Kids These Days and New Blogger!

Dear Kira,

I understand your concern about reading. It is concerning that there seems to be a down trend in classics reading. It seems that all anyone wants to read is Twilight and Fifty Shades of Stupid. Kids these days.

But I do think the issue is a little more complicated than that. I mean, there is a some middle ground between The Iliad and The Vampire Diaries. Not everyone is cut out to read Shakespeare. So, it's sort of hard to decide what counts as a high quality book. Also, I think it's not quite realistic to expect kids to read Byron (and as we know from English 201, it's not realistic to expect me to read Byron either).

I think the most important thing is that kids think reading is fun. Perhaps this is naive, but I think that once kids discover that reading is fun, they'll eventually move on to reading the classics. What's needed to promote the reading of classics is to make them fun and interesting. Most kids first encounter classics at school; there's no better way to get a teenager to dislike a book then to force them to read it, then write a five paragraph essay about it. That leads me to my next question. Do you think that forcing kids to read in school encourages or discourages them?

And now for something completely different.

I would like to welcome a new contributor to In Your Write Mind! Her name is Keri and she's so very fly, oh my, it's a little bit scary. Keri is a voracious reader, an excellent writer, and will be adding a new voice to our literary discussions. She's also a fan of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, so she's obviously well qualified. Keri's writing specialty is alien fiction; if you want to check out some of her other writing, you can read her blog The 2013 Machine.

Welcome, Keri!

Maria