper-middle and upper class thing.
The “no child left behind” idea mandated standardized tests and ranking teachers, which led to optimizing for the tests and grade inflation.
Fortunately by the time I had kids we could homeschool. Religious fundamentalists paved the way in court, making it legal in most states, with different rules and levels of enforcement. I raised my kids mostly in Oregon, ultra liberal and lax about homeschooling.
> The teacher took the book away from our daughter and shamed her in front of the other kids. The teacher told us that "policy" prohibited students reading "non-assigned" books at school.
That’s a bad policy, but a worse teacher. They could’ve turned a blind eye.
> We didn't make our daughter go back, we withdrew her from school the next day and told the principal we had to move.
Why the lie? Was homeschooling prohibited where you lived, or something?
Simpler to lie about moving than deal with the bureaucracy. Every state has mandatory schooling and truancy laws. We planned to move out of Texas anyway. Easier to say we’re moving than try to get permission to homeschool my own child.
No, not "whatever I want." I described taking my daughter out of a public school and legally homeschooling her. I didn't see any reason to explain that or discuss it with the school administration. If I quit a job I don't have to go to an exit interview. Same thing.
As I mentioned we moved to Oregon soon after taking our daughter out of public school. Oregon legalized homeschooling in 1985, before my daughter was born. Texas legalized homeschooling in 1994, the same year we made that decision. We didn't see any need to deal with the public school bureaucracy -- that would kind of defeat the point of homeschooling.
I think parents will generally choose to do whatever they think will best protect their child, or help their child succeed. If you don't understand that "focus" I will guess you don't have children.
No one knows the future so as a parent you have to make decisions now with limited information.
Society as an abstraction doesn’t decide anything about individual children. Governments and school systems have policies and procedures and rules that may represent what’s “the best,” but I think you will have a hard time showing that schools specifically accomplish their stated goals, or do the best thing for any individual child. Or for “society” in general if you look at the dismal results of American public schools.
Forcing a child to stop reading and shaming a six year old in front of their classmates didn’t happen because of “society,” it happened because of one teacher who had the backing of a bureaucracy that will protect its own existence and workers at the expense of children.
Decisions made by teachers and school administrators affect thousands of children. Our decision to take our daughter out of school only affected us — none of the other kids at that school suffered as a result.
If you look at outcomes you will find that homeschooled children statistically do better than kids who go through the public school system. I attribute most of that to the additional parental time and attention, but as Maria Montessori documented children learn more and for longer in life when not subjected to rigid (and scientifically questionable) pedagogy from professional “educators.”
Your daughter did the right thing. I pray they didn't manage to squash her behaviour for good. I remember doing the same as her much later in school. I was reading Fight Club and had it in my bag. We had these sessions where we'd watch a pointless bullshit video for an hour about some common sense topic like "other people have different religions" or "don't stick your fingers in the plug socket". I just decided I'd had enough and turned around and quietly read my book instead. I didn't get into trouble but got some funny looks. I consider this a turning point for me. It's my life and it's ending one minute at a time!
Home schooling is illegal in my jurisdiction but this entire discussion is making me think about it more and more.
A question though: does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary? (Either by one parent working and the other teaching, or two parents working but paying a full time tutor which becomes a 2-1=1 sort of thing anyway.)
Home schooling is a complex topic, and one end of a broad spectrum. I wasn't home schooled, but my wife did home school the kids to about grade 4, and yep, she didn't have a salary in that time.
But home schooling is a nuclear option. For most people it's not a realistic option.
Of course, as parents, we're always home schoolers, even if the kids are at school during the day. There are so many ways to stimulate and engage (especially younger) children.
Reading is one avenue, but its not for everyone. Some get into cooking, or nature, (or programming) or music or art, or whatever. Interests change as they grow.
Reading young is very empowering. My parents taught me to read before I went to school. Reading to very younger children helps them understand the concept of stories. (I read a chapter of Swiss Family Robinson to the kids when the oldest was like 6. Hint: some editing and commentary is required - it was written in a different age.)
There are also schools with good teachers, and ones with crap teachers. Sometimes you get lucky. Some kids are good at adapting to adults not having their best day, others not as much.
> does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary?
Yes. The main purpose of government schools is to provide a place to park children so that their parents can be more economically efficient. At least in my country, the “learning” supposedly provided is a secondary priority (your country may be different). My government is very concerned that children go to school, they are somewhat less concerned about what happens when they get there.
Yes that sums up the actual priorities. Day care first, obedience and indoctrination second, learning anything last.
Montessori maybe a good option, but expensive and many schools have long waiting lists.
I understand homeschooling doesn’t work economically for a lot of families. It did for us. We more or less unschooled without a specific curriculum — homeschooling doesn’t have to mean imitating what goes on in schools. Read John Holt and Ivan Illich for inspiration.
The article kind of rejects this out of hand but I think it's mostly because that doesn't make for an article that touches on all the other topics the author wanted to write about.
>It might be screens, but it’s not only screens. It’s not like kids are suddenly getting their own phones at age 9; recent survey data from Common Sense Media reveals that phone ownership holds steady, at around 30 percent, among kids aged 8 and 9. (It isn’t until they reach 11 or 12 that the majority of American kids have their own phone.) Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok.
So there's an uptick in reading for fun when the majority of 12 year olds have phones, allowing publishers to learn how to market to them? I really doubt it. Couldn't find anything supporting that in the Scholastic report where "decline by 9" comes from: https://www.scholastic.com/readingreport/navigate-the-world....
Age 8 is as far back as that data goes. If phone ownership started shooting up by 8, for example, it would make sense that it would take about a year for the reading habit to die off as much as it does.
I could read right now, but instead I'm on my nth round of the Hacker News front page. Reading competes against instant gratification, and it doesn't win as often as I'd like it to. Reading requires discipline when scrolling is an option.
If this fact began in the last decade, I'd agree with you, but the linked Scholastic report shows this phenomenon pre-dates phones. Interest in reading at different ages has held steady dating back to at least 2010. 2010 is before most kids had their own smartphone. It also isn't like all kids suddenly get a smartphone at age 9.
Sort of. I think and exchange ideas, but I also scavenge mindlessly. I skim the comments, content myself with headlines. It's a far departure from sitting down with a single topic for a while.
My daughter is 12 now, and reading tons more than when she was 9. The difference is now she has twice daily access to the high school library versus once a week access to an elementary library.
Not sure how much it generalizes, but what would have had her reading more then would have been a well stocked manga section in the elementary library and daily access.
Manga really is an accessible way to get used to reading, and a gateway. She just finished Lord of the Rings.
My daughters still a toddler, but when she sees me holding a book, she gets hers out too. I taught her to point out what the pictures are, so she does that on any book. If she can read LOTR someday, that'll be something :)
My 10-year-old did not understand that I was reading a book when I was using the Kindle or Libby app on my phone. He was surprised and excited to learn that e-books that I read out loud to him are available in print! This has disturbed me so much that I am contemplating switching back to physical books in order to role model better (or more obvious) behavior.
All that is to say, maybe kids aren’t interested in reading partly because they don’t see their parents doing it … at least in a way that they understand.
One of the problem with a lot of schools is their layout. Yes, they have libraries. But many students have no way to access those libraries during lunch hours except by way of special passes. All school libraries should, by default, be necessarily directly adjacent to the common area so kids can browse during recess in the same way that they are adjacent to school cafeterias.
I was turned off to reading in 7th grade by a teacher that required mandatory books that were her favorites but the topics consisted of 1800s gilded age parties, gossip amongst the upper class of people at that time and absolutely no fantasy or adventure.
Before that I was the top reader in the summer reading program going back to first grade highest in the school for each grade level. After that class I kind of fell out of the practice of reading to enjoy books until I was out of college.
I picked up the habit of reading and listening to audiobooks in 2014 3 years after college because I was doing a lot of 6-8 hour drives between my home town and a vendor for a project.
If I could say one thing to that teacher, just because you like a book, forcing someone else to read that book doesn't make it a good book for that person.
As the parent of a 16 year old, I find this discussion fascinating. My son used to love reading books, from when we started with the "Bob Books" in Kindergarten, through somewhere around 5th or 6th grade.
He still loves reading, but mostly for items of topical interest. He does it for fun, to entertain himself, and to learn new things...but it's not books! He scarfs up online content like it's going out of style.
TBH, I had no idea just how much he was reading until I paid attention to how much mispronounced advanced vocabulary he was using, which was a sign of seeing and not hearing the words. The other evidence is just how well he does on crosswords, Wordle, etc. The vocabulary is definitely there.
All of this is to say that the article seems to focus on "books" rather than "content." Are kids not reading for fun, or are they not reading _books_ for fun?
It is a good question, but reading 400 pages of content is not the same as reading a book.
Books are (usually) the product of intentional long-form writing along with heavy editing and review. The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
(not criticizing your kid btw, sounds like he is doing great).
> The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
Is there any objective measure of this? Books have to be 300+ pages because that's the size you can sell them in, I've seen plenty of books that feel padded out because, well, they've been padded out.
That is a fair counterpoint -- there is certainly a fair amount of padding going on.
However I worry about our culture of "just give me the main idea". It is very rare for someone to get as much out of the cliff notes as they would out of the full text. They may be able to recite the thesis, but that is not the same as _understanding_ what the author is trying to say.
Sometimes a book needs to cover the same topic from multiple angles just to force your brain to marinate in the ideas for a longer period of time. Yes, the thesis is repeated, but it is unlikely you fully understood it the first n-1 times.
I think there is something to be said for how most religions teach important texts. Not only are the summaries not good enough, but you engage with the same text over and over. You memorize it. You read related sections in topical groupings. You listen to sermons on multiple themes within the same passage.
Reading is not just about the ingestion of individual facts. You need to connect those facts to other ideas in your head (array them on a latticework [0]) and re-reading or a (seemingly) drawn-out explanation can be a good way increase the odds of making a connection.
I think the core advantage of content is that the idea density is actually much higher. Many books could be essays and still communicate the main points. Many essays could be paragraphs. Many paragraphs could be sentences, etc. Density is a feature of content, maximizing brain stimulation per second.
This is a double edged sword, trading depth for breadth. While many books or essays can be summarized, much is lost in the compression.
You have to ask for which domains is a shallow summary appropriate, and what the advantages are of having a poor understanding of many things. That isnt to say they dont exist! they absolutely do. I just worry that having deep understanding and being capable of deep thought is going out of style, and think that many people dont know what they are missing out on.
Another issue is books are too long. Especially non-fiction books. Book publishers know no one is going to buy a 50 page book, so there has to be filler and excessive detail to make a book long enough to be sellable.
It ends up just being the same thing over and over again. The author explaining minute details about the day they interviewed someone, what the weather was like, extreme details of the interviewee's facial expressions. The author somehow managing to fit the Stanford Prison Experiment in the book. The author going into excruciating detail about the scientific method. The author giving an unnecessary history of the topic back to when humans were hunter gatherers.
It has been a very long time since I came across a non-fiction book that didn't feel like it could've been 50 pages long. I end up giving up a few chapters in.
Part of this is because a lot of popular non-fiction (i.e. non-academic) comes from long form journalism. Personally, I like that style but understand that some people don't. The focus on that style is not pure information --- the authors aren't writing a textbook or a self-help book --- the authors are telling a story. I could read the wiki page on the Wright Bros, but I read David McCullough's "The Wright Brothers" because the writing is graceful and elegant and the storytelling is vivid and captivating.
The worst offenders, in my opinion, are the self-help/business books that aspire to long form journalism but are probably better off left as a bullet list on a blogpost. These ones are also infected by the idea that everyone of their bullet points needs a vague connection to some elaborate neuroscientific explanation and a "case study" that is usually some oversimplification. Cal Newport is painfully guilty of this, for an example; but it's everywhere in the self-help genre and especially in "airport" books. (I actually think Newport is a better blogger and occasional NewYorker writer than a book writer. His "insights" aren't that grand.)
Fiction, well, I think a long work of fiction is fine as long as the story can handle it. My tastes tend toward florid, "purple", and quite dense prose and descriptions. I like when an author "paints a scene". On the other hand, I find the recent trend of extremely "to the point", stripped down "minimalist" writing that is very common in a lot of contemporary literature (Rooney, for example) and fantasy writing (Sanderson, for example) to be downright boring and comes off as half-baked. There are probably too many 500+pg books because of publishers though. Fantasy has its own obsession with "epics". 200-250pgs is actually a great goldilocks zone that doesn't get published so often nowadays, but should make a comeback. The big publishers hate them though.
Self help books are especially bad for this. I was reading Dopamine Nation and the author describes their office:
> My office is ten by fourteen feet, with two windows, a desk with a computer, a sideboard covered with books, and a low table between the chairs. The desk, the sideboard, and the low table are all made of matching reddish-brown wood. The desk is a hand-me-down from my former department chair. It’s cracked down the middle on the inside, where no one else can see it, an apt metaphor for the work I do.
> On top of the desk are ten separate piles of paper, perfectly aligned, like an accordion. I am told this gives the appearance of organized efficiency.
There is something really funny about reading a book about instant gratification and the ways modern technology has altered our demands for it, and then criticizing that book for not getting to the point quick enough.
I do agree that 90% of self-help books are better left as blog posts, though. To be honest, all of these "how to fix your attention span" books have been repeating the same thing for nearly 2 decades now. They don't really say anything new about how to do it; they package the same repeated things in new packaging.
It sounds like you're talking about adult non-fiction bestsellers. I don't think that has much to do with the reading habits of nine-year-olds. There are plenty of 80-150 page books being published for this age group.
Pound-for-pound, science fiction short stories are perhaps the most worthwhile and personally enriching literary medium.
I love an endless series of giant fantasy novels, but I've read so so many SF short stories that really stick with you and make you think. As long as you're not going back to the old pulps, any decent collection is probably really good.
Haha. Most books are padded or compressed so they fit pretty much the same volume. A paperback can have dense, small type in it, or larger type with wide margins to "puff up" the size. I've also noticed some paperbacks having thicker pages to make it look like there's more material. I suspect books the same size can have a 2:1 difference in the amount of text.
I have an heuristic for this. If I can find the book in an airport, it has the filler you mention. Textbooks are another item where this usually does not happen.
How we sleep, the secret to business blabla, consulting tricks, the life of tech visionary, or lifehacks for the 21st century: filler,filler, filler.
The book has a distribution challenge in that the content is the same for all people. Sort of like how every programming language book has some content about setting up ones environment, building and the basics that make the rest of the book usable for the person of least experience/knowledge.
Just skim past the umpteenth telling of Abraham Wald and the bulleted bombers and get to the meaningful parts. Even Thomas Jefferson condensed the New Testament down to 84 pages. [0]
Books are trending shorter since the advent of ebooks since a short ebook looks the same as a long ebook. So that DEFINITELY doesn’t seem causal to me.
I’ve also been hearing for a long time how novellas are the future of books and people simply don’t buy them and they remain a niche format and I don’t see that changing.
I can only speak to my own personal experience, but I was a voracious reader as a child and then sorta just... stopped. The longer life went on, the more I was instructed to ignore or hide my personal feelings and so I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable. There was as large a stretch between the main characters' behavior and what I was taught to do as there was between the real world and Mount Doom. I devoured the entire non-fiction section at my library in the historical and scientific sections by the time I was 10, and then just stopped going because there wasn't a point. None of the books were for me.
I've made attempts to get back into reading from time to time, but I always go into the more rigorous non-fiction areas. I picked up a Brandon Sanderson book and wanted to throw the damned thing against a wall because of how juvenile the narration was. It felt like a very poor apeing of HHTG or Discworld narration without any of the wit.
Here are some authors to try out instead, biased towards Science Fiction -
Greg Bear - Amazing science fiction author who builds incredible far future worlds. He is asking questions like "what will humanity be like 10k years in the future".
Charles Stross - First off, wonderful characters. His Laundry Files series is like "what is a 1990s geek, complete with a Palm Pilot, worked for a secret government agency that handles occult issues" but over time it gets deeper and the characters get really fleshed out. It is also awesome because you get to see technology move with the time, since the books take place concurrent with our technological progress, so technology like PDAs make way for smart phones.
Elizabeth Bear - Just all around great characters.
Greg Egan - Science Fiction but deeply rooted in real science and math, his homepage https://www.gregegan.net often dives deeper into the math behind his books and includes citations for further reading! Many of his books lack the "science fiction gadgetry" feel (although some have it) if you are trying to avoid that.
Cory Doctorow - He used to be huge in the open source community (not sure, maybe he still is?) his books all explore interesting social issues through the lens of technology driven change.
FWIW many people do not like Brandon Sanderson and I avoid recommending his books.
IMHO all of the above authors have good characters, Doctorow tends to write younger characters (early to mid 20s), but the rest focus on mature characters. Some, such as Stross, let you watch a character start out young and mature throughout the books (I think his main character has gone from his 20s to his 40s, and it shows in how the character acts and approaches issues).
If you really like math, try Greg Egan. Quite a few of his books have the premise "what would be the impact if this odd bit of, real world, complete with citations, math was just a little bit different?" If that is your thing, then you'll be delighted at what he writes. :-D
e.g.
> In the universe containing Seth’s world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate to face north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light.
> I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable
Were you reading contemporary books or older books? I found that there's lots of fiction for boys, written by men, from the 19th and 20th centuries. A lot of it is very good, many popular classics like Treasure Island. Edit: I see you mentioned that one.
A lot of the same for me, down to reading silly non-fiction books just to read something as a child. This has become nearly vestigial as I've gotten older.
Books like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Brave New World, 1984, Animal House, Treasure Island, The Lord of the Flies, The Old Man and the Sea, etc. made much more sense to me than any of the Judy Bloom style books that are so prevalent. The last of those books I enjoyed was "How to Eat Fried Worms," and then, that only resonated with me because we were forced to participate in a school book dressup day and I realized I could coat crunchy chinese noodles with chocolate and bring them to class.
I was a kid of the 80s and 90s. I grew up outside. I played rough and got hurt and then played rough again. I explored. My parents existed to feed me, clothe me, and yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience.
I am not sure if you've already experienced-and-disliked his work, but may I recommend Neal Stephenson? I have always appreciated his style of prose, and the way he describes characters. He writes in a nerdy way that I can't quite explain, and I always trust that he will weave separate-seeming narratives together in a way that is satisfying (even if I am often dissatisfied at the _endings_ of his books).
Everyone points to Snow Crash (which I liked too), but recently I also really enjoyed REAMDE and the first half of Termination Shock (I haven't finished it yet). I love the way he describes things. I'd like to say that I could read + enjoy anything he writes on any subject, but for some reason I didn't like his Baroque Cycle books (but don't understand why not).
Also big recommendation for Terry Pratchett. The books all seem silly on the surface but usually have some incisive commentary on wider social issues, as well as being filled with references and humor, subtle and un-subtle. Bonus, they are also a lot shorter than Stephenson's. ;)
> I was a kid of the 80s and 90s. I grew up outside. I played rough and got hurt and then played rough again. I explored. My parents existed to feed me, clothe me, and yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience.
You might like Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" [0]. The prose style is idiosyncratic, but also arguably his most accessible. It's about a 16 year old crossing over into Mexico and with little else but the clothes on his back and love for horses, but not "juvenile" --- if anything the author elevates the teen's stumbles into love, adventure, and heartbreak, into a grand vision of the American frontier.
Even Sanderson's "adult" fiction can read as incredibly immature at times. Every character seems to have a caricature of a mental illness. Every thought and feeling they experience seems to tie back to it, and it derails the story while taking away from the excellent world-building. I loved the Stormlight Archives to start with, but they became more and more "woke" (as much as I despise using that word) as time went on.
If you're interested in returning to fiction but through the lens of an adult - a little grittier - I'd recommend Joe Abercrombie, Pierce Brown, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Dan Abnett, and Andrzej Sapkowski.
I think it helps if the parents set an example. I grew up in the 90's in a house full of readers, reading was normalized.
Until about age 10 my parents would read to my sisters and I every night. It was part of the bedtime routine. We would gather in my youngest sister's bedroom and my Dad would read a chapter from the book of the week to us before bed. It was mostly stuff like Enid Blighton and Roald Dahl, but I can also remember 'Treasure Island' and '20,000 Leagues under the Sea'.
As we got older it evolved into us reading for ourselves, all of us had a reading light beside our beds and it was normal to read in bed before going to sleep. It essentially became a habit I formed, to this day I still read in bed as an adult.
At least here is Australia, you used to be able to get a lot of things from the local newsagent. I was really interested in computers as a teenager. When my parents would send me to the corner store to grab bread or milk I'd buy a PC Magazine with the spare change and read it cover to cover, some of them would come with neat demo cds etc.
> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.”
There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expectations) ... And there are plenty of non-series books for that age group as well - Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle - they mentioned Bridge to Terabithia too...
The idea that reading isn't possible for young kids without the next black swan publishing/cinematic/theme-park experience, or that there just isn't anything other than Harry Potter to read seems crazy to me.
But I guess I'm not 9 anymore. Interesting that they didn't actually ask any 9-year-olds either it seems.
If you're trying to get kids to read books, those are all great choices. If you're trying to make money, few of those have the option for making a whole new franchise with merch and films and theme parks and video games. (They sort of managed that with Tolkien and the LotR films, though.)
And that's before we get into the whole politics angle. I'm with Freddie deBoer here, who said: if you want your art to change the world, you first of all have to make GOOD art.
I guess those are the things I find unusual about the article. They think they've figured out "why kids don't read", but all they've discovered is "we're not making as much money as we'd like", and maybe this demographic is a problem because "THE LUCRATIVE TEENAGE MARKET" could falter in a few years.
I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to - and there's plenty out there they _could_ be exposed to. Once they're exposed to enough to develop taste, they start caring about Good Art -- or at least art they enjoy more than others.
They didn't talk to any 9-year-olds, or even their parents. Why aren't they asking parents what books they're exposing their kids to? ([1] One possible reason, I know this is a controversial/poorly sourced topic though).
> Or, as O’Sullivan asked, “Is this generation just iPad babies?”
I mean, it's a boring answer. But seems more likely to me than "These kids can name over 500 Pokemon on cue but don't read a thing because not enough of them are on TikTok yet, we haven't managed to scout the next Harry Potter, and our 9-year-old reading curriculum is far too intense which is ruining the joy for them."
> I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to
This is more anecdote than research, but from several authors who told stories to children successfully - Tolkien, Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame) - kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preachy story.
I believe Adams says in his foreword that his girls begged him to write the story down because "it's so much better than some of the other books you read us".
Tolkien and Lewis disagreed on whether Narnia was too in-your-face preachy, but the Narnia series is certainly among the popular examples of children's literature out there.
> kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preachy story.
Hmm that's interesting, I would definitely believe it. (I was one of those kids that didn't get past Prince Caspian until his late 20s. Although I didn't recognise it as preachy when I was younger, just not all that interesting.)
> Tolkien and Lewis disagreed ...
This reminds me of David Eddings vehemently declaring Tolkien far too prissy (his word iirc) for high fantasy - that was my first exposure to the "all art is an evolving conversation" perspective, without realising it.
I wonder if -- as far as books for 9-year-olds go -- the conversation has stalled and therefore lost interest, even from a child's perspective. The publishing/entertainment world has poured enormous amounts of money into the previous generation's teenage years (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc), maybe we forgot/decided not to invest in Good Art for the next round of younger kids while that was happening.
I'm still biased in favour of screen time as a primary issue, but I could also see lower publishing, advertising (etc) investment in that age group as a huge confounding problem.
You forgot the last dragon chronicles by Chris D’Lacy. I love me some books about magical clay dragons and that the main characters love interest is a goth witch.
Plus you learn a whole lot of words that start with G: Gadzooks! Gollygosh! Etc
I feel the opposite way, at least from the point of view of absorbing information. I often have a hard time with podcasts and often youtube videos because I feel I could have read the info there in a few minutes vs watching/listening to something for much longer
Not only that, but reading lets you easily jump around to refresh yourself on other parts if you see something reference it much more easily, and you can choose your exact comfortable pace without having to stretch or squeeze the source material unnaturally.
I have a recurring habit of glossing over names I don't recognize when first reading them in a news article and then will frequently need to jump back to find where they were initially referenced when they get mentioned again only with their last name. While this can be a little annoying when reading, it would be far worse in a video; I can't imagine trying to scrub back to the point where someone first was mentioned. At best, the video might have captions (which I'll always have turned on), but it's a lot harder to look at a caption and remember exactly which information came before it and which came after because the text isn't all visible at once.
We live in an attention economy but the content that demands our attention is increasingly low value. Often the vast majority of podcast content and YouTube video content could be simplified to maybe 10% of what is there. I have unfortunately seen this in some of the nonfiction books I read as well, which tend to spend way too much time on filler and fluff than actually advancing the main points. This wastes my time and irritates me. (Stuart Russell’s most recent book is majority garbage.)
I agree but think that's different. That's probably a 10min-read kind of article versus a couple-hour-long book. I agree with the parent comment that reading is just slower. All of the blabbering people do in podcasts and in youtube videos to draw out the length feels like it ends up in books too but it's harder to skip because you don't really know when the important stuff happens. I just turn youtube videos and podcasts up to 2x speed then I don't really have to worry about it.
If you crank the speed up 2x you’ll also be speeding through the important parts. I feel like all of this drive towards AI “summarization” is really framing the problem incorrectly. I want all of the filler removed, and just keep the necessary bits.
On the other hand, reading a tutorial on how to do something is faster than watching a video of someone doing it.
It's a lot easier to skip over the bits you already know in written form, with video you need to seek forward, listen a bit, seek forward, listen, whoops too far, seek back a bit etc.
Seriously. This is why I don't like how much knowledge is being locked up in video platforms. I can get what I need to know from text so much faster than video unless the knowledge in question is inherently 3d/visual.
video has the advantage that it still works when i am tired/exhausted, or rather when i want to prevent getting tired, because reading is active and takes more concentration. video makes it easier to focus because it is more passive but all your senses are activated at once.
if i am in a deep flow, the reading to solve a problem is the right approach. but when i have to fight distraction, a video helps me to focus and eventually get into the flow.
Agreed about being faster than a lot of other media - at least in terms of density. Also, the tired eyes thing can be a bonus too. For years I had trouble falling asleep at night and I'd stay up later because I didn't like going to bed until I knew I would conk out immediately.
Now I get in bed and read about a half hour or hour before I want to be asleep. It gives me something to focus on while relaxing and when my eyes get too tired or my mind starts to wander, I know it's time to sleep.
I think the bigger difference is that reading a book allows you to stop, anytime, and think. No other medium allows this. When the story takes an unexpected turn or the author makes a subtle point, in a book you have time to reflect and let it sink in. That's precious, especially in a world where all other media has evolved to overwhelm you with oversimplified pap intended to prevent independent thought. Don't think, just react. But with a book, _you_ control where your focus goes, and nobody else.
This. I find myself tremendously bored watching most videos online these days, scrubbing through to find things that are of interest. There's just so much filler and even when it's not, the information density is very low.
In the meantime, along with reading, I also have longreads in my RSS reader, so every evening I get a few fantastic long form online articles and feel pretty well connected to what's going on.
I disagree with "much slower" but I do agree that it's different. It's not about having tired eyes (what do you use to watch videos?), it's about shortening attention span (you get bored and want to switch to something else). Long attention span is good, short attention span is bad. This is why reading books (long form) is better than reading Twitter or Instagram (short form). And this is why getting kids to continue to read is important.
> you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired
I'd say you need some eye correction then. Ever since I got glasses, getting tired by reading means it's time for a visit to the optometrist to update my lenses.
I think social media, TikTok style short videos etc. are training young people to have very short attention spans. If it doesn't continually provide a Döpamine hit they quit.
I'm not sure if some people think that audiobooks "don't count", but I think they're the only alternative when you have a heavy schedule and a long commute. Plus you can adjust the speed of the playback as needed. So slowness shouldn't be a problem to put on in the car if your kids are ready to read chapter books.
> I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media.
Speed is subjective. I read way faster than consuming the same thing with audio or video. Reading also gives me opportunity to wander at a pace I'm comfortable with.
You can skim through text - a skill many kids today don't have. They really think you need to READ every word.
Just skimming through a long-ass tutorial finding the bit you need seems like a superpower nowadays with the younger generation resorting to watching a 45 minute video instead.
You really think that a 40 minute rambling video on how to set up, say, Docker and a piece of software on it is slower than the exact same content written with images?
Idk about anyone else but my school had a program called Accelerated Reader where you could read a book and take a test about it to score points. Harder books were worth more points, at the time I think Anna Karenina was the "hardest" book on the list. Anyway the drive to win was what initially got me reading a lot.
I think there are perhaps trends, but at the end of the day this phenomenon ends up being individual. I have three kids - 7, 13, and 15 - and they're all different. The older two read voraciously from 2nd grade (when they first picked up Harry Potter after finishing the Magic Treehouse series) through middle school. My oldest doesn't read as much anymore, but it's largely because he's too busy and ends up too tired to concentrate on books when he does have downtime. My middle (7th grade) still reads constantly and we've run out of bookshelf space for all the series we've purchased over the past couple of years. My youngest is in 1st grade and just started her chapter book reading journey this school year. Now she reads while she eats her meals and reads to herself every day. We take her to the public library every couple of weeks to refresh.
Two things to bear in mind: my wife & I also love reading and we have a house full of books. We've also prioritized reading to, and around, our children from the time they were infants. Even today I frequently wake my kids by reading aloud to them.
I had a teacher in school who decided the best thing for people to read is to simply have the students choose the book they wanted to read for the month.
