YABookgate

[the printer is outo fink]

This just made me wonder how people might get young boys to actually enjoy reading for its own sake rather than as a chore. The first thing that comes to mind is to encourage them to read the books that get adapted into movies and shows they show interest in.

They might—hopefully—find that the original book is better than the adaptation in at least some cases.

I think the key is for books to be interesting and well written. To have a strong mystery or adventure storyline with language that doesn't talk down to the young audience or moralise with anything like a heavy hand. Kids know when they are being patronised or when a story is a heavy handed vehicle for a message and they don't like it. Way too many kids' authors are mostly interested in 'educating' kids how to think. Or writing for kids as it's a lighter work load than writing an an adult book and they are lazy rather than excited to entertain and excite older children.

 

[Judge Dredd]

If some thumper is what it takes to get children to pick up a book, and read, so be it.

I have a book a week rule, and my son mostly enjoys what he reads. But if I didn't make him, he wouldn't feel personally compelled.

This just made me wonder how people might get young boys to actually enjoy reading for its own sake rather than as a chore. The first thing that comes to mind is to encourage them to read the books that get adapted into movies and shows they show interest in.

They might—hopefully—find that the original book is better than the adaptation in at least some cases.

You're fighting a losing battle, and are only going to make things worse.

The real problem isn't Minecraft or YouTube. During the days of Super Nintendo and Playstation, Goosebumps and Harry Potter were huge, as were their various knock offs.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you I have a hatred of Shakespear not because the works themselves are somehow bad. But because we were forced to read and re-read them over and over again in school. Having to spend two weeks analyzing and reanalyzing the line "tomorrow you'll find me a grave man" will give you a hatred of it for a lifetime. I'm not alone in this.

Not only is their nothing of interest to read, but the things they do want to read are hated by their parents and activists. Assuming they can even find something worthwhile under the endless piles of trash with no filter or quality control. Where's this generations equivalent to DK books, Fighting Fantasy, or Horrible History?

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you I have a hatred of Shakespear not because the works themselves are somehow bad. But because we were forced to read and re-read them over and over again in school. Having to spend two weeks analyzing and reanalyzing the line "tomorrow you'll find me a grave man" will give you a hatred of it for a lifetime. I'm not alone in this.

I disagree that Shakespeare is bad. However I completely understand this resentment to current education, and the way it handles works like Shakespeare.

 

[Adrenochrome Dreams]

"Not muh Bible!"

If some thumper is what it takes to get children to pick up a book, and read, so be it. The Bible should already be required reading due to its central place in the history of European peoples.

Yes, in religious education rather than English classes.

 

[Gnillik Yot]

Some of you aren't going to agree with this, but we would be in this problem even if the average children's book was of excellent quality. Wokeness is not the reason boys aren't reading. Nor is it Shakespeare's fault - Shakespeare has been taught in schools for centuries and it's only in the past few decades that children's literacy rate has fallen.

The idea that we just need better, more manly books to get gen alpha to read more reminds me of the metaphor about the man who keeps being referred to a physiologist for his hallucinations, when what he needs is cancer treatment for a brain tumor.

The real problem, as some of you have pointed out, is social media, particularly TikTok and YouTube Shorts. These apps are wrecking your children's attention span, addicting them to a sugar high that only more and more internet can satiate. In the grand scheme of things, "based" Hardy Boys books are not going to interest the kids anymore than "woke" Hardy Boys will. Kids don't want good stories to read anymore, because their brains haven't been developed to appreciate good stuff like that. Not unless it has a bunch of pictures. Kids these days want Skibidi Toilet, and Dream, and Mr. Beast.

It's not just books. More and more, they're not watching movies either, and are instead watching two-minute recap videos on YouTube to decide whether they like a film or not. Or maybe they just read the TvTropes page.

Video games is the only kind of entertainment that will thrive in the world Gen Alpha will grow up in. Because games provide the dopamine that TikTok primed them for.

What is to be done? On a large scale, we are limited by the religion of Libertarianism. Which means that not only are we unable to ban children from the internet, we can't even ban TikTok without Logan Paul getting Donald Trump to swoop in and save it.

On a small scale, just ban your kid from having TikTok on his phone. Don't let him spend more than an hour a day watching Mr. Beast or whatever other brainrot e-celeb the algorithm is throwing at him.

The only bright side is that girls are slightly more immune to brainrot due to the way their brains develop in the early stages. (This is true, look it up.) Of course, plenty of them are brainrot-infected too, but it's much worse for boys. This means that the divide between girls and boys reading will only become more stark as gen alpha matures.

EDIT: Here is a YouTube video that tries to half-argue it's not so bad, but even he ends up realizing how grim the situation with gen alpha is.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I disagree that Shakespeare is bad.

No, I didn't mean that they're bad. I assume his works are good, they've been around for hundreds of years.

It's just that, even if we say they're really good, forcing kids to read them and study them sucks any possible enjoyment out of them. And that resentment still lingers in some small way as an adult. I can't see any version of Romeo and Juliet with those lines/scenes we had to study still making me cringe, or unintentionally laughing because we had to watch the Leonardo DeCaprio version where the "long sword" was a gun with "long sword" written under it.

Or in short, the works of Shakespear aren't bad, but they are forever tainted for me and I assume lots of others due to the shit we were made to do at school. Forcing kids to read will only foster resentment.

The idea that we just need better, more manly books to get gen alpha to read more reminds me of the metaphor about the man who keeps being referred to a physiologist for his hallucinations, when what he needs is cancer treatment for a brain tumor.

