How many times have you heard that phrase to defend kids reading subpar material?
As a mother, grandmother, reader, and writer, I have a few thoughts on that.
Mother/grandmother:
I have read a lot of amazing stories. I read them as a child, adolescent, and I read them for the decades I spent homeschooling my six children when we immersed ourselves into literature, and they played "hooky" because they couldn't put latest copy of Foxtrot down (We are huge Foxtrot fans here).
However, not every child enjoyed literature to the same degree (One child felt most of it was downright stupid). Others couldn't wait until the next day, the next story, the next epic poem.
We had our own style of reading: one-on-one with each child, reading aloud alternating paragraphs (The heard how reading aloud should sound; I could hear for pronunciation and comprehension, and we often skipped ahead to see who would get "stuck" with an extra long paragraph).
We also brought stacks of books to the dinner table (The Bible, church history, lives of the saints), and had two-hour long dinners and plenty of discussions. I read aloud, a chapter a day, from great novels over lunch.
These were amazing years.
We developed a series of in-house, one-liners from literature we still use today.
Still, my kids often defaulted to stuff that made me cringe. The
Sweet Valley High series.
Twilight.
Goosebumps.
Fear Street. (OK, I read a few of the last two, as well).
Which brings me to the next point.
Reader:
Society today bemoans our lessening passion for hunkering down with a good book. "Kids don't read anymore!" is the battle cry, which is true...and not.
We read for information. We read to learn. We read for pleasure. And people are still doing all three.
Email, texting, and social media, by their very natures, force people to read, perhaps more than they did in days past. All three contribute to the above three reasons why people read (to follow their favorite band on Twitter, why little Johnny needs a GoFund me account, and text messages from the new crush).
All right, all right. Kids, adults aren't reading
good books anymore.
If by "good books,"
we mean literature, well, literature has always been a hard sell. But not reading? If anything, eBooks have promoted reading, and
people who love certain genres (romance tends to sell well) have seemingly endless selections a couple clicks away.
But those aren't GOOD books.
By whose standards?
Don't get me wrong. I can join the chorus of those who bash 50 Shades and other commercially successful books, while I shake my head (while forgetting I read Sarah Kernochan's
Dry Hustle in high school, the book I literally picked up out of the gutter when walking to a friend's house because it looked that good, and absolutely loved the tight plot and layered characters, and my horror years later when I learned, due to the internet, the book is semi-autobiographical, that people could be that mean and coldhearted) at the ignorance of the masses.
When I do, I forget why most of us enjoy reading. We read for pleasure.
That can include titillating pleasure (the type that elicits scorn, perhaps even hypocritical scorn), but also pleasure at shivering in fear as we turn the page of a horror story; using all our deducing skills to solve the murder and figure out the culprit before the author tells us; enjoying characters and scenes so three-dimensional, we can hardly believe we spent three hours in an easy chair and not in the lives of those people living in those places; and enjoy the pure awesomeness of a well-crafted line that tugs our hearts of makes us think.
And nothing matches the pleasure of falling asleep to a good book.
This is why different writing styles and genres will appeal to different people. Which leads me to...
Writer:
As a writer, I, of course, want my own words to elicit some (or all) of these reactions. But I only have partial control of it.
I can learn the mechanics of writing a good book, and then I can spend time crafting it.
I can learn target marketing and draft a profile of that type of reader and promote to that audience.
I can make connections on social media and in person, hoping that will persuade reluctant buyers.
But writers who are readers know, deep down, understand none of this comes with guarantees, which may or may not be a slam on their writing.
Certain combinations of words will leave some readers sighing and begging for more.
While the same words will leave others going, "meh."
Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."