She'd then read the book and make a short quiz about it. She had several classes so she'd have to read a lot of books every month. But after a while books start to repeat, after all, kids will mostly get together and form groups to read certain novels they're interested in. And most of my classmates would all choose a sort of "minimal effort" book.
All in all, this is an experience I still remember to this day; even though it's been 15 years.
If we want children to read then you need a similar approach, a big part of the fun in reading is actually finding a book to read. The children should be motivated to find books they want to read and then share it with their peers; then perhaps the class can decide which of the books they will be reading together.
Maybe the books that they're trying to market aren't books that kids want to read. There are a couple of quotes that point to that:
> Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”
> But if you’re a new author who’s written a quiet, issue-oriented debut, “you might have to think about adapting, in a way.”
> Eberly, the book agent, doesn’t think the supply of serious, “award-winning” books will dry up. “Knowing the editors that I sell to, those are the types of books they want to shepherd into the world.”
Maybe kids would rather read fun adventure stories rather than the issue-driven stories that adults are pushing on them.
I think this is a big part of the problem. Publishers are looking for the next Harry Potter as if they were Y Combinator picking startups based on who's most likely to become the next unicorn.
How many people here are commenting based on their kids' experiences and not based on their own? Nothing in a 4 year-old trend (or whatever it is at this point) is going to be anticipated by people who were that age 10, 20, 30 years ago. (Sorry folks.)
My kids are just short of this age, so this article is very topical for me. I'm trying to encourage them to read, and they do, but it's also been difficult (in my experience) to make the transition to "big" books (i.e., anything other than a graphic novel). Books that I am 99% sure I read by their age, they don't seem to be responding to---and not just those books specifically, but anything in that class. And my kids have very low screen time.
The industry can’t depend on Captain Underpants forever, even though, as [Brenna Connor, an industry analyst at Circana, the market research company that runs Bookscan] noted, “The devil works hard, but Dav Pilkey works harder.”
"Book people" know why 9-year-olds stop reading. "We have met the enemy and he is us.” [0] (which my child read from the reissue [1]).
I was never very keen of non-fiction books. The reason is because I could usually just watch it in movie format which is a lot less time-consuming.
The last fiction book I read (over a decade ago) was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the reason I read it is because I had watched all the previous Harry Potter films and wanted to know what happens but the movie didn't exist yet at the time. I was hooked and there was literally no other option. I'm sure this effect worked very well in J.K. Rowling's favor.
Some people claim that they prefer fiction in book format because they can fill in the gaps and imagine the worlds and characters however they like... But personally, I prefer getting as much information as possible; visual information is part of it. If I had to choose between watching a film in color or black-and-white, I'd choose color for the same reason... With black and white, I could let my mind wander and assume that the person's clothing is made of gold yarn but I'd rather not as it mostly distracts from the story and those aren't details that interest me.
When I consume fiction, I'm looking for narratives, external perspectives, messages, lessons, principles and insights in a format that is as objective as possible. In book format, there's too much that comes from me, I end up projecting my pre-existing biases into the story and it doesn't feel as satisfying or mind-expanding.
I prefer fiction in book format because the depth of characterization, thought processes, internal monologues, etc. allow me to connect with and understand the characters at a level that is impossible when watching an actor portraying that character on screen.
Personally I find the messages, lessons, principles, and insights come through a lot more clearly when I have access to the characters' internal thoughts, perceptions, and reasoning, and you get a lot more of this in the printed version.
> Yet I can’t help but be worried that the kinds of books that changed my life between ages 8 and 12 are falling by the wayside. Is there room for the thoughtful, serious, beautiful young-person’s novel in 2024? Can you publish Bridge to Terabithia in the age of Captain Underpants?
...Uh, come the 90s, Bridge to Terabithia was a required reading book that I don't think anyone my age cared about. The popular series I remember were, in no particular order: Animorphs, Goosebumps, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, and Redwall.
I think it's much simpler, adults don't know what kids are interested in. For example, just before that age I was interested in animals and the solar system. Read anything I could find on them, and had no interest in anything being pushed by school or parents. At age 9, I just happened to see Animorphs #11 The Forgotten in the impulse-buy section of our local drugstore and begged my parents for it - for anyone unaware, the Animorphs covers showed kids turning into animals, which was how it drew my attention. That set me onto sci-fi in general, then fantasy - and I've kept reading since.
> ...Uh, come the 90s, Bridge to Terabithia was a required reading book that I don't think anyone my age cared about
> I think it's much simpler, adults don't know what kids are interested in
Pretty much everyone I know (including myself) who read a lot as a kid but doesn't read much anymore identifies being forced to read things in school as the reason they don't. Being forced to read stuff we didn't find interesting isn't the whole issue though because I think there are things I might have actually enjoyed reading in another context. In my experience, the larger issue is what happened in the classroom alongside the reading. Most if not all teachers I had would give quizzes designed to ensure we kept up with the reading that essentially would pick out tiny random details from the assigned chapters ask us about them, and that took the focus away from actually absorbing the higher-level themes and insights that I'd normally make when reading on my own. Even worse, when discussing things afterwards in the classroom, there was usually a certain analysis or viewpoint that was deemed "correct" that we were supposed to figure out and be able to reproduce when we were tested on the entirety of the book after we finished it. Making me read a book to memorize random details and _not_ have any thoughts of my own on what things meant because I would just get told what to think later ruined any enjoyment I used to have of reading; they might as well have just given me a page of bullet points to memorize than give me an entire book full of pages and pages of stuff to distract from what they actually were trying to make me learn.
It's probably a mistake to think kids need new books to be published. The classics are classic for a reason. There are many childhoods worth of incredible books already available. I'm not weeping for struggling authors. If they write something incredible it will be noticed, if they don't then just like you said Bridge to Terabithia, Nancy Drew, Redwall, HP, The Hardy Boys, Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon, etc, etc, etc. still exist.
Throughout grade school, I had several different environments. Most of them were unsupervised and not regimented. Before class, class, after school, home, out of the house, exploring away from the house, time with friends.
My kids had class and home and sometimes activities. None were unsupervised or non-regimented.
Coming home from exploring and popping open a book is nice. Opening a book and hoping it provides some escape from the 160th hour in a box with adults is desperation.
I remember Scholastic would put on a big book fair twice a school year in our school's library. There would be tons of new/upcoming book series marketed that kids could buy (with their parent's money), along with the obligatory custom bookmarks and kid-oriented stationary. It targeted 8 to 12 year olds--maybe that was the practice pre-covid and booksellers have moved away from that sort of thing?
One thing I definitely noticed with COVID (not specific to libraries and book fairs): a lot of older volunteers stopped volunteering for good - basically "retired" now rather than later. Alone that would imply the situation fixes itself as new volunteers age in, but that's also the loss of a lot of institutional knowledge ...
Unrelated to COVID, our local library was recently taken over by a young new librarian who seemed to make it a goal to actively drive away literally all the old library community.
There was also a proposal to build a new library with a builtin homeless shelter or something ... which is exactly the opposite of helping, since the predominance of "homeless people" is a major reason patrons avoid the library already.
Anecdotal (from NL): I had access to a library end of 80s/90s. Everything mandatory wasn't fun, but had to be done. Providing a small, meaningful choice would've been more fun. Comics and non-fiction for kids was available, but if you did not like fiction then you are kind of hosed. I 'never' (esp in early youth) liked fiction because I could not easily imagine the story, or it just did not interest me. It wasn't real, so I couldn't see the point of it. My weakness for sure, but if I had access to more/better informational non-fiction I would've read it like the info sponge I was. And having fun while doing so.
I remember very well when I was about 8 or 9, I always lost the trail when we did group reading at school (each kid one sentence). And then I got punished for that. Also not very... let us say encouraging.
Nowadays, I'm still not much of a fiction sucker, but I've come to enjoy quite some fiction. Just not in time for high school, and even then I liked books which weren't for my age or my gender or whatever.
If my kids don't like certain fiction, I won't force it upon them. I want them to read, and will try with suggestions and what not but if they really do not like fiction, forcing it upon them won't help.
I just hope they won't waste their time on something as useless and nefarious as TikTok. One could argue that is the comics or TV series of the 21th century. Well, even if TikTok were harmless to health and a great application, comics or TV series didn't profile you for an authoritarian state.
EDIT:
> Yet, somehow, reading persists; more books are sold today than were sold before the pandemic
This does not mean, at all, that [all] these books are read. Terrible assumption.
Whenever I was about 9-10, I used to love reading books, and I read about 1-3 full novels a month. Whenever I graduated elementary school and went into middle school, the required reading that was assigned left me to have no more time reading what I found interesting, which eventually led to me just losing my interest in books.
Personal experience: when I was a kid, I instinctively knew when a book tried to "teach" me something or instill some world view and I immediately know the intention and found that boring. The really exciting books were those that either didn't try to teach anything or those that didn't make it so obvious. Might it be that the contemporary literature for children is constantly trying to push an educational agenda and kids instinctively despise that (as I did)?
The situation with kids is an issue. However, about the mean attacks online mentioned in the article, the American Library Association president, unfortunately made a rather poorly chosen quote at almost the inflection point they're describing, in April 2022. Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Wyoming pushed to withdraw from the ALA after the quote. Per [1], on being elected, Drabinski wrote:
> “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary”
Sure, it's a single tweet. It mentions a better world. However, I also suspect most normal Americans with slight sense of political winds right now (Ukraine, Feb, 2024?? 2 months?) might comprehend why labeling yourself as a "Marxist lesbian" who "wields collective power" might be taken wrong by some of America on being elected to lead all American libraries.
I used to work for/with the Feds, and I think they would have been justifiably mad if I had very publicly announced I was a Marxist who wields power in the Feds on election.
> But others also pointed to the way reading is being taught to young children in an educational environment that gets more and more test-focused all the time.
Seems like there would be an easy way to test this - do we see the same decline in other countries with different educational systems?
As adult people get sucked into reading forum posts or twitter. And it's often very addictive since you feel you're getting closer to some truth being revealed, or your views/opinion being validated.
Better use of time might be to read books, but then there's nothing to suck you in the way online networks do with some headline.
Maybe books should have AI post about them the way of news articles, with some catchy headline, that would get people to start reading them.
As a kid I loved mysteries, and revenge books like "The Count of Monte Cristo", that were recommended. But as an adult I don't know what I don't know. And there's nothing to get me to start reading something.
When I was in high school, I was a voracious reader of Star Trek novels. I'm now 47 years old, and as a birthday treat, I decided to go into Barnes and Nobel to find one to read (I haven't read anything other than technology books in many years, and rarely even then, since most good information is online)
I found like 2 or 3 (back in the day, there were at least a dozen or two to pick from at any time). The sci-fi section was a bit smaller, to replace the huge manga and other graphic novels section, which was absolutely huge. Many of the sci-fi titles that were there were taken up by novels that have been made into movies.
Age 9 is about time to get into "The Hobbit". That might save some people ;). Or Terry Pratchet''s "Truckers" ? So much utterly fantastic kids literature out there, most of it not at all new.
No, a 30 second tiktok clip cannot give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can. That is such a silly thing to say, that I can only imagine you heard it on tiktok.
To play devil's advocate, it has become common to simply read a plot synopsis on something like Wikipedia rather than engage with the book/movie/show/etc. be it for lack of time or interest. This brings one up to speed with the content of the media and is often interesting enough to be worth doing while also taking 1/1000th of the investment. Such a synopsis could be reasonably condensed into a thirty second video. Obviously this is not an equivalent experience to engaging with a 300 page book, but the information conveyed is undeniably the same type of information. Having such information packed so densely, if imperfectly, was unheard of even twenty years ago.
You can summarize Margin Call with a paragraph, but in no way capture the spirit of the movie and the various implied subplots. If you don't care about a movie or a book, don't consume it or just read a summary. But don't pretend you've done the actual watching/reading.
> A 30 second tiktok clip can give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can, but it cuts to the chase, and doesn't bury the lead.
Perhaps, but if that is true I highly doubt that you can actually absorb the information in 30 seconds. Doubly so if you quickly move on to the next thing, as tiktok pushes you to do (I guess? haven't used myself).
>A 30 second tiktok clip can give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can, but it cuts to the chase, and doesn't bury the lead.
I'm sorry, this isn't just wrong, it's laughably wrong, and if this view is popular I can see why there's so little nuance in most people's understanding
I don't particularly buy any of the explanations given in the article, or ITT for that matter. I had tons of screen time as a child, that didn't stop me from reading a ton then or now. Schools (and I) were just as test-focused back then. I wasn't getting book recs from my peers so that doesn't make sense to me either.
Maybe I'm an anomaly here but I never found the books targeted at children/teens especially interesting. Around 8-9 my mom gave me a book, a couple hundred pages long, intended solely for adults, but it was about something I was passionate about. I loved it and never stopped reading after that.
My advice: if you want your kid to read, give them books they'd be interested in. Not 'age appropriate books', just books. Read books yourself and talk to your children about them. Build a personal library and lend books liberally, to children, friends, family, everyone. A culture of reading and enjoying books is your best bet for instilling a love of reading in your chilld.
"Give your kids books they'd be interested in" is kind of classic meaningless advice. Like, sure, of course that's what you want to do -- except, if you have a kid who doesn't have an existing strong reading habit, how do you find books they'd be interested in? Like, that's the goal! You can't just assume the solution.
I have a nine-year-old daughter who definitely does read, but isn't a voracious reader, and I've tried a lot of different things to up the amount of time she spends reading. It's tricky. One of the things that I've found is she's more willing to invest in graphic novels than prose novels, but I don't feel like at this point graphic novels deepen her literacy.
>how do you find books they'd be interested in? Like, that's the goal! You can't just assume the solution.
What a strange question?
If they are interested in fantasy movies give them a fantasy book. If they're interested in mystery, the same. If they're interested in Dinosaurs, the same. How is this some great challenge? The things you like to read about are the same things you already like... Are you implying you know nothing about your daughter?
Agree it seems odd. One thing the children in my life are NOT lacking is random interests. Sports books are a great avenue and often highly accessible for younger readers. Pretty much any hobby/niche interest has books that are suitable. Kid likes animals? Give them 'The Soul of an Octopus'. Kid likes scifi movies? Give em 'Childhood's End'. Its really not a challenge when you know them well.
> I've tried a lot of different things to up the amount of time she spends reading... she's more willing to invest in graphic novels than prose novels
If you haven't yet, push out beyond fiction. In my experience, libraries have a really divergent collection of large, illustrated volumes.
When I was 5-10 I read comic strip books - but also encyclopedias. Specifically World Book; Britannica was too dry.
note: I've no complaint with graphic novels. Sons 1, 2 & 5 were big into them. One is writing fiction. Two was into physics and anime, is now into psychology and early Japanese film making. Five performs+crafts his own music videos.
I'm not saying they are not worthy of consumption or anything like that, but A: I doubt very many teachers would accept a "book report" written about a graphic novel and B: consuming graphic novels, by their nature, is not purely reading. Your brain/imagination has far less work to do, as you don't have to mentally picture the scenes/people/actions, they are right there for you to look at.
These are... not books.
you don't have to mentally picture the scenes/people/actions
I sort of see what you're saying, even if I don't agree with it. I think the really neat thing about these, are that they present _classic stories_ in a way that is more appealing, and more easily digestible, to kids who might never have considered them otherwise.
I remember when I was in middle school, my English teacher had a box in the corner of comic book adaptations of about a dozen "classic" stories. Several were stories by Poe, and similar 1800s-era classics. (Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) I devoured them (despite loving reading "regular" books too). I've forgotten most of the plots, but remember having enjoyed reading them. Some of them, I've never read the originals, but for others I had already read (or subsequently read) the more-detailed originals. (Anything Sherlock Holmes, at the time, was something I enjoyed.)
Reading these stories as a manga makes you lose out on a lot of details, but probably makes it a lot easier to digest some things. Pride and Prejudice, for example, has pages of details of peoples' social lives, and the complex interactions of several younger and older women, along with descriptions of gardens and houses, and I know that I definitely had trouble keeping track of who all the ancillary characters were. Having visual representations of these characters might make it easier to track that. You lose out on the richness of Austen's prose, but you keep the core character developments, relationships, and emotional interactions that form the basis of the stories.
That makes a while since I've read physical books, but the great things I liked when I was a child was books with illustrations. Not the one with a picture every two pages, but one that tries to paint the atmosphere of the books. For short fictions (150 pages), I'm OK with the cover, but for anything longer a few full pages pictures kinda kept me in. It anchored me in the story.
Picture books have been around from the very beginning. I'd say that the modern graphic novel is just the result of various gradual innovations, one of the important ones being that of embedding text - speech, thoughts, onomatopoeic description - inside the pictures rather than alongside them, which improves the flow of the story, and which helps prevent the reader from becoming focused on either the pictures or text to the exclusion of the other.
I'd posit that anyone whose imagination conjures up mental pictures from a purely written book would be incapable of not doing so with a graphic novel. One's brain could have less to do, true... yet it doesn't choose the easy path. In my personal experience, the scenes of a good story grow and become more detailed in my imagination, regardless of whether they are depicted in prose or picture.
One thing I love about written language is that can be used in so many ways; the vast majority of reading isn't 'purely' reading for me, but associated with other activities - encyclopaedias are reading interspersed with skimming, possibly in order to inform another task such as writing, graphic novels are the appreciation of visual art in a narrative form supported by text, and then there's the entirely practical way in which being able to read "wet paint" helps me from getting myself into a sticky situation.
I have kids, my older is 11 and reads almost whenever she can. She loves to read herself to sleep at night.
We've taken her to the library since she was a baby where we'd find new baby books to read to her. Over time, we stopped picking out books for her and let her wander the isles, picking whatever seemed interesting to her. She usually chooses a wide assortment of things from comics to YA fiction.
My son is much more interested in screens, but he still reads a lot. Whenever we restrict the screens his next default is to read.
We read a lot to both of them as infants & toddlers. We have a couple bookshelves worth of books in the house, but honestly they spend almost their whole reading time on new-to-them library books. We've hit the library checkout limit pretty much every time we go! And it's no waste - every book is returned read.
> if you have a kid who doesn't have an existing strong reading habit, how do you find books they'd be interested in?
I'd start by taking them to the library and letting them explore. Chances are they'll find something that interests them!
I have kids and it seems like fine advice. You find books they'd be interested in by knowing about their hobbies, interests, and personality, and finding books that match that in some manner, and then pitching it to them, regardless of whether it is age appropriate or not.
Of course it is hard to do - at least, harder to do than saying "I have a 5 year old, and this book says it is for 5 year olds, so I will have them read it".
I do. I've given my son who's an avid swimmer a non-fiction book about a group training to try and make the Olympics. I've given my nephew interested in space 'The Right Stuff'. Both devoured the books and went off on their own reading journeys from there.
I agree with you. Age appropriate usually have terribly boring stories.
To be fair, the same is true for tv shows and movies, I can't stand any "per child" tv show, we moved immediately to disney classics and then onto Miraculous Ladybug (mine are 3 and 5 years old).
As for books, we have a very fun series of "choose your own adventure" books that really hooked them, they love making their choices
This is good advice. My 9yr old reads adult fiction, so long as I have read it and don't think there's anything too "adult" in there. I'm saving Heinlein for his teen years lol.
Yeah, a bit of supervision at that age is appropriate, but my advice is don't screen their books for too long! If they're mature enough to be actively seeking out mature titles, you trying to gatekeep them isn't going to prevent them reading what they want to for long. Better to let them make their own choices and discuss sensitive topics with them as adults.
I'm in my 50s and I used to read a lot for pleasure when I was a kid. I still remember reading Lord of the Rings or Watership Down over an entire weekend, with my mom yelling at me to stop reading and eat dinner, etc. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye changed my life as a youth.
I stopped reading fiction after I graduated college because I simply didn't care anymore, it was like an off switch. Unless it was a computer or finance textbook, I simply didn't care to read. There was a brief hiatus after reading Moneyball and Blind Side which fascinated me for some reason, and I haven't read non-textbooks since then either. I think part of it was that I read so many bad fiction books I didn't want to waste my time taking a chance when I could be programming or learning more directly.
They need to bring back the scholastic book fair! Or is that still a thing? We also had Pizza Hut giving us free pizza for reading books.
I read a lot as a kid, to the point where I got in trouble in class for reading a book instead of paying attention. I’m trying to think about why, but I don’t think it was any outside push. I don’t remember most of my peers reading so much.
I remember lugging along a copy of The Idiot by Dostoyevsky with me to read on the subway and feeling like it made me an intellectual badass. I still treasure the memory of the classic lit I read but I very rarely get any pleasure reading in now. This trend among youth is worrying but seems part of an accelerated mutation of our culture
My idea of reading for fun as a kid, and even now, included(s) reading technical manuals, research papers, encyclopedia, or other materials where I am gaining knowledge.
I have always hated reading fiction and never saw the point in wasting time on it. I would prefer to waste that same time on watching a movie.
Fiction can be nice. But the hardest is finding good books. I like computer science and electronic books and finding good materials to explore the fields is relatively easy. They're more dense so I can use them for a longer period of time. Finding a good fiction book is not that easy (even though I restrict myself to Fantasy and a little bit of SF). I have a list of 153 series (some I still have to explore) collected over 3-5 years. I've read more, but that's basically the ones that warranted a reread. And even then some are just for light reading.
Reading is a solitary activity. I stopped reading when I was in a relationship, so I have to spend some leisure time together. It was terrible at first, then I found Lars Von Trier films and the burden was a bit better, so... that was it.
Also, society has changed so much.
I grew up in a time when there was no such thing as "children's books". My first reading was some pulp fiction, then some bestsellers, then Dracula. I got to Wuthering Heights when I was n. I found it gripping, but I understood almost nothing. Luckily - crazy luckily - I have a friend, a n-year-old girl, who also read Wuthering and introduced me to it. So I read it again.
Growing up - we had a lot of programs externally to encourage us to read. I wonder if kids still have the same kind of things
For example, we had things like a Six Flags reading program, Pizza Hut Book It for free pizza, and hand picked Texas Bluebonnet Books. We also had book fairs.
There aren’t any spaces left to take your kid to look at books. Without access to internet the only option is the public library but books there are often not displayed in a way that would draw new readers in
Not sure about exact timing but isn't it just the time when school orders kids to read boring books until every last bit of enjoyment is squeezed out of the activity of reading?
Agreed, at least in my experience in the US we are conditioned from a young age to associate reading with tedium and monotony. When you have to 'read along with the class', stop after every chapter to write an essay, hyper-analyze every sentence until all the fun of discovery is sucked out, and generally be in an unpleasant and uncomfortable environment as you do it, you will over time associate the activity in general with those negative aspects and avoid it- despite the activity itself being potentially very enjoyable in a different context
Part of the solution should be going to every free library near a school or playground and filling them with a bunch of first books in a series. I know my kids got hooked on looks of books that way
I don't like mandatory reading. Reading should be a joyous activity, where I choose the books I like to read, not something where others tell me what I should read.
people give up reading the same reason they give up anything "hard". The combination of "prescribed texts" and "bad pedagogy". When i self teach...i start a book...downloaded immediately from libgen, if it sucks, i trash it, and download another immediately...if the author is not a time wasting hack, guess what? I'll buy that book immediately, having found the correct resource. It pains me to read what the most recommended books are for learning most hard subjects - they are generally on the poor side...they are generally not written as simply as possible. Yes - this is a hugely opinionated response.
Onto method - If the method in which it's taught is garbage/pedagogically horseshit...of course they will hate it. Learn maths with Paul Lockhart, or computer science from the ground up playing Turing Complete (on Steam)...or learning ANYTHING from someone like Brett Victor..and you'll see precisely the issue is with not just reading for fun, but doing any socially uncool thing like exercising the intellect.
If I had to make kids read, I would make reading forbidden. There is something about reading as a duty that kills the joy, and others already described it better than I could. I loved reading as I kid, and I was lucky I had read most of the books I love before they were assigned, but I especially loved reading the forbidden books - I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and reading the "Hedgehog in the Cage" series secretly borrowed from a friendly neighbor was magical. That series is unfortunately totally unknown in the West, but for Czech kids of my generation, that was our Harry Potter.
I stopped reading because it became a larger part of school. I strongly disliked school, so reading was a part of the thing I strongly disliked. Really, anything they tried to force was soured on me for a long time.
From what I observed with my own kids, the books that were either mandatory or on the selection list to read for assignments were shockingly bad, and on top of that 100% targetted at the girl half of the class. Wether this is the result of teaching having become almost exclusively female or other cultural drives is hard to say.
Not sure about that. I would read for fun instead of reading the assigned reading. The teacher would get mad. I'd continue to ignore them and continue reading my book.
So you can't just blame the teacher. If the books give you something essential, you'll turn to them to escape a harsh reality.
When your teacher criticizes you for not reading the boring book he/she ordered you to read, you stop enjoying reading and stop reading.
I've read more books than most people, I think. I certainly was in the top percentile by the time I was 18.
I never once read a book start-to-finish that a teacher assigned to me. When I had a book on my desk that I went out of my way to find at the library on one side and then some random book my teacher thought was good on the other side, I picked my book every time. I'd half-heartedly skim through their book and struggle my way through reading quizzes. The only saving graces were Cliff's Notes, film versions, or if the teacher outright read us the book out loud.
At least in our school district, this is not how its done in elementary school. Teachers don't assign books. Either it's completely free choice, or fiction/non fiction, or genre (e.g. mystery).
When I last read about this, it was blamed on 4th grade being the time when you shift from reading just to read, into reading to learn.
Required reading of books I couldn't relate to played a big role in me stopping reading for fun but I don't place that blame on my teachers for it. I doubt they had the freedom to choose which books we were assigned or whether we were assigned books at all.
School largely ruined my interest in reading until I became an adult and re-found it.
Being regularly told to read boring books, of course any interest in doing it casually was going to go out the Window.
Sure there is value in needing to read certain things from an academic standpoint, Beowulf is a good example. But there was zero reason I needed to read "The Outsiders" when we just watched the movie after reading it anyways.
Just because something is a classic, doesn't mean we have to consume it in its original form to get the meaning.
Instead fill the library with a diverse collection of books, let the kid choose what they want to read, don't rush them, and importantly if it just isn't working let them move on to a new book.
Side note:
I know some people are going to groan at this. But seriously, books based on video games can be a fantastic gateway towards actually caring about reading. It is how I re-discovered by interest in reading as an adult.
I read a lot when I was young and a big motivating factor for me was the natural progression to reading grown up books and works of literature with more interesting plots and subject matter. Nowadays, there seems to be more commercially-driven infantilization of entertainment where comics and books for kids are no longer a stepping stone but an end destination. My teenager only reads manga and comics which can be very deep and cover mature topics (unlike anything I could get my hands on in the 90s) but are still, ultimately, not novels. I haven't decided if this is a good or bad thing - it probably just 'is what it is' and I'm getting old.
I agree. Looking back at my own reading as a kid, I worked my way through the "age appropriate" material really quickly, in part, because those books simply weren't that interesting. They were more about learning to read. Once I got through those kids books (and I saw them as kids books even when I was a kid), I moved to "adult" books as soon as I could because they are better novels, and I could tell that right away, with more complex stories, better characterization, better prose, different settings, and a real sense of scale and ambition.
A lot of it comes down to context: my parents were and remain voracious readers. They read all the time and have strong opinions about books, and I wanted to read what they did and have strong opinions about books in the way that they do. That sensibility was something they taught and which I grew up in. I could just as well see the absence of that having an effect.
> Traditionally, middle-grade book discovery happens via parents, librarians, and—most crucially—peers. At recess, your best friend tells you that you have got to read the Baby-Sitters Club, and boom, you’re hooked
I've never experienced this in my school life. Used to be the one guy who spends all of his time helping out and reading at the school library back in elementary school. Later in high-school, I stopped reading as much due to the appearance of the computer in my life, which had great things like the Internet and such.
If you spend all your time on TikTok, I feel like it's unlikely you'd read too much.
My daughter stopped reading when her school forced an ipad on us with no way for us to administer our own screen time controls. Now I never know if she's doing homework or trapped down some YouTube shorts rabbit hole.
My youngest will be 9 soon. Finding books for him is pain. I started trying more in the last few weeks, grabbing more or less random things from my local library (beginning chapter books, chapter books). Most of them are series, he liked a few (Galaxy Zack, Time Jumpers, Desmond Cole books), did not like others (Magic Tree House, something called Byte, Code Breakers, and really anything else I gave him). He mostly outgrew Geronimo Stilton books.
They do have book fairs at school and we always go, but we rarely buy anything as it's mostly gifts. We're trying to get book from libraries as opposed to buy them.
They do have an awesome library at school and he spends a few hours per week there and I see that he's taking some books from there, but it's mostly Captain Underpants, Stick Dog, and other comics.
I absolutely DESPISE Dan Pilkey's books (Captain Underpants and Stick Dog) as well as My Weird School (and other Dan Gutman's products), they really dumb things down and basically lead kids away from "regular" (ie long-form) books. I my opinion they can lead to behavior issues in kids, however it's possible that kids simply start reading them during that period when hormones start kicking in.
I have a bunch of books from DK Publishing (coffee table encyclopedias) and leave them an frequented areas of the house, and notice that kids check them up every once in a while, at least that's something. They are designed for people with decreased attention span, if you want to learn about a subject, you read a page or two and you're good.
My older kids stopped reading a lot around that time (~10yo), mostly after reading My Weird School and Captain Underpants and similar crap.
Older kids did go through the entire Lemony Snicket series though (way before NetFlix series came up) so that's something.
