As I librarian, I follow many library and book centered blogs. One had a link to this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405511702112290.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter
I am an academic librarian so I rarely if ever see kids so I really don't have a lot of experience with what kids, specifically boys, read. Or why they read or why they don't read. I only know what articles tell me. And yes, I have heard about the "meet them where they are" philosophy of getting kids to read. However, unlike the pretentious Thomas Spence, I find not a lot wrong with this approach.
Apparently elementary and middle school boys don't read enough. Many teachers, librarians, authors, publishers, etc. decided that to get boys to read more they would have books about what boys want to read about. That is apparently a terrible approach. Why should a boy read "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" when they could be reading "Treasure Island". I mean, the horror of boys reading popular fiction about things they enjoy when they could be reading boring classics. I know that personally I hate pulp books that are on a topic I find enjoyable; I would much rather read a boring book that someone at some point decided was a classic.
Spence also claims that having video games makes boys not read. If a boy has a choice between reading or playing video games, he will choose the video games. If a boy has no video games, he will be willing to read Jane Austen. I am a 23 year old female and I won't read Jane Austen. Do you really know any middle school boys who would read it? Probably not many. I am not going to go into why or why not video games are evil and detrimental to reading...perhaps Jenny will write about that since she plays video games.
What I really want to discuss is writing gross out books for boys. I don't think there is anything wrong with it. When I was in elementary school, I read Encyclopedia Brown and Hank the Cowdog; in middle school I had to read star books aka books that someone somewhere decided were good books to read, which then you could take a test on to prove you read and get...something? I know some classes gave extra credit for how many you read. I dunno. But you had to read star books. I hated that! You know why? Because none of the books I wanted to read were star books. We had entire library, but you could only read two shelves of them if you wanted to get points. I feel like that is what Spence is advocating. Instead of letting boys read what strikes their fancy, he wants them to read "good" books.
I hate "good" books for the most part. I like reading stuff written for me. It is like Chick Lit. Is it "good"? No. Will it win any literary awards? Probably not. Is it enjoyable? Most definitely. Does it get people to read? Yes! It is the same thing with Captain Underpants and Sweet Farts (which just fyi is an awesome name that makes me, a 23 year old female librarian, want to read it). Is it "good"? No. Will it spark interest in 12 year old boys? Yes. Will it get them to read? Most definitely. So, how is that wrong?
There is one quote I would like to analyze: "Most importantly, a boy raised on great literature is more likely to grow up to think, to speak, and to write like a civilized man. Whom would you prefer to have shaped the boyhood imagination of your daughter's husband—Raymond Bean or Robert Louis Stevenson?"
1) What is great literature? I mean, Stevenson wrote about pirates and a doctor with a split personality. That seems to be exactly what boys today would want to read, but would be considered crap.
2) Where is there evidence to say that boys who read "great literature" grow up to be civilized? I mean, really. That is just stupid and had no evidence whatsoever.
3) I take issue with the whole "daughter's husband" preference based on a book. It really isn't anyone's business except your daughters.
4) I'm pretty sure I would get along a lot better with a guy who read "Zombie Butts from Uranus" than I would with the guy who read "Pride and Prejudice" as a 6th grader.
5) Why does there have to be a choice between the two the authors. Who is to say that the boy who reads Sweet Farts doesn't go on to be the boy who reads Treasure Island. Once you start enjoying reading you are going to find things more books that you enjoy. Let boys read what they want and then after they read through all the Goosebump books, suggest Mark Twain.
**Right after I finished writing this, I found http://tametheweb.com/2010/09/24/how-to-raise-boys-who-read-hint-not-with-gross-out-books-and-video-game-bribes/ . Video games = reading of some sort.**
I am in partial agreement with you. When I was working at a library around 2007-2009, I always hated Advanced Readers Lists because they were so rigid in what kids could read for credit and what they couldn't. I know a lot of kids missed out on reading some fun books because the reading program their school used was so limited.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe the term "garbage in, garbage out" applies to kids' reading choices. Not that every book a kid reads should be a literary masterpiece, but if they only read the lowest-common-denominator books, they're never going to improve their vocabulary or literacy comprehension. The trick is to find well-written books that will appeal to things that the boys like.
Take pirates for instance (one of my favorite genres). Start with the silliest pirate books out there and if they continue to grow and appreciate the excitement and adventure in the stories, they can work their way through increasingly more elaborate books like Peter and the Starcatchers, Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, Starcross, and eventually Treasure Island. I think I read Treasure Island when I was about eleven, and though the vocabulary was a bit challenging, I loved it! To this day, it's still one of my favorite adventure stories.
In essence, I agree that kids should be given the freedom to choose to read what they want, but I also think a nudge in the right direction can be a very good thing.