You can find an excellent rant (actually several, if you read the prolific comments) on Shannon Hale's blog today, in response to a remarkably snooty and condescending opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ piece takes to task the "uninspired choices" on library summer reading lists (i.e. current fiction). The writer suggests a return to the classics, saying that (by offering lighter summer reading choices) "we're raising a generation of cereal-box readers." The piece basically disparages anything written in the past 100 years.
I'm personally of the opinion that there are some great classic books, and it's wonderful when kids find them and enjoy them. BUT the more important thing is that kids find books that they enjoy, and read those. Especially during the summer. The worst thing that can happen is for kids to be so turned off by the classics that they decide they hate reading.
I also think that there are a lot of perspectives that you find in children's books today that you couldn't find in the classics (multi-cultural viewpoints, children of alcoholics, protagonists with mental illness, etc.). This means that often individual kids will get more inspiration from some newer book than they ever would from "The Wind in the Willows" or "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
Shannon says most of this and more, much more eloquently than I. Check out her remarks here.
Glad you found this. I posted a long comment there about the article, which I'll summarize here.
1. Back of cereal boxes? Fine by me. Take that.
2. Summer reading is for fun. That's the point.
3. Many libraries use NEW books for summer reading, so classics wouldn't qualify. Oh, and maybe WSJ would like to note that the books they profiled aren't the ONLY books on the lists. That often many styles and types pf books are represented. Great reporting WSJ.
Posted by: MotherReader | July 27, 2006 at 06:55 AM
Thanks for the heads up, Jen. Like many others, I've ranted about it on my site. And the thing is? I think an editorial about how classics aren't dead; that kids still read them and have fun; would be a cool. But such reading shouldn't be mandatory; and non-classics can be pretty darn good.
Posted by: Liz B | July 27, 2006 at 09:33 AM
Yay Shannon. Thanks for linking to this, Jen. It's a shame when people write negative pieces such as this and sound as if they haven't even read the books they are so quick to judge.
Posted by: Little Willow | July 28, 2006 at 04:44 PM