My 8yo has an iPad from school (we were forced to get one from school when he did kindergarten remote) but his time is very strictly controlled, and it's only for studying (no games). He does have access to an old XBox but only on weekends and for a limited time. He will not have a smart phone for a long time, that's where we lost our older kids (around 13).
Well, for starters because HN is not just for programming and startups, things are on HN because they're upvoted (or sometime because it's some YC promotion), and anything that tingles our intellectual curiosity will do (it's even in the site's guidelines).
From personal experience I think don't rush it and worry about it. Reading gets more fun - perhaps because it is more of an individual understanding - (you read alone and to yourself), after grade 4 even better - grade 5 and 6.
I would suggest some 'classic' adventure stories: most books by Andre Norton - the time trader series for example; Jim kjergaard - Big Red, later on Zane Grey.
Good luck. Have fun with those kids!
My 8yo partially dislikes Geronimo Stilton books because they're "too old" (they started in 2000s and are now mostly done publishing the new ones). The books you mentioned were from mid-20th century :)
Some of these might be less interesting to a boy at that age, but here are the books/authors I loved around 9 (lots of talking animals, magic, and adventure/detective plots):
Garth Nix
Sharon Creech
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Jane Yolan
David Clement-Davies
E. L. Konigsburg
Louis Sachar
Avi
Brian Jacques
Louise Erdich
Edward Bloor
Susan Fletcher
"Reader Beware, You Choose the Scare" Goosebumps (like Choose Your Own Adventure but more modern at the time).
I grew into the kind of avid reader that still reads 50+ books a year. My Mom didn't try to control what I read, even if it was complete junk.
I also adored fact books like the coffee tables you mentioned. I remember having a pulpy "100,000 weird facts" book, both covers torn off because it was used so much. This was before Wikipedia.
(I'm going to assume you meant "interesting to a boy as opposed to a girl". If I'm incorrect my apologies).
I only have boys so do not have personal experience but I read/heard that girls do and will continue to read more than boys at any age, and the gap is getting worse starting around that time (7-8-9). I do think that some books are directed at girls, but I do see a lot of books directed at boys too (though not recently, Hardy Boys was a loooong time ago). It's just boys are less interested regardless. Not really sure what to do about that honestly...
Consider an activity that requires reading. For example, my 8-year-old plays "Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom," which involves a lot of reading. She gets stuck and then Googles hints.
Remember: All children are different. I have 3 kids, and their interest level and approach to reading is very different. My oldest loved being read to starting around 6 months, and we started getting into chapter books when she was 5-6. My other two wouldn't sit still for books until around 18 months, and my almost-6-year-old doesn't have the attention span for a chapter book.
Look at Ursula Vernon/T Kingfisher (at least the kid/YA focused ones). Danny Dragonbreath might be the right age range for the youngest (text + cartoon), and Minor Mage, Illuminations and Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking would be slightly older (chapter book level).
I'd hold off on the fairy tale (dark. weird) and romance ones (paladins) for a few years yet...
Mine have gone through Paolini (Eragon), Sanderson (all of them. damn he writes a lot), Wings of Fire (Tui Sutherland -- Cute, chapters, skews younger)., Scott Westerfield (Leviathian).
I think I got into reading the most when I hit about 3rd or 4th grade. I think 8-9 years is when the reading possibilities really open up for kids. Its around that time I and many of my friends got into Redwall and Animorphs, and within a few years Harry Potter and books like the Black Cauldron.
If it's painful to you, you're doing it wrong. At 8 you should get him to the library and let him chose himself what books he wants to read. Also, you don't have to like the books he choses. You despising his book choice is irrelevant.
If I just let him do what he wants he just plays on iPads or computers in the library (iPads have bunch of games installed, computers do not have games but you can obviously play Web-based stuff etc). He doesn't care much about books unfortunately. It's my job as a parent to make sure he does read something (I'm trying to find something he likes and something that's more of a long form as opposed to a comic). I do realize that the more I pressure him the less he likes it but I'm doing my best to find balance.
As for choice of books, both Dan Pilkey and Dan Gutman are considered controversial authors and a lot of parents feel uneasy about their kids reading their books. Check parents' reviews on goodreads or any other site, you'll find plenty of negative reviews, it's not just me.
I won't stand for Pilkey slander. I have worked in education. His books are certainly silly, but they are indeed a very functional gateway to get kids to enjoy reading on their own. Yes, they are immature, they are for kids. No, they won't make your kids into delinquents, especially not if they get your kids to read a lot more than they would have. I think it's important to show kids that reading doesn't have to be all textbooks and dry academics, it can be fun and enjoyable, because why would they ever read of their own volition if by their perception it isn't fun at all?
From reading reviews of Dav Pilkey's books in Goodreads I didn't see anything like you describe, is it getting banned by the same fundamentalist Christian parents attacking public libraries in the USA or something?
Reviews are pretty good, most books hover on 4+ ratings.
> My older kids stopped reading a lot around that time (~10yo), mostly after reading My Weird School and Captain Underpants and similar crap.
Have you considered just being happy your kids are reading stuff they enjoy? If I picked up on this sort of thing from my parents, I probably would have been less inclined to read myself...
Just as I said, Galaxy Zack series (he must have been 7 at the time though), Time Jumpers (fairly recently, there's only 4 of them and I don't know if the author will write more), Desmond Cole (about ghosts). But that's pretty much all for the last 1+ years... I'm trying some of the "Scooby-Doo" books, not comics but regular chapter books, and he seems to read them at least. I'm going to try more "grown up" books (just picked up Class Dismissed, it's a winner of some prize or whatever), we'll see how it goes.
But it's honestly really frustrating. I'm older (grew up in the 80s) and we read MUCH more, and I think it's important.
Do you know of any resources/discussions I can look up/participate in?
When I was in elementary we had a program where you could read a book and then take a test on that book. If you passed the test you would get a prize from snacks to coupons at restaurants. There were no limits and the book choice was large.
I ravenously read through books at first and would take the test asap. I was gaming the system, but through this I found books I became enthralled with. This was the foundation of my love for reading.
Not sure what my point was, but I wonder if any programs like that exist anymore.
If my attention was in a book, I'd be looking up to find one on the roof, one trailing blood and one packing pencils into the toilet.
I'd also not be cooking or cleaning or spending the 1000th hour on the phone with the kids insurance provider. This between activities, assisting with 4-6 hours of homework, working, etc.
Reading to kids every night early on helps. Not being pressured to read stupid crap in school helps. "You can get a library card once you learn to read" helped. Piles of books lying around helps. Older brothers reading a lot helps, especially for reading recommendations.
(Father of 3, youngest is 14 now. after a while, the biggest problem is keeping them in books they haven't read)
Obtaining information through books is like trying to put out a fire by sucking water out through a straw.
The printing press was great but it's a slow and constrained way to get into from the greatest minds. I read voraciously as a child but when I came to university I pretty much stopped reading when the experts were there to teach in real life using all the senses.
If I were a 9 year old today I'd probably pick YouTube over reading. When I built my house I found myself learning way faster watching tradesmen and listening to them on YouTube than having to suck that information through a tiny straw that is reading a book . I find myself truly hating reading now, far too inefficient.
Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.
I went to a private "college prep" high school, and the amount of assigned, mandatory reading was insane. I spent so much time reading assigned novels that I just didn't have time to read for pleasure. (And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my homework?)
Once I was out of college, I rediscovered reading.
Another thing is the mandated reading comes with punishment attached. One goes into it knowing that they’ll have to puke out some key points, contort bullshit into an intro-body-conclusion format, or worse, overanalyze it for “meaning”.
Early in high school among other things I had to read was “The Veldt”. Of course I hated dealing with it like everything else. I couldn’t have even told you who the author was a few weeks after the assignment.
In late high school, I discovered Ray Bradbury as I began exploring my local library, branching out from comics (Calvin and Hobbes, pogo, bloom county) and nonfiction books into fiction. He quickly became one of my favorite authors due to the sheer volume of short stories he had. Many were good, some were bad, and some were great. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to encounter “The Veldt” again without a teachers whip at my back. It was sad to finally work my way through the last of what he wrote knowing there would be no more.
You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine.
There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and youth, but I have to believe that good fiction would still trump most everything else for the time period.
For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I would notice a mismatch between my own gut reactions and that of the character which would make me stop for a second and try to dissect what the differences were between my interpretation and that of the author.
Not to even mention that reading is a way to escape and explore without leaving the comfort of your own home.
The only downside I find currently is that reading new things is quite expensive and I haven’t found a great digital solution yet. My phone is too small but carrying a book or a reader tablet is not practical every day.
8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger.
I purchased a Kindle after that trip. I read a lot more than I used to because between my phone and the physical Kindle I always have my current book ready to go. Physical book purchases can now be hardcover-only because I'm buying for a permanent collection, not endless consumption.
Yea, I'm also a fan of epic fantasy! I largely find myself moving to audiobooks to get around carrying books everywhere.
Do you have experience with devices that aren't kindle? Not super thrilled about the Amazon ecosystem, though I know it's not terribly difficult to jailbreak them.
I loved the approach my “high school” (in The Netherlands) took around 2002: you had to pick a few books from a list of books the teacher read. Then read those books and have a 30 minute “free format” discussion with the teacher about them. She’d ask for shared themes between the books, or differences in the way the stories were told, what it showed about the approach or background of the authors etc. Basically a teacher-student one-time book club.
>>overanalyze it for “meaning”.<< I doubt overanalyzing actually happens. But pupils, including younger me, just don't understand how much more work and thought have gone into the legends they are reading. Yes, it's a 500 page tome. No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." Yes, a work like this happens only once a decade on one continent. That's exactly why it's one of the maybe 20 books that you read in full during your schooling.
> No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit."
I firmly believe that most of this stuff in schools is massive over-analysis and that most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test. And that's exactly what we did - assign meaning to any meaningless detail and somehow connect it to the character or plot. The curtain is blue? It must signify the protagonists deep longing for love.
In short, 99% of it is indeed overanalysed bullshit.
I was always astonished at how much my literature teachers could seemingly hallucinate at-will on a piece of text and come with some hidden meaning for every word, comma, or rime.
I did not seem to be blessed with the accepted form of creativity for literature analysis, and, with every rebuttal, the pleasure of exploring those texts became less and less..
After many, many, many years, I'm slowly coming back to some of them to read on my own terms, and most books have been a pleasure to re-discover.
Literature Language Models
I remember Kurt Vonnegut being interviewed and clearly saying that he did not have any hidden meanings in his writings. Yet, I remember how my English teacher would go on about x passage as a metaphor for y. I think we were discussing a short story of his. We would spend hours finding the hidden meanings in authors' writings. I'm sure that's the case for many of the books we read in school. I'm sure many authors are more philosophical than others but definitely not all of them. True, overanalyzing authors' writings is a thing. It's a shame because reading becomes a chore rather than a joy.
Indeed. To me, a lot of stuff like this (the kind and color of a blooming flower) is basically a way for the author to create or maintain an atmosphere/background to the book. Mentioning flowers a lot makes it clear this is not an action packed plot driven thriller. Mentioning military ranks and insider jargon and abbreviations paints a military atmosphere.
Basically a lot of words are “set pieces”. Very important for the general atmosphere but not overflowing with meaning and significance per se.
Is it so hard to accept the fact that an author might not be completely 100% conscious of all the things influencing them when creating a work of art? That some choices they made because they just felt right in the moment come from somewhere else? And that someone else can see this happening from an external perspective and propose that way of reading the text that the author didn't think about?
At the same time, is it monstrous to put forward the option that you, as an audience member, are not a passive brainless drone, but you are collaborating in creating the meaning of what you experience? That your inner life and meaning and interpretation stemming from being exposed to art are actually interesting and worth talking about?
Why do we have to live in a world where we assume words written on a page or colors dripped on a canvas have a single truly objective interpretation? Why do we have to beat with a stick on the head of someone telling them "no, you're enjoying this work in the wrong way because the author said so"?
If such things influence works of fiction, they must surely influence works of nonfiction just as much, if not more so — yet I never had a schoolteacher ask me to analyze nonfiction writings anywhere close to the depth I had to analyze novels.
It wasn't until the tertiary level that I first analyzed science writings and related philosophy writings to a similar depth (albeit for a different purpose), and discovered to my delight how many of them are written with a beauty and a kind of humanity that verges on poetry. It moved me in ways that fiction never has, I think in part because of the purity and honesty of my discovery — so unlike the trudging hours I spent miming proundness in school until I could no longer recognize it.
I am truly glad that nonfiction analysis was neglected in school, because it otherwise would have been robbed of all its spirit and magic, too.
Why do we force students to analyze text in this manner at the cost of killing their love for recreational reading? So many children, who once loved story time best of all, grow up to hate books and poetry. Yet they still love the search for meaning in cinema and music which, as yet, still remain mostly beyond the killing touch of involuntary study.
Is it any wonder literary analysis feels fake to so many people?
Can you share any example of non-fiction literature with beauty and humanity? Thanks!
Try Oliver Sacks.
If you look at it, I'm sure you'll find equally plenty of people rolling their eyes at film critics for "making that up".
But I broadly share the sentiment of your message, and I personally blame some sort of variation of Goodhart's law. School curricula take an unquestionably good thing ("the critical search of meaning is an important skill to have") and have to pigeonhole it into something standardized and quantifiable (otherwise, how can you stitch a grade number to it? The horror!). The result is this desolate widespread contempt for everything that is not a literal interpretation.
> most authors, whose works are analysed in this way, have not planned all of this ridiculous nonsense we had to invent on the spot during a test.
you're absolutely right and they even doubled down on that https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/blog/the-death-of-the-....
There isn’t any symbolysm. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is s*t.
- Ernest Hemingway
I had a similar, but different, experience. My issue is that in school I approached reading as a task to be completed in the most efficient manner possible - consuming as much as I could, as rapidly as I could, while ensuring an ability to regurgitate on demand. So I never really got to experience the joy of actually reading; in many cases I never even actually thought about what I was reading. So many books have amazing moral tales, metaphors of major events, and so on - yet one can completely consume books and remain absolutely clueless to what you're really reading.
Then as I aged, at some point I ended up getting into classical literature somehow, and now that I actually "got it" and could see and understand what it was saying - beyond the words themselves, it became a complete joy to read. For instance reading "The Republic" in modern times can make one think Plato was a prophet more than a philosopher. Or reading Aristotle's "Politics" can give one such an incredible amount of insight into thinking in the past, society, and even into your own thoughts. Or reading Aurelius' "Meditations" while bearing in mind these were the inner thoughts, never meant to be published, of not only one of the greatest leaders in history, but also arguably the single most powerful man alive at the time. It makes reading feel amazing. Another less well known example would be The King's Mirror [1]. A Norwegian text from 1250 that was a training/philosophy manual, in the form of a Q&A, intended for King Magnus VI. Highly recommended.
Now I see things like middle schoolers being assigned Animal Farm and I just kind of sigh, though it's not like I can think of a better solution!
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konungs_skuggsj%C3%A1
I fully agree with your point, and your experience is similar to mine in a sense.
I got lucky in never "bending" to the task of reading because I had to, just reading the school curriculum books if they were interesting to me. And I enjoyed reading greatly. But some books Ichose to read I slogged through and could not enjoy them because of my lack of maturity and perspective. Revisiting them revealed a lot more depth. And my reading of them grew with my understanding of the world. So I guess the experience is normal. And I wonder if I did not slug through those books at that time if I would have ever reached the insight I had on subsequent reading.
I am certain things from a good book stick with you, even if you don't recall it explicitly. It just lingers there in the back of your head, like bricks that are piled up on each other until you don't see them anymore but you do see the wall they form.
I agree as well and had a similar but slightly different experience. I think that some of the material that I read in high school was great; but not appropriate for my age. While reading that material in school, I was bored and frustrated because I did not have enough life experiences (and empathy) to understand the emotional delicacy that the piece was bringing to my mental palette.
When I grew up (just by a few years) and accidentally re - discovered a work that I hated in school, I found it extremely deep and thought provoking.
Maybe high school students are not a great audience for appreciating a lot of literature, at least I wasn't.
Any book or movie that I enjoy I end up doing a deep dive on it's author, their situation in life, what was going on in the world at the time it was written, etc just to get a context for what may have inspired the creation. Sometimes a single detail about someone's past can instantly click the meaning or moral or conflict they were trying to portray.
I never understand why we are forced to read so much of the literary canon. Most of it is so hard to read, and so unenjoyable. Many of them could be re-written in a more enjoyable way for young children, through teenagers. I am exactly like you: I hardly ever read for pleasure when I was younger unless there was a blatant bride ("award") awaiting me. Most of the time, I was underwater reading some garbage prose from 1850 that doesn't stay with me today.
As an alternative perspective, I am glad that my middle and high school curriculum included several works of Shakespeare, especially Macbeth and Hamlet, and several 19th century classics.
They really do require time, they’re hard to make time for, and while reading them wasn’t exactly fun, I’m glad that I did it. Many of the themes are timeless, the prose is elegant if difficult, and there are cultural references to these works everywhere.
They form a big part of the English speaking world’s cultural history. I think it’s worthwhile for children to be exposed to that history.
And if not then, when? I couldn’t make myself do the work now; I’m too busy and tired to read anything but easy/fun fiction after work. And I’m not sure I would have had the focus then if it hadn’t been assigned. Sometimes education isn’t fun or easy. That doesn’t make it less valuable.
My point is the prose is a huge turn-off for most people and serves very little purpose in a modern society. As I mentioned in my post, I recommend to re-write these titles using a prose that will be more appealing to the age group. You can keep all of the same lessons to be learned in the re-write. I do not support this idea that learning needs to be painful or needlessly difficult. For most people, success in education is a positive feedback loop: If you do average or well, you look forward to more of it. And vice versa: If you below average, you try to avoid it and see it as a chore. I'm not saying to dumb down everything, but this "pain == good learning" seems from the 1980s and before -- outdated.
> My point is the prose is a huge turn-off for most people and serves very little purpose in a modern society.
The commenter doth protest too much, methinks.
Which books of the canon did you read that you found to be garbage prose?
I wouldn't use the term "garbage prose", but I do agree that many books from the literary canon aren't the greatest choice to assign to kids.
Steinbeck and Faulkner come to mind.
I understand that they're important, influential, and well-written. But I just didn't relate to them. There was almost nothing about the main characters' challenges or desires that I could understand.
My son was assigned "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton - he didn't mind reading it, but he said he just didn't really relate to any of the characters. Even though it's set just 50 years ago, the culture it describes bares basically no resemblance to modern-day life for a teenager.
The Great Gatsby is the one that comes to my mind. How exactly is a modern high school student supposed to relate to any of the characters in this book? Even when I was reading it in school I kept stopping and questioning just what these characters even were. It felt like reading about aliens, totally disconnected from reality. I not only lacked the historical context, I didn't have enough social context to grasp the character motivations or actions.
The whole book was like the allegory of the cave.
Steinbeck is a close second, though. I had to read three of the man's books (The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, and Grapes of Wrath) and I don't think I enjoyed a single page of it. I remember finding a copy of The Pearl as an adult and being shocked it was less than 100 pages. We somehow extracted 18 weeks of discussion and essays and tests on that book. No wonder I hated it. We tortured every word of it.
“ My son was assigned "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton - he didn't mind reading it, but he said he just didn't really relate to any of the characters. Even though it's set just 50 years ago, the culture it describes bares basically no resemblance to modern-day life for a teenager.”
Maybe that’s ok? I read the Outsiders when I was young (25 years ago or so) and although I thought it was a bit weird, it wasn’t bad. My life bears little resemblance to many current contemporary people’s lives the world over, but exploring those differences can be good. I am all for giving the kids a chance to see a different world and get a sense of how things can change.
> I am all for giving the kids a chance to see a different world and get a sense of how things can change.
Not if you're discouraging children from reading as a hobby by assigning the driest works there are. With the exception of Faust, all 'homework books' were horribly dry and frankly boring. For example, The Sorrows of Young Werther - utterly irrelevant. I would understand any child or teenager who gave up on reading if they were forced to read books like these - and even worse, spend endless hours discussing and being tested on them.
1) There's no way to have a set of readings that every Xth grader is going to enjoy. It's just impossible. There is a wide range of interests and predispositions and reading ability among people of the same age. It's obvious just from this sub-thread; everyone pipes up with a different set of books they disliked in school and they therefore think no one should have to read. I loved reading Julius Caeasar in high school and hated The Catcher in the Rye. I loved Dandelion Wine and hated Absalom, Absalom. Them's the breaks.
2) Part of the point of reading literature is to see things from a different perspective. i.e. to read things that are not necessarily "relatable", and thereby possibly expand your mind about the range of human experience. It's an opportunity to learn about history and learn about cultures other than your own.
I hated Romeo and Juliet. Teachers loved to explain how this was so relevant to us teenagers and yet it’s two people in a deeply concerning relationship who die for each other for pretty stupid reasons. Modern interpretations are far more interesting.
I wouldn't say it's "garbage prose" but I read A Tale of Two Cities in school and found it impossible to form a mental image from the text in some parts.
I'm still struggling to understand what "Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail." means.
Look at what happened in 2008 with banks collapsing - by having runs upon them. This is being done via postal withdrawals here.
This isn't obscure.
Or more recently, the run on SVB last year where everyone started panicking that the bank was no longer able to hold its deposits, just because it announced that it had taken action to generate something like $40 billion in liquidity. And then the next day alone, customers withdrew $42 billion.
All of this was much worse during the Great Depression, before we had FDIC insurance guaranteeing deposits up to a certain threshold. If you've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life, it depicts a bank run during that era as George Bailey is about to go off on his honeymoon. (I remember my 6th grade history teacher describing this as we watched that movie around the holiday season.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_Silicon_Valley_Ban...
This is incredibly obscure for normal people. FDIC covers up to $250k, I believe per bank but don’t hold me to that.
You have to have a metric shit ton of cash laying around before you can’t be fully covered by FDIC stripes across a few banks.
Bank runs haven’t been a “normal person problem” in nearly 100 years (FDIC started in 1933 after the Great Depression bank runs).
Not really the media were covering it a lot in 2008 - Front page headlines in newspapers and first story on TV news.
Ok people did not lose money directly. But they were withdrawing from some banks (e.g. Northern Rock) and it made massive economic and political issues.
I wasn't familiar with the passage but having read it I think it means that the sounds and sights of the nighttime mail carriage ride made the bank messenger fantasize a run (i.e. an excess of customer withdrawals) upon his bank. The wider context is that the shadows of the night are cast as various phantoms in the minds of the people on the carriage, and even the horse pulling it:
> While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of HER private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road.
> What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested.
> Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger—with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt—nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them.
I actually think it's a really neat passage, it invokes the surreal more than I would expect from 19th century prose. Also, this part just before is very vivid and quite funny:
> Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.
Yeah I wasn't sure if the "run on the bank" had actually happened or not.
I agree: A lot of Dickens is nearly impossible to understand as a child. The re-writes are terrific and solid storytelling!
I would say I loathed hemmingway in school and really didn't grasp it at all until I was an adult. I love Hemingway
This is why instilling interest in reading is important, instead of killing it with the usual dry books.
Shakespeare and Chaucer were fucking awful. They did nothing but make me hate reading and English class. It took me years to enjoy reading after the "classics". Many of my classmates were similar.
Out elementary and middle schools have a no to low homework policy. By high school the most they assign to non AP courses is 15 min per class.
Only assignment is reading 30 min a night, any book they want (including graphic novels). Yet that does not foster a love of reading.
I had a ton of homework, but still read a book a week (though I did not do sports, only band, so had way more time than most mainstream students in that regard).
My reading waned when I had kids, basically as working parents I am always too exhausted to read, I always doze off. So I can’t set a good example, which I wonder if that is part of the problem — my mom was always reading.
15 mins x 7 periods so 2 hours of work after working from 7-3, some light sport or after school activity until 5. Home, dinner, and more work? Absurdity.
This isn't really advice, because ymmv, but young me just ignored homework (with minor exceptions).
I started programming at age 12, and that was more interesting. School was mostly boring so I didn't feel the need to extend it at home.
Looking back I recognise I was fortunate. My teachers didn't seem to over-mind (perhaps because I was well behaved and engaged in class, and did ok in tests). My parents didn't seem to mind as long as my teachers didn't complain too much.
I also now recognise that I went to a school with progressive values, good teachers, and a focus on flexibility (to a point).
I used to joke afterwards that I had a "unspoken agreement" with my teachers. They could hand out as much homework as they liked, and I would quietly ignore it all.
Yeah, and the worst part is that 15 minutes per class isn't enough to actually do any useful learning. It's just going to be two hours of pointless busy work.
I wouldn’t expect it to be 15 minutes from each class each night - more like a weekly assignment from each class that means each night you do 1 hour of one class, half an hour each of two others, rotating.
For many classes though, 15 minutes/night would be very useful. Language learning, for instance, or music practice. Most kids would benefit from 15 minutes of writing prose for any reason, and I think even high school math topics could provide 15 minutes of worthwhile practice questions each evening. All of these are things that you get better at with repeated practice.
> My reading waned when I had kids, basically as working parents I am always too exhausted to read, I always doze off. So I can’t set a good example
I don't know if you want to set a good example so this advixe is certainly unsolicited, but in my case reading really took off after having children. First when they were tiny and needed to be carried/pushed around which is great for reading, and now that they're toddlers and I'm in the habit, I squeeze it in where I can.
I hope we can read together more as they get older. I'm really looking forward to re-reading some classics like the Hobbit and the books about Narnia. For every year, the space of literature they are capable of expands massively.
Our? Where?
My kids had far more than that.
My 9 and 11 year olds have no real homework (primary school in Australia) which seems to be public school policy for this age group. Rarely, it's 10 minutes on one night in a week; they often ask for homework and are enthusiastic if given worksheets. They read for literally hours a day.
I read huge amounts as a kid but then lost the habit as an adult. It takes any number of habits and tricks to try and get it going again. Like someone upthread, I'm often fighting tiredness, and one trick that can work is prioritising reading in the morning and leaving news and social media for when I'm tired.
At the same age in southern California, my kids had what was supposed to be 1-2 hours of homework a night. Which was made worse by ADHD. And, additionally, I had to teach my son basic skills that school failed to teach him. Like spelling and his times table.
It was a disaster.
I attended school in Georgia (the US state) and it was similar for me at that age; their goal was to assign about an hour of homework each night.
By the time my sister reached that age (she is 10 years younger), it had gotten so much worse: they were aiming for about two hours of homework. It realistically took closer to 3 or 4, and with many tears shed, even with me and both our parents helping. (She has since been diagnosed with ADHD.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and I have both decided to not have children. Being a kid really fucking sucked then, and it's probably even worse now.
Not GP, but that's what we see in Menlo Park public schools.
I never really had any homework, or I never did it. I never read for pleasure either. I don't think it's that, but I get your point. Too busy = no time for reading for fun
Not just no time, but making even otherwise fun things mandatory with a volume that's overwhelming can suck the fun out of it and/or make it seem dull.
At one point I came to the realization that "reading is supposed to be fun". But it wasn't for me during school. At all. I hated every minute of it.
It made me wonder if children in the future will be forced to watch movies and play video games in their "literary education" and whether they will hate watching movies and playing games because of that.
Funnily enough I recently came across an online discussion asking why people used to like khan academy, when today “everyone hates it”. The poster was about 15, from memory, and apparently it was standard practice in their experience to use khan academy within classes or as assigned homework.
The thread seem to be missing even stronger case, that was true for me: making otherwise fun things mandatory, period. The volume doesn't matter; that a book was assigned as mandatory at all deterred me from reading it. Same with homework, which I was spectacularly good at avoiding.
Same here, absolutely. And the fact that that highly appraised literature seems to be mostly a fringey group of self-centered 'intellectuals' that think they're so important that their drivel must be spoon-fed to teenagers.
Yup. I initially thought that it would be a good idea for me to major in Computer Science. For some reason I majored in Finance after a few years of electrical engineering courses. I don't think I'd be programming today if I had to be force fed programming assignments.
Computer Science is actually kinda of lousy for teaching the things most programmers can do. To the point where if I was hiring, I'd rather hire someone who's less experienced and self-taught, but with some sort of "interesting" background, where "interesting" is almost anything that teach's critical thinking about abstract concepts and how to articulate ideas. Could be anything from a Journalism degree to someone who spent a decade working their way up the ranks of a machine shop from operator to foreman.
I can tell you the last time I had to write a singly-linked list implementation though. October 17th, Nineteen Ninety Never.
Well, a singly linked list is actually one of the most important data structure I've found :).
From there, one can modify it to implement tries.
And then one can understand trees, arborescences etc.
The rest is about algorithmic complexity (speed and size) which I never remember but that's easy to look it up.
It's true that someone who does simple frontend engineering (for example) might not need to know too much about that.
But for instance, it was just a couple weeks ago that I've realized a markov chain is just a bunch of linked lists (a DAG, Directed Acyclic Graph).
I've found Computer Science to be a very nice framework to think about the world.
Yes, but the most important lesson about data structures is to let someone smarter than me implement them, and just use the widely known, well documented, battled tested one.
I decided to jump on this bandwagon a while back and asked ChatGPT to do some tedious legwork for me with a bunch of geo-search primitives. I'll say the CS and general CS expertise came in very handy because boy this thing was wrong. Not obviously wrong but subtly and confidently wrong. :-)
Agreed. The things I look for most when hiring programmers (assuming they have a resume showing they have the skills) are attention to detail, empathy, and ability to communicate without feeling like I'm arguing all the time or pulling teeth.
