What Kids Read

[fauxklore]

The Washington Post reported on a survey of what children are reading. There are some fundamental flaws in the survey methodology, the most egregious of which is that they made no distinction between required reading for school and books children chose themselves. Still, I found the report fairly interesting.

It surprised me that boys read Charlotte's Web which I think of as very much a girl's book. It also seems that fantasy totally dominates children's literature, which is a big change from when I was growing up. There doesn't seem to be much interest in mysteries, which is another change. I loved Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Dana Girls and so on, none of which made the list.

S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders was the top junior high book and it's one I remember liking a lot at that age, too. High school reading still apparently includes To Kill a Mockingbird, a book I thoroughly and completely detest. Preachiness is always a major crime in literature for me.

The saddest part of the results was that the number of books read per year declined as the children grew older. Even if you only counted required reading in school, I'm pretty sure most of us read more than 7 books a year in high school.

Comments

[kaasirpent]

Seven books per year? Hell, I read 7 books per month.

[fauxklore]

Sometimes I even read 7 books in a week.

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

I read Charlotte's Web when I was a kid. I don't remember if it was required. It could have been available through one of the children's book services that was offered through my grade school. (Example: Scholastic Book Services.) I do remember acquiring A Wrinkle in Time via SBS, among other things (including some scifi).

Perhaps the decline of reading books is due to an increase of reading things online? I rarely read books nowadays, but I read lots of blogs, news articles, etc. I'm probably more informed about current events (at least that pertain to me) than I was when I was a child. We were occasionally required to cut out newspaper articles and give reports on them.

[fauxklore]

we had to do the "current events" thing too, but that was considered part of social studies, not English class. We did have a newspaper unit in 8th grade, along with other wastes of time (e.g. speed reading) my school implemented when they did away with foreign languages in junior high.

I find that online reading decreases my reading of newspapers and magazines, but not of books. My metro commute is responsible for at least 2 or 3 books a week, typically. I also usually read in bed in the morning on the (all too frequent) days when I wake up very early and can't fall back to sleep.