My friends and I were having a discussion about our favourite books and we talked about “being too late” to appreciate a book. I kind of get the sentiment and was wondering if others agree. So one of my favourite books of all time is Perks of Being a Wallflower and read it when I was 17 and I remember just thinking about it for a long time and always going back to it. It just cut so deep unlike anything else. I wondered if I had read it now at 29 if it would have nearly the same impact.
Also, I read Looking For Alaska for the first time this year and while I enjoyed it, I found myself wondering how blown away I would have been reading it as a teenager. I just know I would have appreciated it so much more and while I still love John Green I don’t know if his books will ever hit me the same again.
On the other hand, I’m sure there are books that I didn’t appreciate before that I certainly would now!
I maintain that half of the “classics” we read in school are given to us too young. That’s why so many american kids end up hating reading— being forced to read old books that are a chore to get through, is not what captures the interest of a young reader.
Schools should start off with more modern works, things from the past half-century at minimum, before hucking kids into the “classics”. Even if they are as good as the literary world seems to think, kids can’t possibly know that, because “classic” is a comparative term, and they don’t have the most solid basis for it. It’s like starting off a new whiskey drinker with a 21-year single-malt— sure they could like it right away, but what do they have to compare its quality to?
Plus, just my opinion… a lot of “the classics” are boring and tough to get through even with that solid base of reference!
I agree. My mom didn’t care if we read comic books, because at least we were reading. I liked reading anyway, but I knew lots kids while growing up for whom comics was literally the only reading they did.
Now kids get to watch all their super-heros in movies, so future generations may just decide to skip the comics, and their reading skills will suffer for it.
It’s not solely an American thing. I remember the short story about a woman who got married at a very young age, she moved to her husband’s parents house and her husband left to work in another country, got a new family there and never came back. We were 11-12 at the time. My favorite show was iCarly at the time, I had no comprehension of anything that happened in that story
I agree. My school made us read Holes in the 7th grade by Louis Sachar and it still is one of the best reading experiences to date. Classics like Jane Eyre were painful to read in high school but I am glad that middle school was enjoyable.
In the UK everybody reads a specific set of classic works. I think there are two reasons. The good reason is that it gives everybody a common vocabulary. They will all have read A Christmas Carol, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and An Inspector Calls. (And maybe some others too). The not so good reason, I think, is that these books are in the public domain.
Absolutely. I teach high school English and I disagree with so many of the books we’re expected to teach. It’s so hard for teens who have so little life experience to understand these books.
Couldn’t agree more.