Empathy tends to win here: you need to understand why people are using the software and how they are using it to make good decisions.
Communication tends to be better with people that have empathy.
> I can tell you the last time I had to write a singly-linked list implementation though. October 17th, Nineteen Ninety Never.
The point of writing (and working with) linked list implementations in a CS2 course is not because linked lists are something you'll have to implement yourself later (although there are certain areas of systems programming where return values of various system calls are, effectively, linked lists).
The point of working with LLs in CS2 is because they are an extremely simple data structure that you can inspect the entire implementation of; and their use of references/pointers gives practice with that concept before upgrading to the concepts of trees and (linked) graphs; and their fundamental structure and properties are so different from array-type list implementations that they provide a good first example of two different implementation strategies that can produce exactly the same output/result but with different space and time usage properties; and the parallel implementations are also a motivation for abstracting interface away from implementation and keeping data private and interface public.
So, that's why I teach linked lists in CS2. I try to be very up-front with my students about that; sorry to hear that your professors maybe weren't. I pretty solidly agree that a LinkedList per se is not particularly useful to a working software engineer; but that's not why we teach them.
Yes, I also find that physicists don't make the best auto mechanics. Mechanics never need to derive the equations of astronomical motion when repairing an engine block.
Why do you believe that Computer Science is less "critical thinking about abstract concepts and how to articulate ideas" than Journalism?
Having worked with CS people and having worked with journalists.
Is 30 minutes really the amount of novel reading we find unacceptable these days? I’m not asking quite as snarkily as that sounds.
Do you think the problem would be alleviated if the hours of class time were shorter and (maybe) handed over to a study hall period or even to just being sent home? In college I know the theory is supposed to be that one hour of class time equals two hours of homework (though that rarely happens in practice, in my American experience). But high school has far more hours of class time.
For me as a kid who loved reading and fell out of it by the time I finished school (and then re-found that love decades later), the biggest contributing factor wasn't 30 minutes of reading for school. It was forced reading of books that were uninteresting to me in the first place, and then having to engage with those books in a wholly artificial way.
There's a lot of interesting things to be gleaned from books and certainly expanding students horizons is not in and of itself a bad idea. But school reading is painful, whether it's 10 minutes or 4 hours. You're given pre-selected material with pre-selected lessons to be taken from that material. You are expected to write summaries that explain why the curtains in the foyer of this book were blue (regardless of whether there's actually a reason the author did that or if the lesson planner just hallucinated some meaning out of thin air), and then discuss obvious lessons in non-fiction materials as if there was any other purpose to writing the book in question except to present that lesson. Sometimes you're given books to read that match whatever the current hot social topic is, again without regard to the quality of the books, and then expected to regurgitate the correct opinions on that topic as if the book presented those opinions, and again without regard to what the book actually said (or failed to say).
Reading in schools is presented and treated with the rigor of a mathematical proof, and the soullessness of dispassionate scientific observation of dying rats. It should be no wonder that what that is the experience of children with reading, so many fail to find a hobby or pleasure in it. We don't seem surprised when most students don't do mathematical formulas in their spare time after learning it in school, why should reading be any different?
Everyone always complains about the "blue curtains". Did everyone but be ready the same book, or are you just repeating a meme? (for what purpose?)
But I do analyze literature and study mathematical formulas in my free time, so maybe I'm built different.
It's hard to say what school is doing in wrong when students aren't interested in study. Maybe the answer is to let the mom studious students leave school.
I can confirm, we ”analyzed” the color of the curtains in some novel I now forget. I believe they were, in fact, blue. The teacher was adamant details like that were always meaningful and certainly not just to paint a scene. It was far from the only instance of such “analysis”.
What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
>What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
I find it disappointing how poorly the lesson is taught. The question shouldn't be 'Why?' [The author did something] it should be "What?" [did the author do]. Whether they were colored for a purpose or not, what does the blueness of the curtains convey?[0]. The point then is to be able to generalize to 'what is this media conveying,' occasionally with intent[1], and 'how do I create media with my intended conveyance'.
[0]'Nothing in particular' is a valid answer, that the protagonist's favorite color was blue could be another.
[1]e.g. in a commercial: actors, wardrobe, setting, et al are all very intentionally selected to convey the message 'this product will make your life better' or similar.
> What we actually learned from those lessons was that English/literature class was a waste of time and how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep, which I guess is a useful skill.
Same in german. Die Leiden des jungen Werther - dry, boring, irrelevant.
> how to craft complete bullshit that sounds deep,
and now we have chatgpt to do that!
It's certainly possible that "blue curtains" specifically is a memetic reference that I've absorbed via osmosis, but the experience of having to analyze minute details to a ridiculous extent was very much a true one, regardless of the specifics of the example.
I feel like the "blue curtains" problem with reading in schools is akin to the "shape -> rectangle -> square" problem that early OOP education has. It might be a very basic and simple attempt to explain a concept (inheritance in the case of OOP, symbolism in the case of books), but its simplicity and inoffensive genericness is so overwhelmingly devoid of any of the usefulness that the concept brings that its more harmful to the students than helpful.
I've long argued that programing courses are broken. They present a concept with a hugely simplified model, and then tell you when you don't understand why you'd want to do it that it will make more sense when you build a "real" program. I think they would be better served in a lot of ways by having you write "real" code the hard way first, and then introducing the concepts that OOP (and other patterns) benefit from by showing how those things address the very real pain points the programers experienced. A sort of "in medias res" method of teaching.
I think something similar applies to a lot of the way literature concepts are taught in schools. Boring books that don't connect with the readers and students are assigned, and then terrible examples that are either overly contrived (blue curtains) or blindingly obvious (the bad guy kicks the puppy which shows he's bad) that they just turn the students off. There's no excitement or interest nurtured into the concepts because the taught examples are so lifeless and far removed from what is actually possible.
>It's hard to say what school is doing in wrong when students aren't interested in study. Maybe the answer is to let the mom studious students leave school.
My personal opinions on the matter are
1) "too much mandatory study". Yeah when they're adults, they'll need to work 8 hour jobs, but kids need time to be kids and they need time to let the things they're learning sink in and discover real world applicability in their own lives. 6-7 hours of schooling + 1-3 hours of homework + projects + "extra curricular" programs adds up to a lot of time where students don't have any time to find anything interesting in what they've learned before they're shuffled off to the next things. School is stressful enough when you're just learning, but all the other stuff that's piled on and the regimented testing just burns them out. I was turned off of math courses for half of my schooling because 2nd grade math was full of timed tests in which failures were punished by loss of recess time.
2) Related to that, recognize that education is highly individual and offer more tailored schooling. I had friends who were held back from advanced classes where they would have been challenged and engaged because early in elementary school they performed poorly on a handful of standardized tests and were locked forever in the "standard" track. So much of what you want to teach as a skill can be taught via multiple different avenues, and we should offer schooling that takes advantage of that. Literary concepts like foreshadowing, metaphor, symbolism etc can be taught via film, books, poetry, games and even music. Why does every student then need to go through the same literary courses with the same set of books to learn the material? Math concepts can be taught with money, or physics, or chemistry or computer programming or wood working. Why does everyone need to go through the same math textbook?
The most memorable teachers I ever had were the ones that stepped outside the books. The ones that explored teaching a concept from multiple angles, and who understood that often it was necessary to let the students see the deep end of the pool to get them interested in learning to swim at all. Those teachers worked well for me. They didn't work for others. And some teachers that I found staid and boring and that failed to leave me with any love for the subject they were teaching were ones that connected with other classmates. But we were all crammed into the same set of lessons with the same teacher and teaching styles.
Education smothered my love for reading by forcing me to read material that didn't connect with me and analyze and report on that material in a way that was unnatural for me. The ember that was able to be rekindled was only kept alive by the occasional tending of a teacher that would from time to time allow me to step outside the box to engage with books the way that worked for me. I was lucky in that regard. Many students aren't and that's a shame.
Disclaimer: I live in The Netherlands; perhaps the situation is different in the US. It would be great if it was.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on your wishes. I didn't necessarily have the same experiences, but that's mostly beside the point. But as a very junior university teacher:
> programing courses are broken [...] I think they would be better served in a lot of ways by having you write "real" code the hard way first, and then introducing the concepts that OOP (and other patterns) benefit from by showing how those things address the very real pain points the programers experienced.
There is no time. I want to teach what you say, and as a student I wanted to be taught what you say, but that takes more time, especially if you want to cater for the whole class — that "the hard way" programming is less efficient than doing it the right way, unsurprisingly, so it takes more time (not only that, you're asking them to do the same assignment twice, which is anathema — no time for that!), and the curriculum is already chock full.
> My personal opinions on the matter are: 1) "too much mandatory study".
Sure, but then you have even less time. You'll make the previous problem worse.
> 2) Related to that, recognize that education is highly individual and offer more tailored schooling.
Yes, everyone knows this would be good, but there is no money and there are no teachers. Skilled primary school and high school teachers are incredibly hard to find, and even if you'd find them, there is no money to pay for more teachers than we have now.
Yeah, I have family and friends who are teachers, definitely aware that there's no time. Fundamentally the modern way we deal with education is broken. It's not even mostly the funding, but the way we try to measure it, package it and distill it and spread it around equally. The only way to do that is the same way McDonalds does, strip it down to the barest essentials done by rote , crammed into as small a time unit as possible with as little variation as possible. It works, but it has all the same problems.
Education as a whole needs a re-work in how we approach it, for many reasons but also to make time for this sort of careful nurturing; even if it means we don't cover as many things. We can no more teach all the children all the things in 18 years than we could have them listen to all the music ever produced in that same time. And to my mind then we'd be better served doing everything we can to nurture and encourage children's natural curiosity and desire to learn and do on the absolutely necessary of the things necessary that will quash that curiosity.
How do we do that? I don't know. I have thoughts, but there are certainly going to be no easy answers, and decades of bureaucracy and infrastructure around the current system will not go quietly even if we had the answers in the first place.
Several high school teachers I know don't assign long reading sessions because their students are dealing with some kind of unstable home life (or are homeless) and don't have an appropriate setting for it outside of class. That is, they avoid it because it injects a class bias into their grades.
Given that, making space within the school day for such things seems like a good idea.
That's quite the cartwheel in front of the horse!
I suggest removing the competitive grading system, and adding more hours to the school day, not removing the educational opportunity.
It's not so much about competition between the students as it is about competition between the schools.
If your curriculum puts economically disadvantaged students at an academic disadvantage, and your school has many of such students, then your school ends up with less funding because your students do poorly on tests compared with the well off schools. So if you want to help the students you've got, you come up with curriculum that doesn't penalize them for having jobs, kids, or other outside-of-class reasons that they can't sit down and read at length.
A teacher can't exactly do that now, can they.
Half an hour is fine, it’s really the cumulative volume. If a kid has 7 classes and each gives half an hour of homework, that’s 3.5 hours of homework. Add on the classes and they’re “working” 11.5 hours a day or 57.5 hours per week, every week.
That would be concerning for adults, it’s well into burnout territory. Then we want to act surprised when kids don’t want to read on their own and only want to play video games, as if all us adults are working 60 hour weeks and then excited to keep doing our job in our free time.
My novel approach would be to cut out a bunch of shit that kids don’t strictly need and hope that gives them the time and freedom to explore those things on their own.
We do not need 12 years of history classes. They’re nice to know, but widely forgotten anyways. That could probably be cut to like 4; I do not and will never need to know about Sumerian burial rites.
We do not need most of the flowery English classes. Reading comprehension is important, identifying symbolism is not. No one has ever asked me to check if an email contains a motif.
Much of our science classes are generally useless; chemistry comes to mind. I have never, even once, used anything I learned in chemistry. I know too little to do anything practical with it, and yet it was a year long class.
The other option would be to just kill summer break and use that time for teaching instead of homework. I don’t care for that, though. In a decade we’ll be back to having homework and summer break isn’t going to come back.
I would dissagree on the chemistry. A working knowledge of chemistry is quiet valuable in the kitchen. Understanding of the maillard reaction, or of caramelization is useful for making better tasting food. I keep pH strips in my kitchen for use in making ferments, understanding chemistry will make it intuitive which foods to cook on cast iron or not to because the acids will eat the pans seasoning. Knowledge of polymerization lets know you can wash the cast frying pan despite the folk wisdom to the contray.
I had AP classes in high school and a 20 hour a week part time job - easily 10 hours a day on the week days including homework and ongoing projects. So at 17 I was working 70 hours a week. College was more of the same - honors classes and projects.
I graduated college and was like "I only have to work 40 hours a week? What's the catch?"
I don't know if I agree with your cynicism.
One thing that standardized education does is guarantee that the majority of people will be somewhere findable within the middle of the bell curve of the social status quo.
You know the same things that your neighbor knows, within a reasonable margin of error. Therefore, you have social compatibility with them.
You feel that if you took the money out of the equation, you could rub shoulders with Biden and Bezos, Musk, Gates and Powell and not be too far out of your own depth.
That's valuable, right?
To get that, you had to go through the same 12 years of history and bored idiot English teachers telling you about symbolism and metaphor and giving you terrible 5 paragraph essays to fill out with the same dumb rote formula.
If you look at the overall social outcome, for the majority, this is a good thing.
If, however, it turns out that you are special and of a rare breed, then for your own children you should hire private tutors or school them overseas or do something somehow to cultivate their greatness.
If you can show us a better path we'll start to move towards it, but until then accept the fact that there are thousands of minor and major pleasantries provided by standardized education that you get to enjoy every day as a matter of course thanks to the social conditioning it provided.
> One thing that standardized education does is guarantee that the majority of people will be somewhere findable within the middle of the bell curve of the social status quo.
I’m not saying that we completely get rid of public education, just that we stop appending things to it and pretending they’re important.
Nobody remembers most of this alleged common ground anyways. Go ask around what the 5th amendment says, or what a high pH means, I’d be shocked if a quarter of people remembered.
> You feel that if you took the money out of the equation, you could rub shoulders with Biden and Bezos, Musk, Gates and Powell and not be too far out of your own depth.
Sure, if we’re talking about something covered in high school, but for any topic I’d be realistically interested in hearing them talk about, no. Why would me or Bill Gates want to discuss symbolism in Catcher in the Rye? I’m certainly not going to talk to Musk about chemistry; I’m doubtful he’s a through and through rocket engineer, but his tangential knowledge likely trumps my very limited recollection of valence bands and I have no idea how that relates to the energy density of rocket fuel.
This is just a veneer of equality we tell ourselves. Sure, we’re all equal in the sense that we’ve largely ignored our high school education and probably haven’t really advanced our biology knowledge.
That doesn’t imply that we’re all going to sit around and suddenly want to talk about that instead of rockets or operating systems or investment strategies; I am not on the same part of the bell curve for the topics that make them interesting.
> If you can show us a better path we'll start to move towards it, but until then accept the fact that there are thousands of minor and major pleasantries provided by standardized education that you get to enjoy every day as a matter of course thanks to the social conditioning it provided.
I don’t disagree there are pleasantries, but at what cost? We’re pushing children into working near-slavery workloads, with no recourse to change that, and our means of motivating them is primarily threatening their entire future if they don’t play along.
It’s like the worst job in the world; Amazons warehouses look like a vacation comparatively.
Children can’t switch schools on their own like adults can switch jobs. Children’s records follow them when they do switch, so they can’t escape even if they switch schools. I’ve never had HR records follow me across companies. And any employer that tried to control their employees by threatening to ruin the entire rest of their lives would have the NLRB crawl up their ass and build a branch office.
We’re trading the happiness of children for what? Me and my neighbor having equally shitty recall of the French and Indian war?
I still remember being in high school, and I still remember how miserable it was. I remember kids showing up with huge bags under their eyes because they had to go into “crunch time” and work til midnight because they got a bunch of big assignments at once.
I remember meeting most of my high school classmates and how bright eyed and cheery we were. I also remember senior year, and how many of those smiles had faded into blank, exhausted stares.
I remember the kids who had problems in their family lives whose personalities either disappeared or curdled into sour milk as they tried to cope with 60 hour weeks and just didn’t have the spare time and energy to try to process their parents divorce.
I remember the suicides and addiction the most though. The kids that had bottomed out so hard they would do anything they could to escape the loop of stress, failure, threats about their future, and back to the beginning. The only options we offer them are death or complete desperation, and some kids picked one because they just couldn’t do it anymore.
There were multiple suicides while I was in high school. 3 that I can recall, and one kid that ran away from home and overdosed while sleeping in a public park.
It’s awful for the kids that die, and it’s awful for the kids left behind who now have to figure out how to emotionally process a friend’s suicide while working 60 hour weeks knowing full well that college admissions won’t give 2 shits about why their GPA was low that quarter.
The highschool was ranked in the top 50 public schools in the US when I attended. This wasn’t a backwater dump wrecked by phasing out coal, this was a school held up as an example for other schools.
I don’t find nearly enough value in making a neat bell curve to put kids through that. I wouldn’t put adults through that, and the existence of unions tells me that others feel the same way. Unions would pitch a huge fit over the least egregious of our expectations of children.
I still disagree with you.
There are enormous flaws in public education, some of which you have addressed, but eliminating the study of history and english is going to do bupkis to address any of that.
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, stated that living in a warbound society:
"In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Obviously, our governments are always in war. Our schools are always in war. Millions to the football stadiums and rarely even pennies for the arts. Churn out grist for the malady mill and milk the survivors of every drop of value. Every business and enterprise of man is but war in a capitalist society.
Taking away the seeds of the arts because they might not grow into more juice for the war machine is at best a shortsighted thought and at worst the hateful demands of a small and selfish person. They didn't benefit you, but others they do.
The flaw in public education that I'm trying to address is its tendency to grow to occupy any potential free time, largely because children are powerless to prevent that.
> Taking away the seeds of the arts because they might not grow into more juice for the war machine is at best a shortsighted thought and at worst the hateful demands of a small and selfish person. They didn't benefit you, but others they do.
I haven't the faintest interest in taking away access to art or English or history. I don't generally believe in removing access to things. I am interested in not forcing a vulnerable and powerless group to donate their time to the cause of "keeping art/English/history alive" if they don't want to.
There is some subset of knowledge that is a practical requirement for being able to navigate society. People need to know enough English to communicate, enough math to make change, enough science to have a basic understanding of the world we exist in. Those are basically untouchable if we want society to continue functioning.
Art knowledge is not a necessity for living a normal life. A person can pursue an immense number of paths in their life without ever encountering a requirement to know things about art. It's honestly notable for someone to have encountered a situation where they needed or were aided by having taken art classes. Creative writing and the analysis of creative writing are much the same.
If hours in the day were limitless, or children stayed children for longer, I'd agree with you. Knowledge of art has value, as does creative writing and history; I firmly believe that all knowledge has some degree of value.
I do not agree in light of what we're putting children through. Something has to give, and it's either going to be the school workload or children's mental health. The teen suicide rate has nearly doubled since 2000, and I don't feel like playing a game of chicken with rising suicide rates to preserve art or ancient history or creative writing or like a dozen other things.
Give the kids back their free time and I'm sure a lot of them will gravitate towards art or creative writing naturally. They naturally appeal to a lot of kids and people, if we'd just give them the room to get there themselves instead of force-feeding them a list of Baroque artists to make flashcards out of.
It seems like you would be better served in a Montessori or similar education system.
I had a lot of issues with public education in my life. I don't regret the information I learned, no matter how trivial, but I do regret the time wasted, being a student who easily absorbed the entirety of the semesters knowledge for all non-stem classes by reading the book in the gap before classes started.
I would have appreciated being able to go further faster rather than wait for my classmates to make it to the starting line.
That being said, school isn't just about knowledge. We live in a society and we have to have a standard by which to relate to one another. Like it or not, our fellow humans are dark forests with gaping maws yearning to devour us, and we are the same to them.
Without some trauma bonding, some common fountain from which we draw our waters, we would willingly or not destroy one another until only our little clans remained.
Modern society has blinded us to the travails of our forefathers, where the people who live a few miles away might rise up and slay us if they have a bad harvest one year.
That we have come so far as to reduce the occasional rampages down to traumatic school experiences is quite amazing from a neutral third party viewpoint, even though it definitely doesn't feel that way from someone who has experienced it firsthand, but compared to being murdered and eaten by the person who happened to be my classmate, getting picked on and feeling some long term anger over the situation is vastly preferable to me.
All of that aside, we can do better. That much is obvious. We could do better easily if we could get everyone on the same page and standard, and make the standard "Maximally educated according to your individual ability" so that it would adapt to the learners potential rather than being concerned with the easier to manage yet still brobdingnagianly difficult standard of "minimally viable high school graduate".
> rediscovered reading
Any tips? I didn't, somehow. After leaving high school, then university, my brain went into full on "be productive all the time" mode. My brain somehow doesn't think reading is a good use of my time, so I've settled for audiobooks when falling asleep or on long drives.
The last book I was able to devour and actually enjoyed was the Harry Potter series, which ended just before I went to university.
Setting aside time for relaxation and leisure activities is highly productive, but unfortunately that isn't something that becomes obvious until your work visibly suffers from "all work and no play". The costs of overworking yourself truly are insidious. It really is akin to a rogue wave - you don't know how deep it runs until it finally hits.
It sounds like you enjoy books, the problem is convincing yourself you deserve to take time to read them. To quiet that anxiety:
> The habit of reading is a meaningful way to meditatively intake large portions of information. Reading helps with creativity, focus, and communication. Reading light-hearted, entertaining books increases these skills while preserving focus for work in a way that reading the latest O'Reilly book does not, while making reading non-fiction books in the future easier because you've been practicing reading.
Separately, humans are not machines. In general, we aren't wired to constantly be doing things, and taking time to play or to enjoy stories or to do absolutely nothing is an entirely necessary maintenance task.
Removing joy and rest from your life for productivity is the biological equivalent of accumulating technical debt. This debt can intensify until you need a complete rewrite; when this happens, it's called burn out, and it's kinda really bad.
> the problem is convincing yourself you deserve to take time to read them
This hits home in so many more ways than just reading. I find it hard to do any leisure activities because doing them means I have spare time to do any of a thousand items on my personal backlog. It's very stressful.
the average audio book is 10 hours long. let's say reading a book takes 10 hours. then you only need 20 minutes per day to read one book per month. it should not be hard to find that time.
what you say suggests that you have a backlog of non-leisure activities that you feel are more important.
i solved this by making leisure activities more important. call it work-life balance if that helps. leisure is part of a healthy day. i started going for a daily walk for exercise. i considered important for my well being. i watch one tv show per day. and only one. i simply decided that is part of a healthy routine. and i made a list of what i want to watch so i don't waste that hour on random stuff. i still do spend more time on random stuff, eg youtube, but that is a different problem. when i run out of time, i stop wasting time on youtube, but i don't stop that one tv episode. i figure i have earned the break after being busy for a day. i should do the same with listening to audiobooks/stories but i haven't been able to re-establish that routine yet.
One key thing is: don't feel like you have to suffer through reading an entire book if you don't like it. If it's a chore to read it, find something else - different author, or different type of book.
I would add: don't try to convince yourself that you actually like this book because it has great reviews or your friends recommended it. Plenty of novels with great reviews are actually trash (IMO, of course, but also in yours, which is the point). Admit to yourself that you don't actually like it and that's OK.
Giving up on a shitty book feels the same as cancelling plans that you don’t want to do. Feels great.
If you need shitty books to practice giving up on, I can autograph and send you some books written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author who shares my name and writes terrible books. Email in profile.
| Any tips?
Here's a trick that helped me after a ten+ year hiatus and having my attention fried by social media:
A lot of people who have lost their attention span to technology will find themselves reading but not absorbing, their mind wandering, until they realize they'd "read" 3 pages and don't remember what happened.
So read slow and with purpose, but most importantly at the end of each page, ask yourself what you just read and have a conversation with yourself about it. This helped rebuild my comprehension and focus. This is similar to how English classes will read a book as a class: Reading then discussion, reading then discussion. But instead of as a group, do it as an internal dialogue.
One of the things that helped me was to have an actual dialog with the book.
For non-fiction books, this means pushing back against claims that appear to be unsupported. When I read in a paper book I do so with a pen to make notes in it (I don't sell my books, and I obviously don't do this with library books), but ebooks just get marked up in my ebook reader and it's very nice. It's also good when reviewing a book because I can see all of my thoughts and questions and often can answer them by the end of the chapter/section/unit.
For fiction books, this ends up being a "what would I do there/what would an ordinary person do?" It's very helpful to try and place yourself in the character's shoes and see how you may have reacted differently or if you agree with the character understanding _why_ you agree with them.
i got the same problem with audiobooks. if my mind is occupied i have to relisten, sometimes multiple times, until i can focus enough.
it does depend on the writing style though. it happens more when the story is difficult to understand.
I could never do audiobooks for that reason. It was simply too easy to get distracted.
it takes some practice. and i find it's more difficult with short stories because there every detail counts. if you miss a few details from a longer book, it tends to matter less.
and then while listening i need to do an activity that doesn't require mental focus.
so i can't sit in front of the computer, unless it is mundane photo editing or some other repetitive task that doesn't make me think.
going for a walk and housework work for me. especially housework. there is nothing else i can do while washing dishes, cooking, doing laundry or cleaning. the work doesn't require much focus, and is quite repetitive. that makes listening easy.
I would up vote trying audiobooks. They are great for traveling, also cleaning up and other chores. Classic narrators make everything fun to listen to. There are voices for lulling you to sleep. Others to make the stories exciting. The Harry Potter books have two narrators -they are both great, in different ways. Lord of the rings is much more fun in audiobook format. Try to find audiobooks read by Simon Vance, for example - he reads the Master and Commander series, and the original James Bond series. Have fun.
Well, first, audiobooks totally count.
Have you tried Dungeon Crawler Carl?
Crazy timing, I'm listening to that series now, it's great!
It's my favorite. I've listened to all the books 6+ times.
The Bobiverse series ("We are Legion (We Are Bob)") is also very good and kind of along the same style.
Oh yeah, I've listened to all of this and some of Dennis E. Taylor's other stuff, as well. I've also listened to all of ExFor and everything Andy Weir, almost everything narrated by Travis Baldree, too.
Its the next blockbuster series. If my mother, who claimed murderbot was too complicated and has never played video games loved it... the series has legs.
Try Brandon Sanderson novels.
General change to my habits has been that if I’m not feeling a story, it’s okay to put it down. The amount of reading I have trudged through because I was afraid of quitting…
Brando Sando or Wheel of Time :)
Or David Eddings, or Tad Williams etc. :) All these fantasy stuff are what kept me reading.
Although nowadays I read more manuals and research papers.
Or the occasional online xuanhuan novel.
I suggest Stephen King as a reintroduction for general audiences (since a lot of people have a hard time vibing with high fantasy, I know I do).
He's not the greatest writer of all time, but he's enjoyable while not feeling like you're reading YA or something age inappropriate. And his classics are classics for a reason.
Can't go wrong with Carrie, The Stand, Misery, The Shining or Salem's Lot.
>> rediscovered reading
> Any tips?
> The last book I was able to devour and actually enjoyed was the Harry Potter series
Actually, it was Harry Potter that got me back into reading. I read the first 5 books over the course of 2 weeks the summer after I graduated college.
In some cases I'd see an interview on late night television and read the book the guest was promoting. More recently I read a book that was discussed on the radio during my commute.
In other cases, there was a subject I wanted to learn about, so I'd read books about the subject, or biographies on people who were known in the subject matter.
Sometimes I'll see a movie / TV show based on the book, and like it enough to read the book.
And: J. K. Rowling's new series about Coroman Strike (written under a pseudonym) is excellent. Read it slowly, though. I'm also slowly re-reading Harry Potter to my kids and it's a lot more enjoyable in bits instead of as a binge.
Seconding the "audiobooks count" that Imzadi said, I'd like to note that the Martian audiobook is exceptional, and I've heard that others by Weir are excellent as well.
You might enjoy reading _short_ novels. I really liked the "All Systems Red" series, each of them feels short enough to read in a day. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, you might also enjoy the Invisible Library series, or maybe the Harry Dresden novels. They both felt like fun-pulpy romps through magical worlds.
Maybe you can convince your brain that reading at bedtime is a good use of time because it promotes healthy sleeping by not being on a screen. ;) (It hasn't worked for me, I still have a backlog two shelves long.)
i loved Project Hail Mary. read it in a book club where we pick a new book each month. totally helps finding new stuff to read.
reading at bedtime doesn't work for me because i fall asleep in the middle and then i have to figure out what i missed.
I'm not an avid reader, but I've rediscovered reading in the past couple years. A few tips that help me:
1) Keep a list of book recommendations mentioned from HN, podcasts, friends, etc. Eventually, some will be recommended twice or more, and that may be enough to tell your brain "this will be worth it."
2) Try non-fiction if you're usually a fiction person, or vice versa. I grew up enjoying only fiction. But now I realize I enjoy non-fiction a lot more.
3) Don't stick with boring books for more than a couple chapters. I've been using thriftbooks.com, so it's affordable to toss a few dollars away and try again.
Maybe it's a problem of taste? Maybe you don't like the books you've tried to read because of the contents of the book?
From what's popular these days I think you should try reading: The Martian and Cradle. If you don't like it then stop reading and go for something else.
If you want to try a lot of different stuff I would recommend trying web novel on sites like RoyalRoad, Web novel, Scribblehub. Just pick something, read a bit. If you don't like it, find something new.
- Try something entertaining instead of something useful. Pick books out of interest, not out of pragmatism or obligation. If a book doesn't work for you, try another.
- Make it a special time. Start your bedtime routine early, light some candles, make tea and have a go at it. Or sit in a nice café, or after a nice picnic. I love reading myself to sleep, or with tea on the balcony in the morning.
- Remove distractions. I read on a disconnected iPad with no internet and no apps except for reading and notetaking.
If you want to put it in productivity-over-everything terms, reading before sleep is a really good way to wind down and get solid sleep. It's also a great way to build vocabulary, get different perspectives, and enjoy idle time without doomscrolling.
Read when you're fresh (set your alarm earlier and read before you get out of bed) rather than when you're tired at the end of the day. Use a habit tracking app (mine is Streaks on iOS). If tired, walking around the house while reading ticks off pages and steps. Read books you like; quit anything that you feel is a waste of time. Read while eating breakfast if it's not antisocial. Pick shorter books to get momentum (Old Man and the Sea, Into the Wild). Read on your phone, so it's always an option. Put your Books app prominently on the home screen and relegate social media apps out of view.
Regarding time reading is faster than listening. Also way more efficient than movies, series or video games. I can’t play story based video games anymore like Witcher 3 because at one point I’m like I’m wasting so much time compared if I was just reading the book.
Also books are less isolating than listening, for example if you are in a park with nature sounds.
If you enjoyed The Expanse you could try the last 3 books. If you haven’t read for a long time it’ll be hard at first to stay focused but by the middle of the book you should hopefully get the feeling of wanting to pick the book anytime like a new episode of the show just dropped.
I wouldn't call audiobook "settling", I enjoy them more than books with a great narrator.
What got me back into reading was Harry Potter. I hadn't read a book for fun since middle school and had grown to loathing reading of any kind from all the assigned reading. (just give me the cliff notes).
HP was new, all the rage, and wife convinced me to give it a try (she had always been an avid reader). I had maybe 3 books to catch up on and I read them all back to back and was eagerly awaiting the 4th. We'd do midnight releases and each buy our own book and didn't sleep till we were through.
another vote for audio books.
i was an avid reader in my youth but stopped when i entered university (and got a computer (guess where i spend most of my time instead of reading books ;-))
about a decade ago i discovered audiodrama, short story audio magazines and finally whole audiobooks. i mostly listened to them on my commute. later when i had no commute i started going for walks (to get out of the house and move) and i also listen during housework or other mundane tasks. i tried listening before going to sleep, but that didn't work because i would doze away and miss sections while hearing others. that meant hi had to relisten the next day to catch what i missed.
i get about an hour of listening time on average, sometimes two, when i have a good daily routine, less otherwise.
one hour per day is enough to listen to 2-3 books per month. i alternate between all three types so i usually only get one book in a month, sometimes less. but that adds up too. my reading list has almost 80 titles. with an average of 10 hours per book you can finish a whole book in a month with only 20 minutes per day.
My reading dropped off for years until I got a kindle. The kindle made reading way more convenient and portable. Totally changed my life.
In my mid twenties I had a mundane 30 minute commute in a crowded London tube which meant no internet (maybe thats different now). I cranked through so many books in that ~2 year timespan.
Quit your job.
It's not reasonable to do a cognitively demanding job all day and then expect to do cognitively demanding leisure at night. Unemployed people are great readers.
I can use all the books I’ve finished to keep myself and my family warm this winter!
Yeah, don't read "worthy" stuff, or things to enlighten yourself, find your particular brand of entertaining trash and mindlessly consume it.
I recommend bad litrpg and progression fantasy personally. Mother of Learning is a good one to start, it's free on royalroad.com or available on Kindle.
Absolutely agree. The definition of "worthy" comes from a narrow group of haughty English majors. That may be your thing, but there's a huge world of non-worthy stuff out there.
Those chinese cultivation novels are my guilty pleasures. I still look for a good translation, but they what I reach for when I just want to pass the time (and they're really long).
Find a nice local book store and go have a look around at what looks interesting to you.
If you're into fiction, can I suggest looking for short story magazines in your preferred genre. Look novels are great and all, and I love devouring a book that really hooks into me, but the modern publishing landscape is full of 500+ page books that are part 3 of a 48 book series. That can be overwhelming and certainly difficult to drag yourself into if you're not in the habit of reading.
Sort story magazines introduce you to multiple authors and multiple stories, most of which could be read in 30 minutes before bed, and give you a chance to enjoy reading for fun without committing to a who "extended universe" of material you feel like you have to know.
If SF&F is your preferred genre, "Asimov's", "Analog", and "Fantasy and Science Fiction" are old staples that are still being published. "Locus", "Lightspeed" and "Strange Horizons" are also options, with Lightspeed and Strange Horizons being relative newcomers to the field. weightlessbooks.com carries a couple of those and some magazine in other genres too if SF&F aren't your jam.
This was my experience as well. Loved reading when I was younger, but lots of assigned reading from elementary onward poisoned the well, so to speak.
In retrospect, it's surprising how rigid the required reading was at my school: no choice in the material whatsoever, so the most important engine that drives reading (curiosity) was held out of the equation.
I think a lot of it is what goes on at home (surprise, this is basically for all education). I know I did reading as part of my schoolwork and homework. The reading I most remember was during the summer. A few were summer work related and needed reports, but the book choice was open ended. Many were not school related but encouraged by my parents.
As an adult who does a gargantuan amount of reading for a living - while work is busy i cannot fathom reading for fun but during breaks I start up again. To me this is all quite sensible and a bit bit of support for the argument we need to slow everything down a bit. Fix work-life balance accross the board.
When can we change our education to promote better educational outcomes instead of training for the test or alternatively being devoid of fundamental knowledge/skills? It feels like we should be progressing in this area much faster then we are. Yes - i know - its way to broad of a question.
I'm sure it's more complicated than this but something that definitely has had an influence -- when budgets for a school district are determined by how many students pass vs being left behind, there is an outsized incentive to prepare students for the test instead of for more broadly reasoning or for enjoying the practice of learning.
Some of us determined that school is something to be avoided. To squeak through it with absolutely minimal effort. Never do the assigned reading. Never do the homework.
Which leaves mountains of free time (an irreplaceable commodity, you will agree) for reading whatever the heck you like.
I like science fiction.
And what is the value of that homework for learning?
Close to zero! A lot of the time it is done wrong, which just cements wrong ideas that need to be unlearned.
It's only jobs are to be PR about how rigorous school is, and to hurt underprivileged kids whose parents can't help with homework. :(
> Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.
Probably this, but also this. Kids don't even show up for school post-pandemic
36% of NYC public school students were chronically absent last school year
https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2023/9/6/23862246/nyc-publ...
I also went to a private college prep school, and the workload was practically abusive at times. I remember some days when I’d work on homework during class, get home, then continue working on homework clear until 3 or 4 AM. Then it was back up at 6 AM to go back to school. Some nights were light and I got to bed at 12p-1a. The weekends following the hard weeks were mostly nonexistent because I was unconscious for most of them.
Surprise, surprise - when you work somebody 60-80 hours a week they don't find things fun when they get home and are just trying to recover.
I confess I mostly just read cliffsnotes and sparksnotes. Felt a little guilty about it at first, but it helped me ace the tests, and saved a ton of time.
Very true. Here's Dr Johnson:
>What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.
> And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my homework?
Not to mention that we're reading right now...
It’s not just homework it’s outside activities… but also the time spent at class is often wasted so there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.
Indeed. My love for reading went Gone With The Wind.
That's not exactly a new phenomenon though. "Decline by 9" is a comparatively new thing.
I avoided all optional English class in school. But I still read at least one book a week, sometimes two.
> Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.
Yeah. My nine years old goes to a school where there's no homework. She now reads a lot: kids at school all shares any cool book they read and then they all want to read it. Today she brought back a brick and started reading it. She devours book.
I stopped reading books because of mandatory reading.
When I graduated from high school one of the thoughts on my mind during the ceremony was "YES!! I will n e v e r have to read books again!!"
I also stopped reading around age 9-10 for fun.
My 'favorite' book during school was Crime and Punishment. I didn't like the book, but I knew the teachers liked it. So if it ever came up I 'liked it very much'.
Many years after school anime -> manga -> light novels -> web novels got me back into reading. Now I spend far too much time on reading, but I don't think I will ever read fiction in my native language again.
Funny, my 4th grader has basically zero homework. She goes to a 'good' public school in Silicon Valley, for reference.
Same, but in our case he's doing it all in class. The kids that can't get it done or choose other activities are taking it home.
I had plenty of assigned reading and half-assed it because high school classwork was not hard l remotely hard. Writing an acceptable book report was trivial with only some brief scanning.
I still read for fun, but stuck to fiction.
> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back things from the backlist. There’s not anything like that right now for the middle-grade age group.”
This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
> Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
At 9 I had no idea how to go into a massive thing like a library and make a selection for myself. "Word of mouth" made a lot of choices for me when I was young.
Weird. At 9 I randomly picked whatever looked interesting. If I liked it, I proceeded to read every single other thing by that author.
There was no "word of mouth" because I was the only kid in my class who read for pleasure.
When I was that age my teacher had a thing where reading something like 3 books got you out of a lot of homework and your parent had to sign a paper listing what you read and you turned it in.
As a kid who already hated school, and used reading as an escape from a pretty shit childhood, I was clocking in 5 books a week.
The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.
Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.
> The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.
> Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.
Lessons learned:
a) Incentives matter (economy 101)
b) If a market offers possibilities for arbitrage, market participants will attempt to make use of them.
c) By market laws, arbitrage opportunities will close very fast, so in the long term, markets can be assumed to be arbitrage-free.
d) Goodhart's law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
e) Authorities (or those in power) will attempt to cheat you. Don't trust them.
Oh I mean what was the intended lesson from the teacher. Read less?
I guess the lesson is "don't over deliver" :)
In high school we had to make a list of 12 books we read in the year. I was reading a few a week. My list contained 12 books.
(Side note, we lived some distance from the library in elementary school, but we got through the books -fast- so the librarians gave us extra library cards to reduce visits to like once a week. I also got adult-cards pretty young (like 10) because I'd read all the kids books and was already reading older fare. This was in the days before YA was a genre :)
Of course you had a poor teacher because they obviously desired to teach you something, but forgot to tell you what the lesson was. Other than they were a bad teacher, but i guess you may already have known that.
> Oh I mean what was the intended lesson from the teacher. Read less?
Don't try to cheat the system. Follow the spirit of rules obediently instead of attempting to use the wording of the rules to your advantage.
was there any benefit to reading more than 3 books in a given time period? if not i would have only reported 3 books. it's none of their business what i do beyond that.
the lesson is that overachievers are often not welcome.
Same - except many of my friends were reading for fun. Oh this has a skeleton on the cover? Guess I’ll read everything this guy/gal ever wrote.
All the libraries I’ve been to recently are very well set up for discoverability. Especially the kids section. There are hundreds of books on display with some indication of what it’s like and themed sections and all kinds of stuff
Everyone seems to say children should go to libraries more.
At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.
I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying around.
As adult I used Kindle for a while but got back to sourcing physical books, even though I have no permanent place and books are difficult to travel with.
> At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.
You know what isn't cheap in the 2020s? Space.
My grandparents had a full-ass room just for books. I can't even fit my modest blu-ray collection in my apartment, they sit in storage along with my DVDs and physical books.
I've got a Kindle and Calibre with hundreds of books and they don't take any space.
Your grandparents’ house must be huge. We never had a room just for books, not me, not my parents, not their parents. A family of 4 in 2 bedrooms, one living room. Shelves are not expensive and you’d be surprised, they can fit quite a lot of books. Over time some books were lent or given to libraries, others added.
Not huge, they just had a full-ass house custom built from scratch at my age.
I'm still trying to get my first proper apartment instead of renting =) And know I make more in a year than both of them combined in 2-3 years.
I know someone who owns some land to build a house. I envy that person, who is definitely in a more secure position than myself.
When I was a kid we lived in a small apartment. We still managed to have room for books though. A single bookshelf or two takes up only about 10 square feet of floor space.
I've become an avid reader of web novels when I found out about them as a teenager sometime before 2010. Idk, for me it completely removed the urge to get physical books. I've got a Kindle too at some point, but I felt the form factor was terrible for reading fiction. There is a reason why newspapers always put their publications into columns, because it makes for an extremely fast reading experience - which is great for fiction.
Another factor is that web fictions are targeted at people that just want to read for a short moment, so you're basically only gonna read for 5-10 minutes before the chapter is over and you're done until the next publication.
IMHO the biggest danger to the medium (written fiction) are LLMs. Since they've become well known, the amount of content has skyrocketed and most of it is without any point. No coherent story that develops with characters growing over the months/years you're following them.
I never got into reading web-native writing, though sometimes I wish I did. I also don’t piecemeal publishing, even though I know many classics were published that way initially. On the contrary, I like to read for as long as I want, finishing a book is always frustrating.
Agreed, LLMs are an issue and will probably reduce the amount of written content published in the open (or at all).
Going to the library means you pick what you want to read from a much wider variety of available books, not just the ones the adults in your life deemed worthy of purchase.
I would almost certainly be on a diet of some attractive but unchallenging fast food like teenage detective novels if I had that choice as a kid. Would my life actually have turned out better if I didn’t read the likes of Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Garcia Marquez back then? Perhaps, but at the time I was enthralled and didn’t mind being able to choose among the books adults in my life had around (likely knowing I would end up reading some of them).
"[W]ord of mouth" is probably mostly for girls. I never once had a boy tell me growing up that I needed to read a particular book.
Nice humblebrag. Also, I find this hard to believe.> Nice humblebrag. Also, I find this hard to believe.
If they did, they didn't tell me about it. That might tell you how much the other kids talked to me. Not much of a brag now is it? :-D
However, I have good reason to believe it. I went to the public library every weekend when I was in elementary school. I never, ever ran into anyone from my class there in all those years. If the other kids in my class at age 9 read for pleasure, they weren't anywhere close to me in volume.
It's not a brag, and not a real achievement. The tallest kid in a class at age 14 might only be of average height in a crowd 10 years later. This is the same thing.
Many kids never visit the library except during school visits. They get books as gifts and read them at home.
> "[W]ord of mouth" is probably mostly for girls. I never once had a boy tell me growing up that I needed to read a particular book
Crazy gender stereotype based on just anecdotes (nothing wrong with saying it tho, its always awesome to hear about different experiences)
Most of the books that changed my life, got me into tech, programming, got me into business, entrepreneurship, hustle, etc.
All the books, podcasts, etc were either shared directly to me by my male friends (im male too) who insisted i read those books for my betterment cuz those books were acc. to them : “Awesome” , or books that i discovered while exchange discussions about what books are we reading right now, exchanging reading lists, etc.
There are tons of girls out there who hate reading books, (my mom included, she always has hated books, outside of school homework and exams),
I do not like reading fiction books much, nor do my peers, we’ve exchanged book suggestions since childhood, now even more with more and more internet friends.
Ive had great books on gardening, or agriculture, or history, etc recommended to me either inside books by authors, or by random telegram groups consisting mostly of nerd men.
99% of the books recommended to me were by men, and im a man.
So i dont think its a girl only thing, plenty of people exchanging book, just go to any major reddit forum on reading and booksuggestions (like r/suggestmeabook) and you’ll find tons of men who are more than happy to give you suggestions, if you cannot find classmates or neighbours to share with
I don't really think it's a gender thing, my friends who were boys and I talked about books pretty frequently. They were pretty much the same as videogames, comic books, movies and shows to us so we'd talk about them in the same way.
I specifically remember that when the first Harry Potter (I was a child cut me some slack) came out I bounced off it because I didn't like it, and then one of my friends at school couldn't stop talking about it and got me interested enough to pick it back up.
And don't even get me STARTED on the LotR books. Or Star Trek novelizations (which I still consider books).
About once a month my parents would take me to a book shop and I would (almost) invariably grab a new Star Wars Extended Universe novel
In the NYC public libraries there are kids sections where you just walk around and look at books. If something seems interesting then pick it up and read it. I preferred things with technical pictures so the kids section was quite boring.
That’s ok, part of the joy of going to a library is finding out about new things you’ve never even heard of. And we also already have human recommendation systems, they’re called librarians!
I ended up in the government section. Reading reports about arms and equipment transfers from the US Government to the Middle East made in the 1980s. It was definitely fascinating, especially because the Middle East was in the news at that time, but I really was only there because I had _no idea_ what to actually do.
I'm not saying the library doesn't have exceptional value, or that 9 year olds shouldn't be in it, but maybe for younger patrons a "concierge" type service or "first timer group experience" being available would help a lot.
Typically that concierge service would be the conversation you have with the librarian as you sign up for a library card. What kind of books do you like, are you interested in Middle East arms transfers, oh have you heard of this one, etc. If you’re 9 years old perhaps that would also involve guiding you to the children’s section, although it seems you’ve turned out alright regardless.
When I was 9, the librarian was the scary lady in the corner that yelled at me if I so much as coughed.
I still don’t, honestly. I’ve never gone to the library when I wasn’t going to get some specific title. I Google stuff first.
I assume they were talking about the school library, rather than a big library downtown somewhere. Certainly that is where I first fell in love with books. Sometimes all it takes to make someone a lifelong reader is a good librarian with a shelf full of curated picks, eye-catching covers facing out.
As the article notes, school libraries are getting defunded and politicized, which is extremely sad to me, and disproportionately worrying for the future.
There will always be people unable to figure out basic skills but that's not a reason to handicap the entire system.
At 9 (and before) i had bookit; where if you chose one of many of the sponsored books at the school (or public) library you got a personal pan pizza coupon.
An interpretation is book cos have cut physical benefit advertising for cents on the dollar internet advertisements.
Well my school did trips to the local library so that everyone could acquire their paper card for borrowing books. The process of borrowing and the different sections in the library were explained by the librarian and at least in my mind that helped a great deal to seek out books on my own.
> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
You also need "evangelism" from people in a position to influence. That's unlikely to be librarians; and parents/teachers are also not the best-positioned for that.
Overall the costs of social media likely still outweigh the harms here, but it seems to me like they've identified a legimitate "good" usage in encouraging reading in certain niches.
How to replicate that without social media? Gotta make a bunch of local kid "influencers."
Watching someone do a thing and doing the thing are different. One of the pitfalls of a lot of recommendation systems is that they don’t know or care about the difference. Watching a video about a book is fine, but then you need to go out and read.
It’s a little like reading an article before commenting. Most people don’t. You will get a lot more out of the conversation if you do though.
Or sponsor book fairs and bookit programs ... which have higher costs than digital ads.
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I'd like to propose an update to Godwin's law; call it NPC's Law or maybe just Trump's Law if we're being literal: "As an online discussion of a problem grows longer, the probability of assigning blame to Donald Trump approaches 1."
Not sure it's worth engaging with such toxic commentary regardless of political affiliation.
Shall we wait for the factual rebuttal or just assume this offhand dismissal is all of it? I have yet to hear a word about the content being inaccurate, just people like you, that didn't like the presentation.
My apologies for not refraining from charged words when my country is being stolen out from under me, by some of the worst people in the world, that keep getting elected by the "fuck your feelings" crowd.
Also, it's germane to this topic.
You, however, remain above it all, so enjoy your pedestal.
Believe it or not, I feel the same way. But writing angry screed on the internet accomplishes literally nothing. Worse, it further entreches the people you disagree with.
That's bullshit. The people I disagree with spent the last decade yelling, "Fuck your feelings", and you think discourse is going to pull their heads out of their asses?
My rant won't either, but I feel better, and if any of them happen to read it, I hope they enjoy it.
Good luck with your campfire and mallows. I'll even send over an .mp3 of Kumbaya and you can hold hands with them, and discuss whatever you like.
Start a militia or STFU. And since you seem disinclined to STFU, you clearly don't have the opsec to start a competent militia. So just STFU already.
Technically speaking that should be true for any topic. POTUS is just a particularly popular topic.
Not Trump, Republicans.
Trump is the symptom made public.
I mean, they're literally banning books ... like, that was a major platform issue very recently ... "why does everyone keep blaming the cannibals for all the half-eaten corpses lying around!?" ...
Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea. Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea. Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries. Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
> Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea.
The book banning efforts aren't limited to keeping books out of school libraries for younger age kids, or even school libraries generally.
(Nor is it limited to books where that argument is reasonably applicable Even when it is in school libraries for younger children.)
> Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
Gender identity differing from gender assigned at birth is a low-rate but widely observed phenomenon across times and cultures. Stripped to this from what is either hyperbolic or driven by propaganda designed to obscure real issues in your description, no, its not something parents should be protected from in their children.
>Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea.
Except, this isn't what's happening. FFS, it's happening in all libraries, not just the ones meant for the kiddies. You know this, yet paint a different picture, in support of your position.
>Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea.
Now we draw the false parallel between non-pornographic books and actual pr0n.
>Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries.
Now the feel-good statement, providing us all with a justification for their statements. THE KIDS! All of this is somehow aside from the fact that the parents and other children and the internet are much more influential than a book by Gloria Steinbeck, that makes racists uncomfortable.
> Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.
Finally, we draw another parallel between 2 things that are completely unrelated, because we have no real justification for our point, just feels.
Well done?
I’d love to see your sources showing the data to support that books are being banned in “all libraries”.
This is mostly a conversation about morality and I dont think we’re going to convince one another to change our principles here so my instinct is to say “you win” and move on.
But for context, I personally despise Donald Trump and think he’s a symbol of the downfall of our country. And I mostly think the government should stay out of any choices about how we raise our kids.
The books in school libraries issue is part of a larger discussion about who gets to choose what our kids learn. I don’t have the full answer but I do know, for my kids, it is not “gender studies graduates and communists”.
Sources: The internet and news. If you look, you'll find it easily.
This isn't really about morality alone, imo. This is about attempting to legislate morality with a hammer, which is just as bad. There is no basis for many of the books being banned, other than Republican horse shit. For the record, I'm not seeing Dems line up to ban books. It's activist clowns with an axe to grind.
It's all wrapped up in Jesus and FOR THE CHILDREN, but that's a lie as well.
I seriously doubt many 9 year olds checked out The Diary of Anne Frank, yet it's being banned, because some idiot thinks they know better than everyone else.
Since, you don't seem to google, I'll take care of this one for you: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2022/06/2...
We do agree on the govt. staying out of child rearing.
The current crop of "people" that get to choose what people can learn are not the people any sane person wants making these calls, yet here we are.
Lastly, your kids, along with everyone else's are exposed to things, daily, that you have zero control over. You have zero input, when the event happens. You're sole option is to teach your kids to think like rational humans, have some compassion for others, and lastly, just leave people alone to live their lives.
So did you read that USA Today article? I did not see a single example of a book being banned from a non-school library. In fact, every example in the article was about a book being removed from taught curriculum, or a state passing a law requiring schools to notify parents when a book contains a sexual content.
Your last point makes me think maybe you don’t have kids? Because yes of course every parents knows that they can’t control every aspect of their child’s experience. This discussion is specifically about what should and shouldn’t be in children’s libraries. I think parents should have a say in that. Kids are like sponges. If you tell them it’s totally normal to kill puppies, some not-insignificant percentage of them are gonna kill puppies.
I loved the book Middlesex, and have nothing against transgender people. My concern is that a “movement” has started around this naturally rare phenomenon and it has become increasingly trendy to cut off your penis or breasts. This is not what sane parents want for their children.
This is still about legislating morality, which has never worked, in any circumstance that I'm aware of. This is simply minority groups imposing their personal views upon everyone else.
Why does a minority group get to decide what books are available?
Why does a self-described religious minority get to impose their values upon everyone else, in a country founded, in part, on religious freedoms?
A simple example of the fallacy of book bans is the Bible. The bible covers things that most people would not want a 9-year old to read about, yet, it'll never be banned, because it's special. smh.
People can censor things all they like, at home, but shouldn't get to determine who gets to read what, based on their own personal POV.
I’m pretty sure we are agreeing here. Transgender is a minority. Agreed on the Bible stuff too.
I think you dramatically underestimate the influence that TikTok has on young people. If you want something to be popular amongst young people, making it popular on TikTok is a huge way to do so.
Libraries already have thousands, if not millions, of books on hand. I don't think it's a funding issue.
There’s a lot more cost involved in running a library than buying books. Staff and building upkeep are big expenses. That said, you want to have some newer books coming in, too, if you want to keep kids interested.
> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
They need a library stocked with "books that kids will enjoy," recently published doesn't have anything to do with it. It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.
> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.
I doubt that's the root cause. Frankly, all the other things seem more significant: making reading education more test-focused and less fun, screens (in a zillion different ways, subtle and obvious), the pandemic breaking peer-influenced reading, etc. They're all probably working together dis-synergisticly.
I also wonder if there's other missing social components. I remember in elementary school feeling that reading "chapter books" was important step to being more mature. Do kids still feel that way? Of course I also often read pulpy junk that was fun or interesting, not serious.
The OP said:
> Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”
I think that's always been true. IIRC, I always disliked the "important" books I was forced to read for school (e.g. the ones that tended to win important awards from adults and get articles written about them in the New York Times to this day).
Recent can be a generous time period, but it's not unimportant. When I was very young, I was able to enjoy the Hardy Boys and the Chronicles of Narnia, but even in the 90s, just forty years after the latter was written, they both felt very, very old. When I started finding more current writing, like Redwall or Animorphs, I never looked back.
> It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.
I’ve heard newer English literature evangelized quite a lot since older English literature gets more and more Eurocentric the further back you go. Usually on political grounds, but also with the claim that newer literature is better and more relevant to especially diverse children’s lives.
> They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.
Sure. The next step is helping them making a decision on which book to read and provide a social environment for doing that. Libraries do not really do that and haven't done that even in the early 90s.
I am sorry your experience at libraries was so unfulfilling. To me, libraries opened up a world of knowledge. When I was a kid my mom would take my brother and I to the library and just let us loose. As a kid I could spend what felt like days looking at cool cutaway diagrams of castles or reading about how black holes worked. And at the end I took home 5 or 10 of the most interesting books. And it was all free!
It's interesting that all problems in America are due to "funding". It's actually quite curious because funding was a problem for electric vehicles, funding was a problem for space, funding was a problem for literally everything. But then sometimes people come up and succeed at things that others have described as a funding problem for ages.
I think I can conclude reasonably from this is that the lowest efficiency lever one can pull is funding. Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance. That's because the people there only know one answer to every problem: "funding".
> Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance.
It could also be because the schools with the most special / high needs children need the most funding.
Schools in poor neighborhoods need more help just to achieve median results. They need to contend with issues like teen pregnancies, drug use, violence, and kids who don't even have food at home.
Compare those challenges to rich suburban kids and of course the schools in poor areas need more funding.
> Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance.
Spills with the most paper towels are the messiest. Why does everyone think they need paper towels to clean up spills!?
Hospitals have higher mortality rates than grocery stores. If I have a heart attack you’ll find me in the deli.
The billionaires who look for every tax loophole possible certainly know the value of “funding”. They are currently funding their yachts to take them to their superyachts. Private equity controlled health care companies are extracting billions of dollars in profits (read: overcharging people who want to live) leading to “efficiencies” like understaffing and under training which cause thousands of excess deaths every year.
Elon Musk received plenty of government funding for his companies as well. And guess what? BYD sells more cars than Tesla now (a few years ago Elon said he wasn’t worried about them and now they’re suddenly a problem) because of what? Government funding. Governments have also funded the majority of fundamental research which made present day technologies possible. Even today NIST, DARPA, NHS, NSF etc continue to fund science and technology research.
This whole thread - and that whole chunk of TFA - is totally alien to me.
When I was 9, our school had a small library with a librarian (or at least an on-duty teacher), and if you wanted to read something you could always go and ask her what she thought you'd enjoy - and that was on the off chance you couldn't find something that looked appealing.
There are also public libraries where you could do the same thing with your parents in tow.
When did that stop?
I think most of our problems are due to digital marketing....
it's not good for stuff.....something's....but it's not a panacea.... Meta and Google and Tiktok all claim otherwise.....but the cultural effects show.
advertising in the modern age is not good .....
it's not sticky.....
it's vapid and forgotten faster than the fly you accidentally swallowed at some point in your life...
Not even recently published. There a lot of great children's classics.
If you don’t need TikTok to find good books, how would you recommend finding good books? Even if you’re at a library that doesn’t narrow things down all that much, I’ve been to libraries with several floors filled with bookshelves.
My local library has an "ask the librarian" program.
Tell them what you like to read and they'll email you a list of 10 books to try next.
Long before TikTok and YouTube and even Google there was the Dewey Decimal System. We use it to categorize books into a hierarchical tree structure. So I think what most people do is to find a category they’re interested in and look inside that category for either subcategories or books they find interesting.
The Dewey Decimal Classification is terrible. It's an incredibly dated system with serious flaws like an pervasive European/Christian bias - for instance, notice that class 200 ("Religion") is almost entirely devoted to Christian topics, with a single subclass 290 for all "other religions" - and a lack of effective classifications for modern technical topics.
It's also basically useless at classifying works of fiction, to the extent that most libraries don't even bother using it for that purpose. Standard practice is to group all fiction into a few broad categories (like "mystery" or "fantasy", as well as a catch-all for general fiction) and shelve them alphabetically by author. Needless to say, this isn't conducive to browsing.
i was going to say that a detailed classification of fiction would not really help finding interesting stuff. apart from the broad categories as you mention, interesting books are more defined by writing style, characters, etc.
i am struggling with this as i keep looking for new books to read. being in a book club helps a lot.
The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics.
"In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans"
Yeah this sounds false.
What sounds false about it?
A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...
That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.
The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated.
This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that there are LGBT books which veer close to the edge with stuff like explicit sex scenes.
It mentions other "proposed" laws, some of which seemingly setting a lower bar. But "proposed" laws aren't banning libraries now.
In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
> That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.
It says the teachers have to remove or cover up their classroom libraries until their books can be approved by the school. I don't know how you can honestly argue that that doesn't constitute removal, even if it might be temporary.
> In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?
I don't know enough about the subject to comment, which is why I didn't say anything about such a relationship. I only responded to you because you were saying someone else was wrong and I didn't think you were right
I brought this up because the slate article cites book banning as a reason for decline of reading for enjoyment by age 9. I am arguing it is irrelevant and also essentially false in terms of classroom libraries generally not being removed on any significant scale (or at all, probably) even in Florida.
The article cited a particular school district directive which seems to be a temporary review procedure for its high schools. It would be disingenuous to say that means teachers can't keep a library, full stop, and even in that case it seems it was immediately backtracked. The law in question has since been clarified.
The fact that these laws are applied to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain - while non-LGBT books with sexual content remain unbanned and available to minors - is what makes it censorship[0].
[0]https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-...
Sure but that was backed off. The law does not, in fact, apply to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain. There was a March 2024 legal settlement clarifying many cases that are explicitly not prohibited.
Also, do you think these laws have been important regarding the "decline by 9" of 9-year olds reading for enjoyment?
One possible issue on the contrary side is promotion of kids' books involving racial diversity themes. Often such moralizing books are not very interesting for pure entertainment value. They are there to meet a market trend, some may be better than others but in general have not stood the test of time.
It’s a pretty standard pattern in right wing politics. Defund a thing, it becomes less efficient, politicians claim the thing they broke is better handled by the private sector, defunding continues. We have seen this with pretty much every public good since the Reagan/Thatcher era. The nice things we had in the West have been gutted and sold off for parts.
It should tell you something that these “concerned parents” never pressured Amazon to stop selling the books they complain about. It was never about the books.
> Yeah this sounds false.
I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?
What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.
I think the argument is quite subtle.
There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below).
There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings.
So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs?
It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’
https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-sc...
> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot.
That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.
Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved classic children's books.
> The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.
Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?
> Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?
No. I was only responding to the false hyperbole that teachers can't keep books in their classrooms anymore.
Also, the whole controversy around "banning books" is stupid and full of dumb propaganda. That extends to the term "book ban" itself, which is a bit of manipulative, misleading spin that rivals "death tax." If anyone was really against "book bans," they should demonstrate their commitment by fighting for a Hustler subscription and some "gender critical" books for every classroom. It's really a fight about who gets to do the banning.
"widely beloved" by whom? "classic" in what sense?
I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.
This is why I ask beloved by whom and classic by what standard.
Look, Narnia has witchcraft in it and depicts Christ as a lion. It's probably blasphemous (though, yes, I get that it is intended as a regular Christian allegory and is not supposed to be blasphemous). It is not universally loved in the evangelical community and is a possible target for a book ban. It's also got racially insensitive stereotypes depicted and that's a target for complaints from a different direction.
The Hobbit is indeed a popular book, that has repeatedly been the subject of book bans, again for the magic/wizardry/witchcraft thing.
The point is, if your job is to be an elementary school teacher and people try to get you fired for having a book they find objectionable, it's a lot keep on top of. The books people object to vary wildly.
Additionally, when people make these classic book lists, they suffer from what I think of as "classic books that adults believe children ought to like" syndrome. Sometimes these books overlap with what kids actually like, sometimes not.
Interesting reply :) Some thoughts: (1) "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" contains in certain ways a re-telling of the Gospels in a way that speaks to children. But its a great story in itself, one can take or leave it's resemblance to the bible, its also enjoyed by atheists. I'd debate seeing it as blasphemy. Why would God object to the bible story being respun by an author who's themselves a Christian with such decent motives for writing? (2) Racial insensitive stereotypes- sure that's a problem in older books, some bad examples too in the highly entertaining "Just William" series, but these can be an opportunity to talk to children about what's appropriate to say , and how thinking has moved on in good ways. I'd support reprints of such books having extra text added to point out that some content would nowadays be considered racist or whatever (3) Hobbit being banned for witchcraft - to be honest, whoever is banning this is nuts IMHO. Should "Hansel and Gretel" be banned too then? You're probably gonna tell me it has been. Kids have enjoyed stories about witches for centuries. Who has the right to tell them that's not allowed? They know its fantasy. (4) I take your point about it being a PITA to look after a library as a school teacher, especially in the current climate particularly in USA. Maybe there needs to be a ban on bans? ;) Apart from restrictions due to age appropriateness, who is anyone to tell someone else what they're allowed to read? (5) "classic books adults think children ought to like" -its a fair point- I can imagine some adults might do that, sure, not all kids like classics. With our kids we just try to guarantee them access to the good stuff new and old, partly just take them to the library and see what they find. If one ever pushes a kid to read, or read a certain thing, they'll rightly push back. Not for adults to force them, just to provide them with quality stuff. I think the original article though was complaining of the market dropping out for content for 9-yr-olds, but really you'd want to read a mix of classics and modern though, right? Same as a symphony orchestra wouldn't play ONLY Beethoven or ONLY 21st century composers?
The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries.
But I guess in their words:
> the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically
Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.
Where is The Hobbit banned? A quick Google shows some Christian schools have (though the last mention is 2011), but certainly no US public schools.
Sure, but then you’re just reinforcing the attitude that reading is just for stodgy old people rather than a way to understand the world as it is today.
You need a bit of both old and new surely? I'd argue, that great literature, whether for kids or adults, is timeless. Our daughter loved learning Greek legends for example in school. The challenge I think with modern stuff can be, finding the good stuff amongst the crp. Whereas classic stuff has stood the test of time, the crp has mostly fallen by the wayside.
That pen.org article focuses on "number of bannings" but mixes together state law (predominantly Florida alone) and individual school district policy choices.
It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. Most of the support for including explicit sexual violence seems to be about high school, and even there it's not clear that explicit content is necessary to these purposes (I'm not familiar with the books in question).
Then there are the books by Kendi etc. and an example where that was required reading in an AP course (college-level). Sure, that's debatable but isn't of much relevance to reading, reading for enjoyment in particular, by young kids, which is the topic of this HN post.
The pen.org article says "books aren’t harmful—censorship is." So it gives no credence to any kind of concern about age-appropriate topics.
> It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics.
A professional with training and some sort of certification could decide this, based on the child’s age and development level. A teacher for example.
> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later,
This sounds like nonsense.
Sure, they may have to do this for books that are close to crossing the line, or they could simply leave out any controversial book.
Does that mean that the school library won't have some books? Well, yes, but they already don't stock "every book ever written".
My school, back in the 80s, did not keep Nabakov's Lolita. The public library had it, though.
School's aren't there to "teach the controversy". I said it back when the controversy not being taught was Intelligent Design, I stand by it in 202x when the controversy not being taught is LGBT.
Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations.
Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving. They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America.
Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff.
The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all?
[1] : https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fi...
From first principles, it is normal to ban material. The ages and exact policies are debatable but these articles are entirely one-sided.
It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans. There are always bans. But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda. Others do not want that. Fight.
This recent WSJ article mentions primarily reasons of salary and student behavior, as any layman would guess from first principles. It did mention "political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed". Well, this is not going away -- the battle is fought from multiple directions. Another direction is the industry profits from institutions being morally obligated to buy a lot of new diversity-related books.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitt...
There seems to be a lot of "first principles" thinking in this debate which leaves out essential factors. It ignores that children have brains of their own with likes and dislikes who will readily decide for themselves how much they like a book. It gives no benefit of the doubt or generosity to school staff. And it ignores the fact that good libraries are historically a mix of lots of different content that is clearly not all good.
> From first principles, it is normal to ban material.
Sure.
> It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans
That is not true. The ban list is overly broad. The hobbit is banned in some locations. Harry potter and asoiaf... Maybe high schoolers and middle schoolers shouldn't be reading that stuff. Multiple teachers in multiple districts have been disciplined over books they did not expect. It is far more sustainable for teachers to avoid this issue.
> But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda
I am not going to judge this statement's veracity. Let's take it as true. As I mentioned before, the issue would then be that they are also banning other books that have nothing to do with this, and that still makes the jobs of teachers difficult. It is not feasible to have this much overhead on book bans because of political battles and also expect teachers to manage this overhead.
Thanks for sharing your first principles argument. If you have the time, please share some numbers.
Anime is an extremely lucrative market, and Westerners spend an absurd amount of money on it, with Hollywood missing out. It's not because it's Japanese, or its weirder quirks, it's just because Japan is making it and Hollywood isn't, because Hollywood is institutionally incapable of believing people want (a) weird fantasy (b) that takes itself seriously (c) in quantity over quality, or even that adult media can be animated in the first place.
I really don't think it's that hard to imagine the same is true of manga vs books. The manga section at any serious bookstore is the size of 3-4 other sections put together, and it isn't for no reason. Even if you assume it's a graphic-novel-specific preference, for every one Western hit like Bone, there's fifty more equally massive hits out of Japan, because they simply try more often. Authors making weird stuff in the West are unable to enter traditional publishing (with the industry learning the exact wrong thing from the YA phenomenon) and frequently settle for a web serial + Patreon model, whereas if they were in Japan there's a well established light novel to manga to anime to movie pipeline.
I love graphic novels but have almost no interest in superheroes, so I'm very thankful to Japan for hard carrying the industry in that regard. You can find Manga about pretty much any topic and level of sophistication.
Weird stuff in the west exists, but lives as amateur/fan fiction online, with patreon being the big funding method. I believe this is directly due to publishers hesitance to touch anything "weird", just like you said with Hollywood.
I don't know. As an Asian who has grown up reading manga I find anime generally very cliche. More than Netflix shows. Especially those adaptations from light novels.
I think it is just about what's novel to you.
Cliche is why people love it. We’ve become an overly analyzed, postmodernist hellscape with our media. A lot of people really want to see cute anime Waifus acting stereotypically. They really want to see it, badly.
They also like when women start to take notice and dress like the anime characters do. Women love anime because the men in anime usually look very attractive, and in the fujoshi anime that they often watch, the men are willing to be gay.
It's the variance in plots in Manga/Anime that's the thing.
Some of my very favourite anime have been about:
There is exactly zero chance that "Hollywood" would make any of these.What does "Hollywood" mean in this context? Cause there are so many western movies and TV shows about sports and cooking. Of course you won't see Hollywood make the exact Prince of Tennis because, uh, it has been made.
There are shows about cooking, but not many fun ones.
The Bear is definitely a good show and kinda about cooking, but it's definitely not a relaxing watch even though it's been winning comedy Emmys :D
As for sports Friday Night Lights is the only one that comes to mind, I watched it because it was good, not because it was about American Football (a sport I couldn't care less).
But the basic premise was that manga and anime allow the authors to go _completely_ bonkers with their ideas with no limitations on what's marketable.
Like One Punch Man shouldn't work, but it does. Or Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is one. Or Delicious in Dungeon another one.
They're all way too wacky to ever pass the gauntlet of middle management deciding what goes on air in the US.
Sounds like committees....animes tend to have a visionary person who writes the core story and characters.....
Hollywood is filled with board rooms of groups who are all incentivized in a way to 'get buy in' through concessions.... the first concession is the art...the vision....
then the talent....
then it's all down hill from there
Anime tends to have a pipeline. A lone auther (possibly with an illustrator) writes a light novel. Popular light novels get a manga adaptation. Really popular ones get an anime. At this point, I'm half convinced that most anime is made as an advertisement to sell more books.
This pipeline isn't exactly unique to anime. The book -> movie pipeline is very real in western media. The big difference I have noticed is actually that anime makers tend to be less visionary than western movie makers, and instead give you a much more faithful translation of the source material to the TV screen; whereas Hollywood adaptations tend to take much more creative liberty (usually for the worst).
> Sounds like committees....animes tend to have a visionary person who writes the core story and characters.....
Funny, I've heard the exact opposite complaint a lot, that every anime in the last 20 years is made by committee and that's why the vast majority of anime are just slavish adaptations of already-successful manga, and even the few original anime projects that happen tend to be retreads of genre cliches.
Slavish recreations of already-successful manga at least have the benefit that there's a lot of manga. So as a viewer, you get variety regardless.
"Last 20 years" is a pretty sweeping statement.
Like there are no auteur anime since 2004?
That's the complaint I've heard; I suspect it's slightly exaggerated. But the last real auteur anime I can think of is 2002's Voices of a Distant Star, and Shinkai has followed up by retreading the same ground over and over (thematically at least) ever since.
I was thrilled when Love Death & Robots came out on Netflix. I hoped mature animation would pick up a bit in western media. That didn't happen unfortunately.
The pipeline you mention has been a key factor in my kids learning to enjoy reading. They went from anime to manga because the manga often runs ahead of the anime and they wanted more from the world. Then they started reading more novels. They skipped the light novel step, likely because there's very little availability at Barnes & Noble or local used book stores.
When the local theater runs Studio Ghibli or anime like Your Name I make a point to go even though I'm not too fond of the theater experience these days because I want more!
Hollywood also appears institutionally capable of making movies where the actors enunciate properly, where the effect soundtrack isn't louder than the speech, and where nobody is mumbling.
I've given up on them. Sure, fine, that's not how people talk in real life. Whatever. I want to hear what they have to say, otherwise what's even the point?
Tangent: if your 8-9-10 year old loved Bone, a great follow up is usagi yojimbo.
I'd revise (c) to just "in quantity." They're able to throw a lot out to see what sticks, and while a lot of it doesn't, some of it really does.
My oldest daughter could read at age four. By second grade, in a Texas public school, she liked to read Nancy Drew mysteries on her own. One day she came home from school crying and told us she didn't want to go back -- she said she had got in trouble for reading her book. Her mom and I went to talk to the teacher. Our daughter had got "caught" reading a Nancy Drew book at her desk while the other kids -- many of whom couldn't read at age six -- struggled with their ABCs. The teacher took the book away from our daughter and shamed her in front of the other kids. The teacher told us that "policy" prohibited students reading "non-assigned" books at school. Our daughter was supposed to sit there bored waiting for the slowest kids to catch up.
Public schools have a bureaucracy you can't really fight. We didn't make our daughter go back, we withdrew her from school the next day and told the principal we had to move. We homeschooled her, and our two other kids when they came along. No regrets. All of my kids obtained high school diplomas (not GEDs) by passing the ludicrously dumb state tests. Two went on to university. They all have jobs and support themselves, and continue to read for fun.
John Taylor Gatto, a former teacher of the year, describes exactly how public school punishes and wipes out imagination and independent thinking, a process mostly completed by age nine when children give up on reading for fun.
https://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
I'll add that I could also read at age four (thanks, dad!). I went to Catholic private school in the '60s. When the teachers found out I could already read in first grade they put me in a program with other kids who had got ahead of the curriculum. We would go to the school library for a couple of periods and choose our own books, then write up summaries. When I had to move to public school in 6th grade I almost immediately got punished the same way my daughter was -- told that I couldn't choose my own books and forced to read along the approved curriculum at the pace of the slowest kids in the class.
Interesting. Having grown up in Sweden during the 80-ties and 90-ties I’m very familiar with this attitude. Here and back then it was almost policy to hold gifted students back, to promote “equality”. But I thought the US would have a higher tolerance for ability.
What do you think is the driving psychological force behind this attitude in US schools? In Sweden I’ve always thought it’s mainly a sort of crab mentality, semi-formalized in “the law of Jante”. But maybe there’s more to it, if it happens also in very individualistic cultures like the US?
Sometimes I get a feeling that many people in the “helping business” have trouble with self-sufficient people in general, perhaps because it conflicts with their self-image as “helpers”.
P.S. Homeschooling is illegal in Sweden.
When I was in school, a long time ago, schools “tracked” students into gifted, regular, and special needs classes. At least in California where I grew up. I’m sure that varied by school district because in the US schools get managed locally and funded by property taxes, leading to lots of variation in quality and available programs.
At some point in the ‘70s tracking got abandoned. I think it happened because of a desire to eliminate inequality but I’m not sure — could have happened due to lack of funding.
Americans have private school options but those get expensive so that’s mainly an upper-middle and upper class thing.
The “no child left behind” idea mandated standardized tests and ranking teachers, which led to optimizing for the tests and grade inflation.
Fortunately by the time I had kids we could homeschool. Religious fundamentalists paved the way in court, making it legal in most states, with different rules and levels of enforcement. I raised my kids mostly in Oregon, ultra liberal and lax about homeschooling.
Tracking can be problematic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education)#Disadvant...
> What do you think is the driving psychological force behind this attitude in US schools?
The curriculum is so prescriptive that it is really helpful if everyone progresses at the same pace.
> The teacher took the book away from our daughter and shamed her in front of the other kids. The teacher told us that "policy" prohibited students reading "non-assigned" books at school.
That’s a bad policy, but a worse teacher. They could’ve turned a blind eye.
> We didn't make our daughter go back, we withdrew her from school the next day and told the principal we had to move.
Why the lie? Was homeschooling prohibited where you lived, or something?
Simpler to lie about moving than deal with the bureaucracy. Every state has mandatory schooling and truancy laws. We planned to move out of Texas anyway. Easier to say we’re moving than try to get permission to homeschool my own child.
> my own child.
I've never quite understood this focus. Do you think that because it's your child you should be able to do whatever you want?
No, not "whatever I want." I described taking my daughter out of a public school and legally homeschooling her. I didn't see any reason to explain that or discuss it with the school administration. If I quit a job I don't have to go to an exit interview. Same thing.
As I mentioned we moved to Oregon soon after taking our daughter out of public school. Oregon legalized homeschooling in 1985, before my daughter was born. Texas legalized homeschooling in 1994, the same year we made that decision. We didn't see any need to deal with the public school bureaucracy -- that would kind of defeat the point of homeschooling.
I think parents will generally choose to do whatever they think will best protect their child, or help their child succeed. If you don't understand that "focus" I will guess you don't have children.
> I think parents will generally choose to do whatever they think will best protect their child, or help their child succeed
And society does the same at large, because "whatever they think best" doesn't always equal "what is actually best" for the children
No one knows the future so as a parent you have to make decisions now with limited information.
Society as an abstraction doesn’t decide anything about individual children. Governments and school systems have policies and procedures and rules that may represent what’s “the best,” but I think you will have a hard time showing that schools specifically accomplish their stated goals, or do the best thing for any individual child. Or for “society” in general if you look at the dismal results of American public schools.
Forcing a child to stop reading and shaming a six year old in front of their classmates didn’t happen because of “society,” it happened because of one teacher who had the backing of a bureaucracy that will protect its own existence and workers at the expense of children.
Decisions made by teachers and school administrators affect thousands of children. Our decision to take our daughter out of school only affected us — none of the other kids at that school suffered as a result.
If you look at outcomes you will find that homeschooled children statistically do better than kids who go through the public school system. I attribute most of that to the additional parental time and attention, but as Maria Montessori documented children learn more and for longer in life when not subjected to rigid (and scientifically questionable) pedagogy from professional “educators.”
Actually, yes.
Your daughter did the right thing. I pray they didn't manage to squash her behaviour for good. I remember doing the same as her much later in school. I was reading Fight Club and had it in my bag. We had these sessions where we'd watch a pointless bullshit video for an hour about some common sense topic like "other people have different religions" or "don't stick your fingers in the plug socket". I just decided I'd had enough and turned around and quietly read my book instead. I didn't get into trouble but got some funny looks. I consider this a turning point for me. It's my life and it's ending one minute at a time!
Home schooling is illegal in my jurisdiction but this entire discussion is making me think about it more and more.
A question though: does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary? (Either by one parent working and the other teaching, or two parents working but paying a full time tutor which becomes a 2-1=1 sort of thing anyway.)
Home schooling is a complex topic, and one end of a broad spectrum. I wasn't home schooled, but my wife did home school the kids to about grade 4, and yep, she didn't have a salary in that time.
But home schooling is a nuclear option. For most people it's not a realistic option.
Of course, as parents, we're always home schoolers, even if the kids are at school during the day. There are so many ways to stimulate and engage (especially younger) children.
Reading is one avenue, but its not for everyone. Some get into cooking, or nature, (or programming) or music or art, or whatever. Interests change as they grow.
Reading young is very empowering. My parents taught me to read before I went to school. Reading to very younger children helps them understand the concept of stories. (I read a chapter of Swiss Family Robinson to the kids when the oldest was like 6. Hint: some editing and commentary is required - it was written in a different age.)
There are also schools with good teachers, and ones with crap teachers. Sometimes you get lucky. Some kids are good at adapting to adults not having their best day, others not as much.
> does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary?
Yes. The main purpose of government schools is to provide a place to park children so that their parents can be more economically efficient. At least in my country, the “learning” supposedly provided is a secondary priority (your country may be different). My government is very concerned that children go to school, they are somewhat less concerned about what happens when they get there.
Yes that sums up the actual priorities. Day care first, obedience and indoctrination second, learning anything last.
Montessori maybe a good option, but expensive and many schools have long waiting lists.
I understand homeschooling doesn’t work economically for a lot of families. It did for us. We more or less unschooled without a specific curriculum — homeschooling doesn’t have to mean imitating what goes on in schools. Read John Holt and Ivan Illich for inspiration.
The American public school system does indeed seem broken. Fixing it, like most other public institutions, is going to be difficult.
For what it's worth, my experience in Canadian public schools was not at all like this.
There's no good reason to think it's not phones.
The article kind of rejects this out of hand but I think it's mostly because that doesn't make for an article that touches on all the other topics the author wanted to write about.
>It might be screens, but it’s not only screens. It’s not like kids are suddenly getting their own phones at age 9; recent survey data from Common Sense Media reveals that phone ownership holds steady, at around 30 percent, among kids aged 8 and 9. (It isn’t until they reach 11 or 12 that the majority of American kids have their own phone.) Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok.
So there's an uptick in reading for fun when the majority of 12 year olds have phones, allowing publishers to learn how to market to them? I really doubt it. Couldn't find anything supporting that in the Scholastic report where "decline by 9" comes from: https://www.scholastic.com/readingreport/navigate-the-world....
I think they're misinterpreting the Common Sense Media info they cite: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/researc...
Age 8 is as far back as that data goes. If phone ownership started shooting up by 8, for example, it would make sense that it would take about a year for the reading habit to die off as much as it does.
Why wouldn't it be phones?
I could read right now, but instead I'm on my nth round of the Hacker News front page. Reading competes against instant gratification, and it doesn't win as often as I'd like it to. Reading requires discipline when scrolling is an option.
If this fact began in the last decade, I'd agree with you, but the linked Scholastic report shows this phenomenon pre-dates phones. Interest in reading at different ages has held steady dating back to at least 2010. 2010 is before most kids had their own smartphone. It also isn't like all kids suddenly get a smartphone at age 9.
Isn't Hacker News reading, but just not novels?
Isn't HN mainly text? Aren't you reading?
Reading, writing, discovering, voting, and convincing myself that in just one more minute I will return to my day.
Sort of. I think and exchange ideas, but I also scavenge mindlessly. I skim the comments, content myself with headlines. It's a far departure from sitting down with a single topic for a while.
I had a phone since I was 8-9, and I used it to read under the table in class and everywhere else.
Wasn't the only one. We used infrared port to share books with other kids.
I hated reading even before phones were "cool", I just didn't find it the best medium for me.
Now I still hate the act of reading but it's often eclipsed by the joy I get from acquiring new knowledge.
So no, it doesn't need to be phones.
My daughter is 12 now, and reading tons more than when she was 9. The difference is now she has twice daily access to the high school library versus once a week access to an elementary library.
Not sure how much it generalizes, but what would have had her reading more then would have been a well stocked manga section in the elementary library and daily access.
Manga really is an accessible way to get used to reading, and a gateway. She just finished Lord of the Rings.
My daughters still a toddler, but when she sees me holding a book, she gets hers out too. I taught her to point out what the pictures are, so she does that on any book. If she can read LOTR someday, that'll be something :)
My 10-year-old did not understand that I was reading a book when I was using the Kindle or Libby app on my phone. He was surprised and excited to learn that e-books that I read out loud to him are available in print! This has disturbed me so much that I am contemplating switching back to physical books in order to role model better (or more obvious) behavior.
All that is to say, maybe kids aren’t interested in reading partly because they don’t see their parents doing it … at least in a way that they understand.
I think so too. My daughter repeats a lot of what we do and say, or says "Dad take a bath" around the times I'll normally take a bath.
One of the problem with a lot of schools is their layout. Yes, they have libraries. But many students have no way to access those libraries during lunch hours except by way of special passes. All school libraries should, by default, be necessarily directly adjacent to the common area so kids can browse during recess in the same way that they are adjacent to school cafeterias.
I was turned off to reading in 7th grade by a teacher that required mandatory books that were her favorites but the topics consisted of 1800s gilded age parties, gossip amongst the upper class of people at that time and absolutely no fantasy or adventure.
Before that I was the top reader in the summer reading program going back to first grade highest in the school for each grade level. After that class I kind of fell out of the practice of reading to enjoy books until I was out of college.
I picked up the habit of reading and listening to audiobooks in 2014 3 years after college because I was doing a lot of 6-8 hour drives between my home town and a vendor for a project.
If I could say one thing to that teacher, just because you like a book, forcing someone else to read that book doesn't make it a good book for that person.
As the parent of a 16 year old, I find this discussion fascinating. My son used to love reading books, from when we started with the "Bob Books" in Kindergarten, through somewhere around 5th or 6th grade.
He still loves reading, but mostly for items of topical interest. He does it for fun, to entertain himself, and to learn new things...but it's not books! He scarfs up online content like it's going out of style.
TBH, I had no idea just how much he was reading until I paid attention to how much mispronounced advanced vocabulary he was using, which was a sign of seeing and not hearing the words. The other evidence is just how well he does on crosswords, Wordle, etc. The vocabulary is definitely there.
All of this is to say that the article seems to focus on "books" rather than "content." Are kids not reading for fun, or are they not reading _books_ for fun?
It is a good question, but reading 400 pages of content is not the same as reading a book.
Books are (usually) the product of intentional long-form writing along with heavy editing and review. The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
(not criticizing your kid btw, sounds like he is doing great).
> The ideas per unit of a book are usually more polished than the ideas in a similar sized unit of online content.
Is there any objective measure of this? Books have to be 300+ pages because that's the size you can sell them in, I've seen plenty of books that feel padded out because, well, they've been padded out.
That is a fair counterpoint -- there is certainly a fair amount of padding going on.
However I worry about our culture of "just give me the main idea". It is very rare for someone to get as much out of the cliff notes as they would out of the full text. They may be able to recite the thesis, but that is not the same as _understanding_ what the author is trying to say.
Sometimes a book needs to cover the same topic from multiple angles just to force your brain to marinate in the ideas for a longer period of time. Yes, the thesis is repeated, but it is unlikely you fully understood it the first n-1 times.
I think there is something to be said for how most religions teach important texts. Not only are the summaries not good enough, but you engage with the same text over and over. You memorize it. You read related sections in topical groupings. You listen to sermons on multiple themes within the same passage.
Reading is not just about the ingestion of individual facts. You need to connect those facts to other ideas in your head (array them on a latticework [0]) and re-reading or a (seemingly) drawn-out explanation can be a good way increase the odds of making a connection.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9622640
I think the core advantage of content is that the idea density is actually much higher. Many books could be essays and still communicate the main points. Many essays could be paragraphs. Many paragraphs could be sentences, etc. Density is a feature of content, maximizing brain stimulation per second.
This is a double edged sword, trading depth for breadth. While many books or essays can be summarized, much is lost in the compression.
You have to ask for which domains is a shallow summary appropriate, and what the advantages are of having a poor understanding of many things. That isnt to say they dont exist! they absolutely do. I just worry that having deep understanding and being capable of deep thought is going out of style, and think that many people dont know what they are missing out on.
Another issue is books are too long. Especially non-fiction books. Book publishers know no one is going to buy a 50 page book, so there has to be filler and excessive detail to make a book long enough to be sellable.
It ends up just being the same thing over and over again. The author explaining minute details about the day they interviewed someone, what the weather was like, extreme details of the interviewee's facial expressions. The author somehow managing to fit the Stanford Prison Experiment in the book. The author going into excruciating detail about the scientific method. The author giving an unnecessary history of the topic back to when humans were hunter gatherers.
It has been a very long time since I came across a non-fiction book that didn't feel like it could've been 50 pages long. I end up giving up a few chapters in.
Part of this is because a lot of popular non-fiction (i.e. non-academic) comes from long form journalism. Personally, I like that style but understand that some people don't. The focus on that style is not pure information --- the authors aren't writing a textbook or a self-help book --- the authors are telling a story. I could read the wiki page on the Wright Bros, but I read David McCullough's "The Wright Brothers" because the writing is graceful and elegant and the storytelling is vivid and captivating.
The worst offenders, in my opinion, are the self-help/business books that aspire to long form journalism but are probably better off left as a bullet list on a blogpost. These ones are also infected by the idea that everyone of their bullet points needs a vague connection to some elaborate neuroscientific explanation and a "case study" that is usually some oversimplification. Cal Newport is painfully guilty of this, for an example; but it's everywhere in the self-help genre and especially in "airport" books. (I actually think Newport is a better blogger and occasional NewYorker writer than a book writer. His "insights" aren't that grand.)
Fiction, well, I think a long work of fiction is fine as long as the story can handle it. My tastes tend toward florid, "purple", and quite dense prose and descriptions. I like when an author "paints a scene". On the other hand, I find the recent trend of extremely "to the point", stripped down "minimalist" writing that is very common in a lot of contemporary literature (Rooney, for example) and fantasy writing (Sanderson, for example) to be downright boring and comes off as half-baked. There are probably too many 500+pg books because of publishers though. Fantasy has its own obsession with "epics". 200-250pgs is actually a great goldilocks zone that doesn't get published so often nowadays, but should make a comeback. The big publishers hate them though.
Self help books are especially bad for this. I was reading Dopamine Nation and the author describes their office:
> My office is ten by fourteen feet, with two windows, a desk with a computer, a sideboard covered with books, and a low table between the chairs. The desk, the sideboard, and the low table are all made of matching reddish-brown wood. The desk is a hand-me-down from my former department chair. It’s cracked down the middle on the inside, where no one else can see it, an apt metaphor for the work I do.
> On top of the desk are ten separate piles of paper, perfectly aligned, like an accordion. I am told this gives the appearance of organized efficiency.
There is something really funny about reading a book about instant gratification and the ways modern technology has altered our demands for it, and then criticizing that book for not getting to the point quick enough.
I do agree that 90% of self-help books are better left as blog posts, though. To be honest, all of these "how to fix your attention span" books have been repeating the same thing for nearly 2 decades now. They don't really say anything new about how to do it; they package the same repeated things in new packaging.
It sounds like you're talking about adult non-fiction bestsellers. I don't think that has much to do with the reading habits of nine-year-olds. There are plenty of 80-150 page books being published for this age group.
And there are tons of novellas and short stories in many genres.
Pound-for-pound, science fiction short stories are perhaps the most worthwhile and personally enriching literary medium.
I love an endless series of giant fantasy novels, but I've read so so many SF short stories that really stick with you and make you think. As long as you're not going back to the old pulps, any decent collection is probably really good.
Haha. Most books are padded or compressed so they fit pretty much the same volume. A paperback can have dense, small type in it, or larger type with wide margins to "puff up" the size. I've also noticed some paperbacks having thicker pages to make it look like there's more material. I suspect books the same size can have a 2:1 difference in the amount of text.
I have an heuristic for this. If I can find the book in an airport, it has the filler you mention. Textbooks are another item where this usually does not happen.
How we sleep, the secret to business blabla, consulting tricks, the life of tech visionary, or lifehacks for the 21st century: filler,filler, filler.
The book has a distribution challenge in that the content is the same for all people. Sort of like how every programming language book has some content about setting up ones environment, building and the basics that make the rest of the book usable for the person of least experience/knowledge.
Just skim past the umpteenth telling of Abraham Wald and the bulleted bombers and get to the meaningful parts. Even Thomas Jefferson condensed the New Testament down to 84 pages. [0]
0. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-thomas-jeffe...
Books are trending shorter since the advent of ebooks since a short ebook looks the same as a long ebook. So that DEFINITELY doesn’t seem causal to me.
I’ve also been hearing for a long time how novellas are the future of books and people simply don’t buy them and they remain a niche format and I don’t see that changing.
Now that we have LLMs, it's possible to trim the fat out of books and condense them to a more concise version.
I mean seeing a paperback (or ebook) novella priced at $20+ hurts, even if it's what the publisher needs to charge for the economics make sense.
I can only speak to my own personal experience, but I was a voracious reader as a child and then sorta just... stopped. The longer life went on, the more I was instructed to ignore or hide my personal feelings and so I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable. There was as large a stretch between the main characters' behavior and what I was taught to do as there was between the real world and Mount Doom. I devoured the entire non-fiction section at my library in the historical and scientific sections by the time I was 10, and then just stopped going because there wasn't a point. None of the books were for me.
I've made attempts to get back into reading from time to time, but I always go into the more rigorous non-fiction areas. I picked up a Brandon Sanderson book and wanted to throw the damned thing against a wall because of how juvenile the narration was. It felt like a very poor apeing of HHTG or Discworld narration without any of the wit.
Here are some authors to try out instead, biased towards Science Fiction -
Greg Bear - Amazing science fiction author who builds incredible far future worlds. He is asking questions like "what will humanity be like 10k years in the future".
Charles Stross - First off, wonderful characters. His Laundry Files series is like "what is a 1990s geek, complete with a Palm Pilot, worked for a secret government agency that handles occult issues" but over time it gets deeper and the characters get really fleshed out. It is also awesome because you get to see technology move with the time, since the books take place concurrent with our technological progress, so technology like PDAs make way for smart phones.
Elizabeth Bear - Just all around great characters.
Greg Egan - Science Fiction but deeply rooted in real science and math, his homepage https://www.gregegan.net often dives deeper into the math behind his books and includes citations for further reading! Many of his books lack the "science fiction gadgetry" feel (although some have it) if you are trying to avoid that.
Cory Doctorow - He used to be huge in the open source community (not sure, maybe he still is?) his books all explore interesting social issues through the lens of technology driven change.
FWIW many people do not like Brandon Sanderson and I avoid recommending his books.
IMHO all of the above authors have good characters, Doctorow tends to write younger characters (early to mid 20s), but the rest focus on mature characters. Some, such as Stross, let you watch a character start out young and mature throughout the books (I think his main character has gone from his 20s to his 40s, and it shows in how the character acts and approaches issues).
If you really like math, try Greg Egan. Quite a few of his books have the premise "what would be the impact if this odd bit of, real world, complete with citations, math was just a little bit different?" If that is your thing, then you'll be delighted at what he writes. :-D
e.g.
> In the universe containing Seth’s world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate to face north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light.
Fun mind bending stuff. :-D
>Cory Doctorow
Little Brother was, for a long time, my absolute favorite novel. That and Pirate Cinema.
> I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable
Were you reading contemporary books or older books? I found that there's lots of fiction for boys, written by men, from the 19th and 20th centuries. A lot of it is very good, many popular classics like Treasure Island. Edit: I see you mentioned that one.
A lot of the same for me, down to reading silly non-fiction books just to read something as a child. This has become nearly vestigial as I've gotten older.
I'm curious what books you felt were 'for' you?
Books like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Brave New World, 1984, Animal House, Treasure Island, The Lord of the Flies, The Old Man and the Sea, etc. made much more sense to me than any of the Judy Bloom style books that are so prevalent. The last of those books I enjoyed was "How to Eat Fried Worms," and then, that only resonated with me because we were forced to participate in a school book dressup day and I realized I could coat crunchy chinese noodles with chocolate and bring them to class.
I was a kid of the 80s and 90s. I grew up outside. I played rough and got hurt and then played rough again. I explored. My parents existed to feed me, clothe me, and yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience.
I am not sure if you've already experienced-and-disliked his work, but may I recommend Neal Stephenson? I have always appreciated his style of prose, and the way he describes characters. He writes in a nerdy way that I can't quite explain, and I always trust that he will weave separate-seeming narratives together in a way that is satisfying (even if I am often dissatisfied at the _endings_ of his books).
Everyone points to Snow Crash (which I liked too), but recently I also really enjoyed REAMDE and the first half of Termination Shock (I haven't finished it yet). I love the way he describes things. I'd like to say that I could read + enjoy anything he writes on any subject, but for some reason I didn't like his Baroque Cycle books (but don't understand why not).
Also big recommendation for Terry Pratchett. The books all seem silly on the surface but usually have some incisive commentary on wider social issues, as well as being filled with references and humor, subtle and un-subtle. Bonus, they are also a lot shorter than Stephenson's. ;)
> I was a kid of the 80s and 90s. I grew up outside. I played rough and got hurt and then played rough again. I explored. My parents existed to feed me, clothe me, and yell at me for not achieving enough. Any book depicting a parent who sat their child down to give them sage advice about life was completely foreign to my experience.
You might like Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses" [0]. The prose style is idiosyncratic, but also arguably his most accessible. It's about a 16 year old crossing over into Mexico and with little else but the clothes on his back and love for horses, but not "juvenile" --- if anything the author elevates the teen's stumbles into love, adventure, and heartbreak, into a grand vision of the American frontier.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Pretty_Horses_(novel)
Even Sanderson's "adult" fiction can read as incredibly immature at times. Every character seems to have a caricature of a mental illness. Every thought and feeling they experience seems to tie back to it, and it derails the story while taking away from the excellent world-building. I loved the Stormlight Archives to start with, but they became more and more "woke" (as much as I despise using that word) as time went on.
If you're interested in returning to fiction but through the lens of an adult - a little grittier - I'd recommend Joe Abercrombie, Pierce Brown, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Dan Abnett, and Andrzej Sapkowski.
I think it helps if the parents set an example. I grew up in the 90's in a house full of readers, reading was normalized.
Until about age 10 my parents would read to my sisters and I every night. It was part of the bedtime routine. We would gather in my youngest sister's bedroom and my Dad would read a chapter from the book of the week to us before bed. It was mostly stuff like Enid Blighton and Roald Dahl, but I can also remember 'Treasure Island' and '20,000 Leagues under the Sea'.
As we got older it evolved into us reading for ourselves, all of us had a reading light beside our beds and it was normal to read in bed before going to sleep. It essentially became a habit I formed, to this day I still read in bed as an adult.
At least here is Australia, you used to be able to get a lot of things from the local newsagent. I was really interested in computers as a teenager. When my parents would send me to the corner store to grab bread or milk I'd buy a PC Magazine with the spare change and read it cover to cover, some of them would come with neat demo cds etc.
> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.”
There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expectations) ... And there are plenty of non-series books for that age group as well - Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle - they mentioned Bridge to Terabithia too...
The idea that reading isn't possible for young kids without the next black swan publishing/cinematic/theme-park experience, or that there just isn't anything other than Harry Potter to read seems crazy to me.
But I guess I'm not 9 anymore. Interesting that they didn't actually ask any 9-year-olds either it seems.
If you're trying to get kids to read books, those are all great choices. If you're trying to make money, few of those have the option for making a whole new franchise with merch and films and theme parks and video games. (They sort of managed that with Tolkien and the LotR films, though.)
And that's before we get into the whole politics angle. I'm with Freddie deBoer here, who said: if you want your art to change the world, you first of all have to make GOOD art.
I guess those are the things I find unusual about the article. They think they've figured out "why kids don't read", but all they've discovered is "we're not making as much money as we'd like", and maybe this demographic is a problem because "THE LUCRATIVE TEENAGE MARKET" could falter in a few years.
I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to - and there's plenty out there they _could_ be exposed to. Once they're exposed to enough to develop taste, they start caring about Good Art -- or at least art they enjoy more than others.
They didn't talk to any 9-year-olds, or even their parents. Why aren't they asking parents what books they're exposing their kids to? ([1] One possible reason, I know this is a controversial/poorly sourced topic though).
> Or, as O’Sullivan asked, “Is this generation just iPad babies?”
I mean, it's a boring answer. But seems more likely to me than "These kids can name over 500 Pokemon on cue but don't read a thing because not enough of them are on TikTok yet, we haven't managed to scout the next Harry Potter, and our 9-year-old reading curriculum is far too intense which is ruining the joy for them."
[1] https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/48239-54-per...
> I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to
This is more anecdote than research, but from several authors who told stories to children successfully - Tolkien, Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame) - kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preachy story.
I believe Adams says in his foreword that his girls begged him to write the story down because "it's so much better than some of the other books you read us".
Tolkien and Lewis disagreed on whether Narnia was too in-your-face preachy, but the Narnia series is certainly among the popular examples of children's literature out there.
> kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preachy story.
Hmm that's interesting, I would definitely believe it. (I was one of those kids that didn't get past Prince Caspian until his late 20s. Although I didn't recognise it as preachy when I was younger, just not all that interesting.)
> Tolkien and Lewis disagreed ...
This reminds me of David Eddings vehemently declaring Tolkien far too prissy (his word iirc) for high fantasy - that was my first exposure to the "all art is an evolving conversation" perspective, without realising it.
I wonder if -- as far as books for 9-year-olds go -- the conversation has stalled and therefore lost interest, even from a child's perspective. The publishing/entertainment world has poured enormous amounts of money into the previous generation's teenage years (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc), maybe we forgot/decided not to invest in Good Art for the next round of younger kids while that was happening.
I'm still biased in favour of screen time as a primary issue, but I could also see lower publishing, advertising (etc) investment in that age group as a huge confounding problem.
You forgot the last dragon chronicles by Chris D’Lacy. I love me some books about magical clay dragons and that the main characters love interest is a goth witch.
Plus you learn a whole lot of words that start with G: Gadzooks! Gollygosh! Etc
Oh, I never read them! I'll have to see if my cousins know them :)
I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media.
Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.
I feel the opposite way, at least from the point of view of absorbing information. I often have a hard time with podcasts and often youtube videos because I feel I could have read the info there in a few minutes vs watching/listening to something for much longer
Not only that, but reading lets you easily jump around to refresh yourself on other parts if you see something reference it much more easily, and you can choose your exact comfortable pace without having to stretch or squeeze the source material unnaturally.
I have a recurring habit of glossing over names I don't recognize when first reading them in a news article and then will frequently need to jump back to find where they were initially referenced when they get mentioned again only with their last name. While this can be a little annoying when reading, it would be far worse in a video; I can't imagine trying to scrub back to the point where someone first was mentioned. At best, the video might have captions (which I'll always have turned on), but it's a lot harder to look at a caption and remember exactly which information came before it and which came after because the text isn't all visible at once.
We live in an attention economy but the content that demands our attention is increasingly low value. Often the vast majority of podcast content and YouTube video content could be simplified to maybe 10% of what is there. I have unfortunately seen this in some of the nonfiction books I read as well, which tend to spend way too much time on filler and fluff than actually advancing the main points. This wastes my time and irritates me. (Stuart Russell’s most recent book is majority garbage.)
Kagi's summariser has been a life-saver for me. I can just feed any Youtube URL to it and it gives me bullet points about the content.
Then I can decide if I know enough or whether I want to listen to the full video.
I agree but think that's different. That's probably a 10min-read kind of article versus a couple-hour-long book. I agree with the parent comment that reading is just slower. All of the blabbering people do in podcasts and in youtube videos to draw out the length feels like it ends up in books too but it's harder to skip because you don't really know when the important stuff happens. I just turn youtube videos and podcasts up to 2x speed then I don't really have to worry about it.
If you crank the speed up 2x you’ll also be speeding through the important parts. I feel like all of this drive towards AI “summarization” is really framing the problem incorrectly. I want all of the filler removed, and just keep the necessary bits.
On the other hand, reading a novel can take you a few days, but watching a movie based on the same novel takes 90 minutes.
On the other hand, reading a tutorial on how to do something is faster than watching a video of someone doing it.
It's a lot easier to skip over the bits you already know in written form, with video you need to seek forward, listen a bit, seek forward, listen, whoops too far, seek back a bit etc.
And contains vastly less information while doing so.
If you read more than a little, it's much faster compared to other media.
True about eyes getting tired, though: I try to take a break every few hours.
> If I wanted to read, I'd go to school —B-H
Seriously. This is why I don't like how much knowledge is being locked up in video platforms. I can get what I need to know from text so much faster than video unless the knowledge in question is inherently 3d/visual.
video has the advantage that it still works when i am tired/exhausted, or rather when i want to prevent getting tired, because reading is active and takes more concentration. video makes it easier to focus because it is more passive but all your senses are activated at once.
if i am in a deep flow, the reading to solve a problem is the right approach. but when i have to fight distraction, a video helps me to focus and eventually get into the flow.
Nice Mike Judge ref there...
Agreed about being faster than a lot of other media - at least in terms of density. Also, the tired eyes thing can be a bonus too. For years I had trouble falling asleep at night and I'd stay up later because I didn't like going to bed until I knew I would conk out immediately.
Now I get in bed and read about a half hour or hour before I want to be asleep. It gives me something to focus on while relaxing and when my eyes get too tired or my mind starts to wander, I know it's time to sleep.
I think the bigger difference is that reading a book allows you to stop, anytime, and think. No other medium allows this. When the story takes an unexpected turn or the author makes a subtle point, in a book you have time to reflect and let it sink in. That's precious, especially in a world where all other media has evolved to overwhelm you with oversimplified pap intended to prevent independent thought. Don't think, just react. But with a book, _you_ control where your focus goes, and nobody else.
I gravitate to text forums because watching/listening is too slow. Videos/images are good for instruction on how to do something though.
This. I find myself tremendously bored watching most videos online these days, scrubbing through to find things that are of interest. There's just so much filler and even when it's not, the information density is very low.
In the meantime, along with reading, I also have longreads in my RSS reader, so every evening I get a few fantastic long form online articles and feel pretty well connected to what's going on.
I disagree with "much slower" but I do agree that it's different. It's not about having tired eyes (what do you use to watch videos?), it's about shortening attention span (you get bored and want to switch to something else). Long attention span is good, short attention span is bad. This is why reading books (long form) is better than reading Twitter or Instagram (short form). And this is why getting kids to continue to read is important.
> you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired
I'd say you need some eye correction then. Ever since I got glasses, getting tired by reading means it's time for a visit to the optometrist to update my lenses.
I think social media, TikTok style short videos etc. are training young people to have very short attention spans. If it doesn't continually provide a Döpamine hit they quit.
I'm not sure if some people think that audiobooks "don't count", but I think they're the only alternative when you have a heavy schedule and a long commute. Plus you can adjust the speed of the playback as needed. So slowness shouldn't be a problem to put on in the car if your kids are ready to read chapter books.
> I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media.
Speed is subjective. I read way faster than consuming the same thing with audio or video. Reading also gives me opportunity to wander at a pace I'm comfortable with.
You can skim through text - a skill many kids today don't have. They really think you need to READ every word.
Just skimming through a long-ass tutorial finding the bit you need seems like a superpower nowadays with the younger generation resorting to watching a 45 minute video instead.
This is not a bad thing. Kids shouldn't even be exposed to the mind altering dopamine tsunami that is modern media, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.
Also the hands get tired holding the book open for long periods
You really think that a 40 minute rambling video on how to set up, say, Docker and a piece of software on it is slower than the exact same content written with images?
Idk about anyone else but my school had a program called Accelerated Reader where you could read a book and take a test about it to score points. Harder books were worth more points, at the time I think Anna Karenina was the "hardest" book on the list. Anyway the drive to win was what initially got me reading a lot.
I had to take these tests. For me, all it did was turn reading from a fun hobby into homework.
I know it did that for some of my classmates but I was quite interested in the competition aspect so it drove me to read a lot.
> crisis point for publishers
Now there is something to care about: whether your kid reading or not is good for publishers.
People reading old second-hand books, even if voraciously, is also bad for publishers.
The title refers to "book people" not because we should care what's good or bad for them, but because they might know more about the topic.
I think there are perhaps trends, but at the end of the day this phenomenon ends up being individual. I have three kids - 7, 13, and 15 - and they're all different. The older two read voraciously from 2nd grade (when they first picked up Harry Potter after finishing the Magic Treehouse series) through middle school. My oldest doesn't read as much anymore, but it's largely because he's too busy and ends up too tired to concentrate on books when he does have downtime. My middle (7th grade) still reads constantly and we've run out of bookshelf space for all the series we've purchased over the past couple of years. My youngest is in 1st grade and just started her chapter book reading journey this school year. Now she reads while she eats her meals and reads to herself every day. We take her to the public library every couple of weeks to refresh.
Two things to bear in mind: my wife & I also love reading and we have a house full of books. We've also prioritized reading to, and around, our children from the time they were infants. Even today I frequently wake my kids by reading aloud to them.
I had a teacher in school who decided the best thing for people to read is to simply have the students choose the book they wanted to read for the month.
She'd then read the book and make a short quiz about it. She had several classes so she'd have to read a lot of books every month. But after a while books start to repeat, after all, kids will mostly get together and form groups to read certain novels they're interested in. And most of my classmates would all choose a sort of "minimal effort" book.
All in all, this is an experience I still remember to this day; even though it's been 15 years.
If we want children to read then you need a similar approach, a big part of the fun in reading is actually finding a book to read. The children should be motivated to find books they want to read and then share it with their peers; then perhaps the class can decide which of the books they will be reading together.
Maybe the books that they're trying to market aren't books that kids want to read. There are a couple of quotes that point to that:
> Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”
> But if you’re a new author who’s written a quiet, issue-oriented debut, “you might have to think about adapting, in a way.”
> Eberly, the book agent, doesn’t think the supply of serious, “award-winning” books will dry up. “Knowing the editors that I sell to, those are the types of books they want to shepherd into the world.”
Maybe kids would rather read fun adventure stories rather than the issue-driven stories that adults are pushing on them.
I think this is a big part of the problem. Publishers are looking for the next Harry Potter as if they were Y Combinator picking startups based on who's most likely to become the next unicorn.
How many people here are commenting based on their kids' experiences and not based on their own? Nothing in a 4 year-old trend (or whatever it is at this point) is going to be anticipated by people who were that age 10, 20, 30 years ago. (Sorry folks.)
My kids are just short of this age, so this article is very topical for me. I'm trying to encourage them to read, and they do, but it's also been difficult (in my experience) to make the transition to "big" books (i.e., anything other than a graphic novel). Books that I am 99% sure I read by their age, they don't seem to be responding to---and not just those books specifically, but anything in that class. And my kids have very low screen time.
The industry can’t depend on Captain Underpants forever, even though, as [Brenna Connor, an industry analyst at Circana, the market research company that runs Bookscan] noted, “The devil works hard, but Dav Pilkey works harder.”
"Book people" know why 9-year-olds stop reading. "We have met the enemy and he is us.” [0] (which my child read from the reissue [1]).
0. https://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2022/04/we-have-met-the-enem...
1. https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/walt-kelly
I was never very keen of non-fiction books. The reason is because I could usually just watch it in movie format which is a lot less time-consuming.
The last fiction book I read (over a decade ago) was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the reason I read it is because I had watched all the previous Harry Potter films and wanted to know what happens but the movie didn't exist yet at the time. I was hooked and there was literally no other option. I'm sure this effect worked very well in J.K. Rowling's favor.
Some people claim that they prefer fiction in book format because they can fill in the gaps and imagine the worlds and characters however they like... But personally, I prefer getting as much information as possible; visual information is part of it. If I had to choose between watching a film in color or black-and-white, I'd choose color for the same reason... With black and white, I could let my mind wander and assume that the person's clothing is made of gold yarn but I'd rather not as it mostly distracts from the story and those aren't details that interest me.
When I consume fiction, I'm looking for narratives, external perspectives, messages, lessons, principles and insights in a format that is as objective as possible. In book format, there's too much that comes from me, I end up projecting my pre-existing biases into the story and it doesn't feel as satisfying or mind-expanding.
I prefer fiction in book format because the depth of characterization, thought processes, internal monologues, etc. allow me to connect with and understand the characters at a level that is impossible when watching an actor portraying that character on screen.
Personally I find the messages, lessons, principles, and insights come through a lot more clearly when I have access to the characters' internal thoughts, perceptions, and reasoning, and you get a lot more of this in the printed version.
> Yet I can’t help but be worried that the kinds of books that changed my life between ages 8 and 12 are falling by the wayside. Is there room for the thoughtful, serious, beautiful young-person’s novel in 2024? Can you publish Bridge to Terabithia in the age of Captain Underpants?
...Uh, come the 90s, Bridge to Terabithia was a required reading book that I don't think anyone my age cared about. The popular series I remember were, in no particular order: Animorphs, Goosebumps, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, and Redwall.
I think it's much simpler, adults don't know what kids are interested in. For example, just before that age I was interested in animals and the solar system. Read anything I could find on them, and had no interest in anything being pushed by school or parents. At age 9, I just happened to see Animorphs #11 The Forgotten in the impulse-buy section of our local drugstore and begged my parents for it - for anyone unaware, the Animorphs covers showed kids turning into animals, which was how it drew my attention. That set me onto sci-fi in general, then fantasy - and I've kept reading since.
> in the age of Captain Underpants
Captain Underpants is at least 20 years old now. Becoming a piece of classic American fiction in it's own right.
> ...Uh, come the 90s, Bridge to Terabithia was a required reading book that I don't think anyone my age cared about
> I think it's much simpler, adults don't know what kids are interested in
Pretty much everyone I know (including myself) who read a lot as a kid but doesn't read much anymore identifies being forced to read things in school as the reason they don't. Being forced to read stuff we didn't find interesting isn't the whole issue though because I think there are things I might have actually enjoyed reading in another context. In my experience, the larger issue is what happened in the classroom alongside the reading. Most if not all teachers I had would give quizzes designed to ensure we kept up with the reading that essentially would pick out tiny random details from the assigned chapters ask us about them, and that took the focus away from actually absorbing the higher-level themes and insights that I'd normally make when reading on my own. Even worse, when discussing things afterwards in the classroom, there was usually a certain analysis or viewpoint that was deemed "correct" that we were supposed to figure out and be able to reproduce when we were tested on the entirety of the book after we finished it. Making me read a book to memorize random details and _not_ have any thoughts of my own on what things meant because I would just get told what to think later ruined any enjoyment I used to have of reading; they might as well have just given me a page of bullet points to memorize than give me an entire book full of pages and pages of stuff to distract from what they actually were trying to make me learn.
It's probably a mistake to think kids need new books to be published. The classics are classic for a reason. There are many childhoods worth of incredible books already available. I'm not weeping for struggling authors. If they write something incredible it will be noticed, if they don't then just like you said Bridge to Terabithia, Nancy Drew, Redwall, HP, The Hardy Boys, Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon, etc, etc, etc. still exist.
> Uh, come the 90s, Bridge to Terabithia was a required reading book that I don't think anyone my age cared about.
Exactly. It's a book adults think kids should read (because literature or whatever), not a book that kids actually care a rip about reading.
Throughout grade school, I had several different environments. Most of them were unsupervised and not regimented. Before class, class, after school, home, out of the house, exploring away from the house, time with friends.
My kids had class and home and sometimes activities. None were unsupervised or non-regimented.
Coming home from exploring and popping open a book is nice. Opening a book and hoping it provides some escape from the 160th hour in a box with adults is desperation.
I remember Scholastic would put on a big book fair twice a school year in our school's library. There would be tons of new/upcoming book series marketed that kids could buy (with their parent's money), along with the obligatory custom bookmarks and kid-oriented stationary. It targeted 8 to 12 year olds--maybe that was the practice pre-covid and booksellers have moved away from that sort of thing?
One thing I definitely noticed with COVID (not specific to libraries and book fairs): a lot of older volunteers stopped volunteering for good - basically "retired" now rather than later. Alone that would imply the situation fixes itself as new volunteers age in, but that's also the loss of a lot of institutional knowledge ...
Unrelated to COVID, our local library was recently taken over by a young new librarian who seemed to make it a goal to actively drive away literally all the old library community.
There was also a proposal to build a new library with a builtin homeless shelter or something ... which is exactly the opposite of helping, since the predominance of "homeless people" is a major reason patrons avoid the library already.
Anecdotal (from NL): I had access to a library end of 80s/90s. Everything mandatory wasn't fun, but had to be done. Providing a small, meaningful choice would've been more fun. Comics and non-fiction for kids was available, but if you did not like fiction then you are kind of hosed. I 'never' (esp in early youth) liked fiction because I could not easily imagine the story, or it just did not interest me. It wasn't real, so I couldn't see the point of it. My weakness for sure, but if I had access to more/better informational non-fiction I would've read it like the info sponge I was. And having fun while doing so.
I remember very well when I was about 8 or 9, I always lost the trail when we did group reading at school (each kid one sentence). And then I got punished for that. Also not very... let us say encouraging.
Nowadays, I'm still not much of a fiction sucker, but I've come to enjoy quite some fiction. Just not in time for high school, and even then I liked books which weren't for my age or my gender or whatever.
If my kids don't like certain fiction, I won't force it upon them. I want them to read, and will try with suggestions and what not but if they really do not like fiction, forcing it upon them won't help.
I just hope they won't waste their time on something as useless and nefarious as TikTok. One could argue that is the comics or TV series of the 21th century. Well, even if TikTok were harmless to health and a great application, comics or TV series didn't profile you for an authoritarian state.
EDIT:
> Yet, somehow, reading persists; more books are sold today than were sold before the pandemic
This does not mean, at all, that [all] these books are read. Terrible assumption.
Whenever I was about 9-10, I used to love reading books, and I read about 1-3 full novels a month. Whenever I graduated elementary school and went into middle school, the required reading that was assigned left me to have no more time reading what I found interesting, which eventually led to me just losing my interest in books.
Personal experience: when I was a kid, I instinctively knew when a book tried to "teach" me something or instill some world view and I immediately know the intention and found that boring. The really exciting books were those that either didn't try to teach anything or those that didn't make it so obvious. Might it be that the contemporary literature for children is constantly trying to push an educational agenda and kids instinctively despise that (as I did)?
> when a book tried to "teach" me something or instill some world view and I immediately know the intention and found that boring
Entertainment with a message is fucking boring no matter the form. Movies are no better in this respect.
Unless they're done by a genius but then you won't even notice the message.
The situation with kids is an issue. However, about the mean attacks online mentioned in the article, the American Library Association president, unfortunately made a rather poorly chosen quote at almost the inflection point they're describing, in April 2022. Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Wyoming pushed to withdraw from the ALA after the quote. Per [1], on being elected, Drabinski wrote:
> “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary”
Sure, it's a single tweet. It mentions a better world. However, I also suspect most normal Americans with slight sense of political winds right now (Ukraine, Feb, 2024?? 2 months?) might comprehend why labeling yourself as a "Marxist lesbian" who "wields collective power" might be taken wrong by some of America on being elected to lead all American libraries.
I used to work for/with the Feds, and I think they would have been justifiably mad if I had very publicly announced I was a Marxist who wields power in the Feds on election.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/american-library-associ...
> But others also pointed to the way reading is being taught to young children in an educational environment that gets more and more test-focused all the time.
Seems like there would be an easy way to test this - do we see the same decline in other countries with different educational systems?
As adult people get sucked into reading forum posts or twitter. And it's often very addictive since you feel you're getting closer to some truth being revealed, or your views/opinion being validated. Better use of time might be to read books, but then there's nothing to suck you in the way online networks do with some headline. Maybe books should have AI post about them the way of news articles, with some catchy headline, that would get people to start reading them.
As a kid I loved mysteries, and revenge books like "The Count of Monte Cristo", that were recommended. But as an adult I don't know what I don't know. And there's nothing to get me to start reading something.
When I was in high school, I was a voracious reader of Star Trek novels. I'm now 47 years old, and as a birthday treat, I decided to go into Barnes and Nobel to find one to read (I haven't read anything other than technology books in many years, and rarely even then, since most good information is online)
I found like 2 or 3 (back in the day, there were at least a dozen or two to pick from at any time). The sci-fi section was a bit smaller, to replace the huge manga and other graphic novels section, which was absolutely huge. Many of the sci-fi titles that were there were taken up by novels that have been made into movies.
Age 9 is about time to get into "The Hobbit". That might save some people ;). Or Terry Pratchet''s "Truckers" ? So much utterly fantastic kids literature out there, most of it not at all new.
I'm 40 but I think I know, from personal experience, why kids stop reading.
A video game in the 90s was 10x more exciting and immersive than most books, to me.
Today it's at insane levels of over-stimulation.
A 30 second tiktok clip can give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can, but it cuts to the chase, and doesn't bury the lead.
Not only life-lessons or hacks either, teenagers are producing entire short stories that follow classical formats of drama and comedy.
What we thought was insightful and revolutionary knowledge is now conveyed to a 9 year old at breakfast.
No, a 30 second tiktok clip cannot give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can. That is such a silly thing to say, that I can only imagine you heard it on tiktok.
To play devil's advocate, it has become common to simply read a plot synopsis on something like Wikipedia rather than engage with the book/movie/show/etc. be it for lack of time or interest. This brings one up to speed with the content of the media and is often interesting enough to be worth doing while also taking 1/1000th of the investment. Such a synopsis could be reasonably condensed into a thirty second video. Obviously this is not an equivalent experience to engaging with a 300 page book, but the information conveyed is undeniably the same type of information. Having such information packed so densely, if imperfectly, was unheard of even twenty years ago.
You can summarize Margin Call with a paragraph, but in no way capture the spirit of the movie and the various implied subplots. If you don't care about a movie or a book, don't consume it or just read a summary. But don't pretend you've done the actual watching/reading.
> A 30 second tiktok clip can give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can, but it cuts to the chase, and doesn't bury the lead.
Perhaps, but if that is true I highly doubt that you can actually absorb the information in 30 seconds. Doubly so if you quickly move on to the next thing, as tiktok pushes you to do (I guess? haven't used myself).
>A 30 second tiktok clip can give you the same type of knowledge that a 300 page book can, but it cuts to the chase, and doesn't bury the lead.
I'm sorry, this isn't just wrong, it's laughably wrong, and if this view is popular I can see why there's so little nuance in most people's understanding
I don't particularly buy any of the explanations given in the article, or ITT for that matter. I had tons of screen time as a child, that didn't stop me from reading a ton then or now. Schools (and I) were just as test-focused back then. I wasn't getting book recs from my peers so that doesn't make sense to me either.
Maybe I'm an anomaly here but I never found the books targeted at children/teens especially interesting. Around 8-9 my mom gave me a book, a couple hundred pages long, intended solely for adults, but it was about something I was passionate about. I loved it and never stopped reading after that.
My advice: if you want your kid to read, give them books they'd be interested in. Not 'age appropriate books', just books. Read books yourself and talk to your children about them. Build a personal library and lend books liberally, to children, friends, family, everyone. A culture of reading and enjoying books is your best bet for instilling a love of reading in your chilld.
Do you have kids?
"Give your kids books they'd be interested in" is kind of classic meaningless advice. Like, sure, of course that's what you want to do -- except, if you have a kid who doesn't have an existing strong reading habit, how do you find books they'd be interested in? Like, that's the goal! You can't just assume the solution.
I have a nine-year-old daughter who definitely does read, but isn't a voracious reader, and I've tried a lot of different things to up the amount of time she spends reading. It's tricky. One of the things that I've found is she's more willing to invest in graphic novels than prose novels, but I don't feel like at this point graphic novels deepen her literacy.
>how do you find books they'd be interested in? Like, that's the goal! You can't just assume the solution.
What a strange question?
If they are interested in fantasy movies give them a fantasy book. If they're interested in mystery, the same. If they're interested in Dinosaurs, the same. How is this some great challenge? The things you like to read about are the same things you already like... Are you implying you know nothing about your daughter?
Agree it seems odd. One thing the children in my life are NOT lacking is random interests. Sports books are a great avenue and often highly accessible for younger readers. Pretty much any hobby/niche interest has books that are suitable. Kid likes animals? Give them 'The Soul of an Octopus'. Kid likes scifi movies? Give em 'Childhood's End'. Its really not a challenge when you know them well.
> I've tried a lot of different things to up the amount of time she spends reading... she's more willing to invest in graphic novels than prose novels
If you haven't yet, push out beyond fiction. In my experience, libraries have a really divergent collection of large, illustrated volumes.
When I was 5-10 I read comic strip books - but also encyclopedias. Specifically World Book; Britannica was too dry.
note: I've no complaint with graphic novels. Sons 1, 2 & 5 were big into them. One is writing fiction. Two was into physics and anime, is now into psychology and early Japanese film making. Five performs+crafts his own music videos.
You've probably already seen these, but just in case:
https://www.mangaclassics.com
These are... not books.
I'm not saying they are not worthy of consumption or anything like that, but A: I doubt very many teachers would accept a "book report" written about a graphic novel and B: consuming graphic novels, by their nature, is not purely reading. Your brain/imagination has far less work to do, as you don't have to mentally picture the scenes/people/actions, they are right there for you to look at.
I remember when I was in middle school, my English teacher had a box in the corner of comic book adaptations of about a dozen "classic" stories. Several were stories by Poe, and similar 1800s-era classics. (Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) I devoured them (despite loving reading "regular" books too). I've forgotten most of the plots, but remember having enjoyed reading them. Some of them, I've never read the originals, but for others I had already read (or subsequently read) the more-detailed originals. (Anything Sherlock Holmes, at the time, was something I enjoyed.)
Reading these stories as a manga makes you lose out on a lot of details, but probably makes it a lot easier to digest some things. Pride and Prejudice, for example, has pages of details of peoples' social lives, and the complex interactions of several younger and older women, along with descriptions of gardens and houses, and I know that I definitely had trouble keeping track of who all the ancillary characters were. Having visual representations of these characters might make it easier to track that. You lose out on the richness of Austen's prose, but you keep the core character developments, relationships, and emotional interactions that form the basis of the stories.
That makes a while since I've read physical books, but the great things I liked when I was a child was books with illustrations. Not the one with a picture every two pages, but one that tries to paint the atmosphere of the books. For short fictions (150 pages), I'm OK with the cover, but for anything longer a few full pages pictures kinda kept me in. It anchored me in the story.
I'd enjoyed The Malazan Book of the Fallen more if I had this edition: https://subterraneanpress.com/erikson-gotm/
Picture books have been around from the very beginning. I'd say that the modern graphic novel is just the result of various gradual innovations, one of the important ones being that of embedding text - speech, thoughts, onomatopoeic description - inside the pictures rather than alongside them, which improves the flow of the story, and which helps prevent the reader from becoming focused on either the pictures or text to the exclusion of the other.
I'd posit that anyone whose imagination conjures up mental pictures from a purely written book would be incapable of not doing so with a graphic novel. One's brain could have less to do, true... yet it doesn't choose the easy path. In my personal experience, the scenes of a good story grow and become more detailed in my imagination, regardless of whether they are depicted in prose or picture.
One thing I love about written language is that can be used in so many ways; the vast majority of reading isn't 'purely' reading for me, but associated with other activities - encyclopaedias are reading interspersed with skimming, possibly in order to inform another task such as writing, graphic novels are the appreciation of visual art in a narrative form supported by text, and then there's the entirely practical way in which being able to read "wet paint" helps me from getting myself into a sticky situation.
I have kids, my older is 11 and reads almost whenever she can. She loves to read herself to sleep at night.
We've taken her to the library since she was a baby where we'd find new baby books to read to her. Over time, we stopped picking out books for her and let her wander the isles, picking whatever seemed interesting to her. She usually chooses a wide assortment of things from comics to YA fiction.
My son is much more interested in screens, but he still reads a lot. Whenever we restrict the screens his next default is to read.
We read a lot to both of them as infants & toddlers. We have a couple bookshelves worth of books in the house, but honestly they spend almost their whole reading time on new-to-them library books. We've hit the library checkout limit pretty much every time we go! And it's no waste - every book is returned read.
> if you have a kid who doesn't have an existing strong reading habit, how do you find books they'd be interested in?
I'd start by taking them to the library and letting them explore. Chances are they'll find something that interests them!
I have kids and it seems like fine advice. You find books they'd be interested in by knowing about their hobbies, interests, and personality, and finding books that match that in some manner, and then pitching it to them, regardless of whether it is age appropriate or not.
Of course it is hard to do - at least, harder to do than saying "I have a 5 year old, and this book says it is for 5 year olds, so I will have them read it".
I do. I've given my son who's an avid swimmer a non-fiction book about a group training to try and make the Olympics. I've given my nephew interested in space 'The Right Stuff'. Both devoured the books and went off on their own reading journeys from there.
Try the Fablehaven series for her.
For the the mid-teens, Mistborn series.
That was about the age when my daughter got heavily into the Warriors series.
I agree with you. Age appropriate usually have terribly boring stories.
To be fair, the same is true for tv shows and movies, I can't stand any "per child" tv show, we moved immediately to disney classics and then onto Miraculous Ladybug (mine are 3 and 5 years old).
As for books, we have a very fun series of "choose your own adventure" books that really hooked them, they love making their choices
This is good advice. My 9yr old reads adult fiction, so long as I have read it and don't think there's anything too "adult" in there. I'm saving Heinlein for his teen years lol.
Yeah, a bit of supervision at that age is appropriate, but my advice is don't screen their books for too long! If they're mature enough to be actively seeking out mature titles, you trying to gatekeep them isn't going to prevent them reading what they want to for long. Better to let them make their own choices and discuss sensitive topics with them as adults.
I'm in my 50s and I used to read a lot for pleasure when I was a kid. I still remember reading Lord of the Rings or Watership Down over an entire weekend, with my mom yelling at me to stop reading and eat dinner, etc. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye changed my life as a youth.
I stopped reading fiction after I graduated college because I simply didn't care anymore, it was like an off switch. Unless it was a computer or finance textbook, I simply didn't care to read. There was a brief hiatus after reading Moneyball and Blind Side which fascinated me for some reason, and I haven't read non-textbooks since then either. I think part of it was that I read so many bad fiction books I didn't want to waste my time taking a chance when I could be programming or learning more directly.
They need to bring back the scholastic book fair! Or is that still a thing? We also had Pizza Hut giving us free pizza for reading books.
I read a lot as a kid, to the point where I got in trouble in class for reading a book instead of paying attention. I’m trying to think about why, but I don’t think it was any outside push. I don’t remember most of my peers reading so much.
I remember lugging along a copy of The Idiot by Dostoyevsky with me to read on the subway and feeling like it made me an intellectual badass. I still treasure the memory of the classic lit I read but I very rarely get any pleasure reading in now. This trend among youth is worrying but seems part of an accelerated mutation of our culture
My idea of reading for fun as a kid, and even now, included(s) reading technical manuals, research papers, encyclopedia, or other materials where I am gaining knowledge.
I have always hated reading fiction and never saw the point in wasting time on it. I would prefer to waste that same time on watching a movie.
Fiction can be nice. But the hardest is finding good books. I like computer science and electronic books and finding good materials to explore the fields is relatively easy. They're more dense so I can use them for a longer period of time. Finding a good fiction book is not that easy (even though I restrict myself to Fantasy and a little bit of SF). I have a list of 153 series (some I still have to explore) collected over 3-5 years. I've read more, but that's basically the ones that warranted a reread. And even then some are just for light reading.
Ha! Same.
My older son is 8 and is finishing Harry Potter #5. I hope he'll still enjoy reading after he turns 9.
Reading is a solitary activity. I stopped reading when I was in a relationship, so I have to spend some leisure time together. It was terrible at first, then I found Lars Von Trier films and the burden was a bit better, so... that was it.
Also, society has changed so much.
I grew up in a time when there was no such thing as "children's books". My first reading was some pulp fiction, then some bestsellers, then Dracula. I got to Wuthering Heights when I was n. I found it gripping, but I understood almost nothing. Luckily - crazy luckily - I have a friend, a n-year-old girl, who also read Wuthering and introduced me to it. So I read it again.
Growing up - we had a lot of programs externally to encourage us to read. I wonder if kids still have the same kind of things
For example, we had things like a Six Flags reading program, Pizza Hut Book It for free pizza, and hand picked Texas Bluebonnet Books. We also had book fairs.
There aren’t any spaces left to take your kid to look at books. Without access to internet the only option is the public library but books there are often not displayed in a way that would draw new readers in
Not sure about exact timing but isn't it just the time when school orders kids to read boring books until every last bit of enjoyment is squeezed out of the activity of reading?
Before I looked at the article I guessed it was because schools are making reading as un-fun as possible
That's why I stopped reading for fun, probably when I was 15 or so. Seems they've just accelerated it
Sure enough, that seems to be their guess too. Maybe our school systems kinda suck
Agreed, at least in my experience in the US we are conditioned from a young age to associate reading with tedium and monotony. When you have to 'read along with the class', stop after every chapter to write an essay, hyper-analyze every sentence until all the fun of discovery is sucked out, and generally be in an unpleasant and uncomfortable environment as you do it, you will over time associate the activity in general with those negative aspects and avoid it- despite the activity itself being potentially very enjoyable in a different context
Part of the solution should be going to every free library near a school or playground and filling them with a bunch of first books in a series. I know my kids got hooked on looks of books that way
I don't like mandatory reading. Reading should be a joyous activity, where I choose the books I like to read, not something where others tell me what I should read.
people give up reading the same reason they give up anything "hard". The combination of "prescribed texts" and "bad pedagogy". When i self teach...i start a book...downloaded immediately from libgen, if it sucks, i trash it, and download another immediately...if the author is not a time wasting hack, guess what? I'll buy that book immediately, having found the correct resource. It pains me to read what the most recommended books are for learning most hard subjects - they are generally on the poor side...they are generally not written as simply as possible. Yes - this is a hugely opinionated response.
Onto method - If the method in which it's taught is garbage/pedagogically horseshit...of course they will hate it. Learn maths with Paul Lockhart, or computer science from the ground up playing Turing Complete (on Steam)...or learning ANYTHING from someone like Brett Victor..and you'll see precisely the issue is with not just reading for fun, but doing any socially uncool thing like exercising the intellect.
I wonder how many kids would read more if Taylor Swift or Mr Beast or 'Insert favourite youtuber/celebrity here' started promoting book reading.
You can’t discount things like Roblox and online video as being part to blame.
But overall I do think kids have too much homework and projects to have time for leisure reading.
If I had to make kids read, I would make reading forbidden. There is something about reading as a duty that kills the joy, and others already described it better than I could. I loved reading as I kid, and I was lucky I had read most of the books I love before they were assigned, but I especially loved reading the forbidden books - I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and reading the "Hedgehog in the Cage" series secretly borrowed from a friendly neighbor was magical. That series is unfortunately totally unknown in the West, but for Czech kids of my generation, that was our Harry Potter.
I stopped reading because it became a larger part of school. I strongly disliked school, so reading was a part of the thing I strongly disliked. Really, anything they tried to force was soured on me for a long time.
My disdain for school started around 9 or 10
There's also an epidemic of kids not listening to the radio, but nobody has questions about why.
From what I observed with my own kids, the books that were either mandatory or on the selection list to read for assignments were shockingly bad, and on top of that 100% targetted at the girl half of the class. Wether this is the result of teaching having become almost exclusively female or other cultural drives is hard to say.
When you can read for fun, it's fun.
When your teacher criticizes you for not reading the boring book he/she ordered you to read, you stop enjoying reading and stop reading.
It's the teachers' faults.
Kids read 50x as much at times teachers were even more strict and critical of them, so clearly it's not that.
The mass availability of low effort digital entertainment options is what made the difference
Not sure about that. I would read for fun instead of reading the assigned reading. The teacher would get mad. I'd continue to ignore them and continue reading my book.
So you can't just blame the teacher. If the books give you something essential, you'll turn to them to escape a harsh reality.
When your teacher criticizes you for not reading the boring book he/she ordered you to read, you stop enjoying reading and stop reading.
I've read more books than most people, I think. I certainly was in the top percentile by the time I was 18.
I never once read a book start-to-finish that a teacher assigned to me. When I had a book on my desk that I went out of my way to find at the library on one side and then some random book my teacher thought was good on the other side, I picked my book every time. I'd half-heartedly skim through their book and struggle my way through reading quizzes. The only saving graces were Cliff's Notes, film versions, or if the teacher outright read us the book out loud.
At least in our school district, this is not how its done in elementary school. Teachers don't assign books. Either it's completely free choice, or fiction/non fiction, or genre (e.g. mystery).
When I last read about this, it was blamed on 4th grade being the time when you shift from reading just to read, into reading to learn.
Required reading of books I couldn't relate to played a big role in me stopping reading for fun but I don't place that blame on my teachers for it. I doubt they had the freedom to choose which books we were assigned or whether we were assigned books at all.
100% this.
School largely ruined my interest in reading until I became an adult and re-found it.
Being regularly told to read boring books, of course any interest in doing it casually was going to go out the Window.
Sure there is value in needing to read certain things from an academic standpoint, Beowulf is a good example. But there was zero reason I needed to read "The Outsiders" when we just watched the movie after reading it anyways.
Just because something is a classic, doesn't mean we have to consume it in its original form to get the meaning.
Instead fill the library with a diverse collection of books, let the kid choose what they want to read, don't rush them, and importantly if it just isn't working let them move on to a new book.
Side note:
I know some people are going to groan at this. But seriously, books based on video games can be a fantastic gateway towards actually caring about reading. It is how I re-discovered by interest in reading as an adult.
I read a lot when I was young and a big motivating factor for me was the natural progression to reading grown up books and works of literature with more interesting plots and subject matter. Nowadays, there seems to be more commercially-driven infantilization of entertainment where comics and books for kids are no longer a stepping stone but an end destination. My teenager only reads manga and comics which can be very deep and cover mature topics (unlike anything I could get my hands on in the 90s) but are still, ultimately, not novels. I haven't decided if this is a good or bad thing - it probably just 'is what it is' and I'm getting old.
I agree. Looking back at my own reading as a kid, I worked my way through the "age appropriate" material really quickly, in part, because those books simply weren't that interesting. They were more about learning to read. Once I got through those kids books (and I saw them as kids books even when I was a kid), I moved to "adult" books as soon as I could because they are better novels, and I could tell that right away, with more complex stories, better characterization, better prose, different settings, and a real sense of scale and ambition.
A lot of it comes down to context: my parents were and remain voracious readers. They read all the time and have strong opinions about books, and I wanted to read what they did and have strong opinions about books in the way that they do. That sensibility was something they taught and which I grew up in. I could just as well see the absence of that having an effect.
> Traditionally, middle-grade book discovery happens via parents, librarians, and—most crucially—peers. At recess, your best friend tells you that you have got to read the Baby-Sitters Club, and boom, you’re hooked
I've never experienced this in my school life. Used to be the one guy who spends all of his time helping out and reading at the school library back in elementary school. Later in high-school, I stopped reading as much due to the appearance of the computer in my life, which had great things like the Internet and such.
If you spend all your time on TikTok, I feel like it's unlikely you'd read too much.
My daughter stopped reading when her school forced an ipad on us with no way for us to administer our own screen time controls. Now I never know if she's doing homework or trapped down some YouTube shorts rabbit hole.
Forced an iPad? How is that legal? Isn't it possible to do whatever assignments she is getting on a PC?
Don't know why this is on HN but anyways.
My youngest will be 9 soon. Finding books for him is pain. I started trying more in the last few weeks, grabbing more or less random things from my local library (beginning chapter books, chapter books). Most of them are series, he liked a few (Galaxy Zack, Time Jumpers, Desmond Cole books), did not like others (Magic Tree House, something called Byte, Code Breakers, and really anything else I gave him). He mostly outgrew Geronimo Stilton books.
They do have book fairs at school and we always go, but we rarely buy anything as it's mostly gifts. We're trying to get book from libraries as opposed to buy them.
They do have an awesome library at school and he spends a few hours per week there and I see that he's taking some books from there, but it's mostly Captain Underpants, Stick Dog, and other comics.
I absolutely DESPISE Dan Pilkey's books (Captain Underpants and Stick Dog) as well as My Weird School (and other Dan Gutman's products), they really dumb things down and basically lead kids away from "regular" (ie long-form) books. I my opinion they can lead to behavior issues in kids, however it's possible that kids simply start reading them during that period when hormones start kicking in.
I have a bunch of books from DK Publishing (coffee table encyclopedias) and leave them an frequented areas of the house, and notice that kids check them up every once in a while, at least that's something. They are designed for people with decreased attention span, if you want to learn about a subject, you read a page or two and you're good.
My older kids stopped reading a lot around that time (~10yo), mostly after reading My Weird School and Captain Underpants and similar crap.
Older kids did go through the entire Lemony Snicket series though (way before NetFlix series came up) so that's something.
My 8yo has an iPad from school (we were forced to get one from school when he did kindergarten remote) but his time is very strictly controlled, and it's only for studying (no games). He does have access to an old XBox but only on weekends and for a limited time. He will not have a smart phone for a long time, that's where we lost our older kids (around 13).
So yeah, it's a major problem...
>Don't know why this is on HN but anyways
Well, for starters because HN is not just for programming and startups, things are on HN because they're upvoted (or sometime because it's some YC promotion), and anything that tingles our intellectual curiosity will do (it's even in the site's guidelines).
From personal experience I think don't rush it and worry about it. Reading gets more fun - perhaps because it is more of an individual understanding - (you read alone and to yourself), after grade 4 even better - grade 5 and 6. I would suggest some 'classic' adventure stories: most books by Andre Norton - the time trader series for example; Jim kjergaard - Big Red, later on Zane Grey. Good luck. Have fun with those kids!
My 8yo partially dislikes Geronimo Stilton books because they're "too old" (they started in 2000s and are now mostly done publishing the new ones). The books you mentioned were from mid-20th century :)
Some of these might be less interesting to a boy at that age, but here are the books/authors I loved around 9 (lots of talking animals, magic, and adventure/detective plots):
Garth Nix Sharon Creech Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Jane Yolan David Clement-Davies E. L. Konigsburg Louis Sachar Avi Brian Jacques Louise Erdich Edward Bloor Susan Fletcher "Reader Beware, You Choose the Scare" Goosebumps (like Choose Your Own Adventure but more modern at the time).
I grew into the kind of avid reader that still reads 50+ books a year. My Mom didn't try to control what I read, even if it was complete junk.
I also adored fact books like the coffee tables you mentioned. I remember having a pulpy "100,000 weird facts" book, both covers torn off because it was used so much. This was before Wikipedia.
(I'm going to assume you meant "interesting to a boy as opposed to a girl". If I'm incorrect my apologies).
I only have boys so do not have personal experience but I read/heard that girls do and will continue to read more than boys at any age, and the gap is getting worse starting around that time (7-8-9). I do think that some books are directed at girls, but I do see a lot of books directed at boys too (though not recently, Hardy Boys was a loooong time ago). It's just boys are less interested regardless. Not really sure what to do about that honestly...
Consider an activity that requires reading. For example, my 8-year-old plays "Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom," which involves a lot of reading. She gets stuck and then Googles hints.
Remember: All children are different. I have 3 kids, and their interest level and approach to reading is very different. My oldest loved being read to starting around 6 months, and we started getting into chapter books when she was 5-6. My other two wouldn't sit still for books until around 18 months, and my almost-6-year-old doesn't have the attention span for a chapter book.
Look at Ursula Vernon/T Kingfisher (at least the kid/YA focused ones). Danny Dragonbreath might be the right age range for the youngest (text + cartoon), and Minor Mage, Illuminations and Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking would be slightly older (chapter book level).
I'd hold off on the fairy tale (dark. weird) and romance ones (paladins) for a few years yet...
Mine have gone through Paolini (Eragon), Sanderson (all of them. damn he writes a lot), Wings of Fire (Tui Sutherland -- Cute, chapters, skews younger)., Scott Westerfield (Leviathian).
I think I got into reading the most when I hit about 3rd or 4th grade. I think 8-9 years is when the reading possibilities really open up for kids. Its around that time I and many of my friends got into Redwall and Animorphs, and within a few years Harry Potter and books like the Black Cauldron.
If it's painful to you, you're doing it wrong. At 8 you should get him to the library and let him chose himself what books he wants to read. Also, you don't have to like the books he choses. You despising his book choice is irrelevant.
If I just let him do what he wants he just plays on iPads or computers in the library (iPads have bunch of games installed, computers do not have games but you can obviously play Web-based stuff etc). He doesn't care much about books unfortunately. It's my job as a parent to make sure he does read something (I'm trying to find something he likes and something that's more of a long form as opposed to a comic). I do realize that the more I pressure him the less he likes it but I'm doing my best to find balance.
As for choice of books, both Dan Pilkey and Dan Gutman are considered controversial authors and a lot of parents feel uneasy about their kids reading their books. Check parents' reviews on goodreads or any other site, you'll find plenty of negative reviews, it's not just me.
I won't stand for Pilkey slander. I have worked in education. His books are certainly silly, but they are indeed a very functional gateway to get kids to enjoy reading on their own. Yes, they are immature, they are for kids. No, they won't make your kids into delinquents, especially not if they get your kids to read a lot more than they would have. I think it's important to show kids that reading doesn't have to be all textbooks and dry academics, it can be fun and enjoyable, because why would they ever read of their own volition if by their perception it isn't fun at all?
From reading reviews of Dav Pilkey's books in Goodreads I didn't see anything like you describe, is it getting banned by the same fundamentalist Christian parents attacking public libraries in the USA or something?
Reviews are pretty good, most books hover on 4+ ratings.
> My older kids stopped reading a lot around that time (~10yo), mostly after reading My Weird School and Captain Underpants and similar crap.
Have you considered just being happy your kids are reading stuff they enjoy? If I picked up on this sort of thing from my parents, I probably would have been less inclined to read myself...
I agree, and have the same problem.
What books did you end up liking for 9 year olds?
Just as I said, Galaxy Zack series (he must have been 7 at the time though), Time Jumpers (fairly recently, there's only 4 of them and I don't know if the author will write more), Desmond Cole (about ghosts). But that's pretty much all for the last 1+ years... I'm trying some of the "Scooby-Doo" books, not comics but regular chapter books, and he seems to read them at least. I'm going to try more "grown up" books (just picked up Class Dismissed, it's a winner of some prize or whatever), we'll see how it goes.
But it's honestly really frustrating. I'm older (grew up in the 80s) and we read MUCH more, and I think it's important.
Do you know of any resources/discussions I can look up/participate in?
Mensa surprisingly has some good age-appropriate book lists linked at the bottom of this page: https://www.mensaforkids.org/achieve/excellence-in-reading/
(At that age, I was a huge Animorphs fan, but some parents might not be comfortable with the violence and gore.)
I had no idea Mensa did this, I will give this a try. I'm not sure he's up to all of these, but we'll try and see.
When I was that age I read basically nothing but Hardy Boys books. Also Alex Rider books and Harry Potter, all out of order.
I love how condescending this headline is, lol.
When I was in elementary we had a program where you could read a book and then take a test on that book. If you passed the test you would get a prize from snacks to coupons at restaurants. There were no limits and the book choice was large.
I ravenously read through books at first and would take the test asap. I was gaming the system, but through this I found books I became enthralled with. This was the foundation of my love for reading.
Not sure what my point was, but I wonder if any programs like that exist anymore.
If you want your kids to read books then they should see you reading books.
If my attention was in a book, I'd be looking up to find one on the roof, one trailing blood and one packing pencils into the toilet.
I'd also not be cooking or cleaning or spending the 1000th hour on the phone with the kids insurance provider. This between activities, assisting with 4-6 hours of homework, working, etc.
Reading typically came out of sleep time.
source: father of 5
Reading to kids every night early on helps. Not being pressured to read stupid crap in school helps. "You can get a library card once you learn to read" helped. Piles of books lying around helps. Older brothers reading a lot helps, especially for reading recommendations.
(Father of 3, youngest is 14 now. after a while, the biggest problem is keeping them in books they haven't read)
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Obtaining information through books is like trying to put out a fire by sucking water out through a straw. The printing press was great but it's a slow and constrained way to get into from the greatest minds. I read voraciously as a child but when I came to university I pretty much stopped reading when the experts were there to teach in real life using all the senses.
If I were a 9 year old today I'd probably pick YouTube over reading. When I built my house I found myself learning way faster watching tradesmen and listening to them on YouTube than having to suck that information through a tiny straw that is reading a book . I find myself truly hating reading now, far too inefficient.
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