You use that metaphore, then come to the conclusion hallucinations are the problem.

You even say that literacy rates falling is a recent trend. That kids aren't watching movies or TV either. And judging by the collapse of AAA gaming, they aren't playing mainstream games either.

 

[the printer is outo fink]

You're fighting a losing battle, and are only going to make things worse.

Nah, he doesn't mind reading the books and enjoys them while he's reading them. It's just not what he'd naturally choose over Youtube/gaming. Helping him make a habit of reading for pleasure is part of my job. Sometimes you need a push to do something that's good for you, even when you enjoy it. If I get out of the habit of regular exercise, I become less and less likely to exercise. When I push myself to do it, and rebuild the habit, I love it. Kids can't be expected to push themselves to do things that are good for him, that's when parents have a duty to step in. There is a lot of value in regular reading, like improving spelling and grammar. And I see a difference in how he expresses his energy when he's spent time reading.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

The only bright side is that girls are slightly more immune to brainrot due to the way their brains develop in the early stages. (This is true, look it up.)

Look up what exactly? Female brain development vs male development?

Forcing kids to read will only foster resentment.

I agree with everything you said but this, I was forced to read, and I still like reading. Then again, I am on this site so I probably aren't the model of excellence.

 

[Cat tit bingo]

A lot of the kids hating Shakespeare problem comes from the fact they're not fucking books, they're plays. I hated reading Shakespeare in school but when we got to proform them and watch proformances I loved it. I'm sure many enjoy script readings but definitely not middle and highschoolers.
Schools are just incredibly proficient at wringing out any enjoyment from a good book between stopping to hyper analyze every chapter and having every kid read a couple sentence at a time so you're more just listening to the worst audio book ever made and if you try to force yourself to ignore them to read normally once its your turn you'll be chastised for not paying attention you don't ever really read the book.

 

[Mola Ram]

A lot of the kids hating Shakespeare problem comes from the fact they're not fucking books, they're plays. I hated reading Shakespeare in school but when we got to proform them and watch proformances I loved it. I'm sure many enjoy script readings but definitely not middle and highschoolers.
Schools are just incredibly proficient at wringing out any enjoyment from a good book between stopping to hyper analyze every chapter and having every kid read a couple sentence at a time so you're more just listening to the worst audio book ever made and if you try to force yourself to ignore them to read normally once its your turn you'll be chastised for not paying attention you don't ever really read the book.

Unexpurgated audio performances of Shakespeare plays exist for this very reason. Reading along while listening to the performance is the absolute best way to introduce a student to the text.

 

[Flexo]

Schools are just incredibly proficient at wringing out any enjoyment from a good book between stopping to hyper analyze every chapter and having every kid read a couple sentence at a time so you're more just listening to the worst audio book ever made and if you try to force yourself to ignore them to read normally once its your turn you'll be chastised for not paying attention you don't ever really read the book.

I read an article long ago (no idea if I could find it) but the reporter was talking about his talk with a male english teacher who taught books in a way to interest males.

I remember the example listed in the article is that the teacher had the kids draw a map of the island in Lord of the Flies. The reporter decided to take the challenge as well and discovered it was doable, but not easy at a glance, he had to really dig in and focus on the book to pick up the clues - and the reporter said after he tried it he was remembering the book a lot better too.

Basically... I think a lot of schooling and society has been screwed up by this idea that boys and girls are interchangeable. Maybe sex-segregated classes are a good idea and lesson plans should be aimed at reaching the children where their brains are at.

 

[Bruce Campbell's Chin]

The ability to stimulate the imagination is the sole advantage children's literature has over the competition. If the only books kids are being given to read are boring nonfiction and Very Important Books where Jacob learns that bullying retards is bad, with only the most basic barebones prose, then it's no wonder that reading rates are going down.

 

[Bulk Bogan]

My mother and father read to me every night from the time I was old enough to sit still and be fascinated by the stories till the point where I was a strong enough reader to read them bedtime stories. My grandfather gave me Dune and talked about it with me, my father took me to the library to pick out books I'd like -and- passed on his collection to me, my mother had a budget for me to purchase books the library didn't have, or whatever I most wanted from the school book fair. Now I maintain a subscription to several magazines, I read (trashy genre fiction) novels at work during my breaks, I purchase expensive 1st editions to read and rearead and then display in my office, and I have several books I look forward to reading at least once per year. If you want kids to read, to love books, there has to be a family involved to pass on that love for the written word to them.

It's not that the internet or video games or whatever globohomo media bullshit you want to blame are to blame, it's that the family as a concept is dying (so you can still blame globohomo, kinda) and most parents would rather shove an iPad into their kid's hands to shut them up for an hour instead of sitting with them and helping them with the big words. If you want your kid to read, you have to value it yourself and then spend the time to teach them to value it on their own terms.

It doesn't help that new books are almost always trash, but it's not like Catch-22 was new when I read it.

 

[Flexo]

Time to repost this infamous letter to Forrest j. Ackerman.


Too true Mr. Burroughs.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

My mother and father read to me every night from the time I was old enough to sit still and be fascinated by the stories till the point where I was a strong enough reader to read them bedtime stories. My grandfather gave me Dune and talked about it with me, my father took me to the library to pick out books I'd like -and- passed on his collection to me, my mother had a budget for me to purchase books the library didn't have, or whatever I most wanted from the school book fair. Now I maintain a subscription to several magazines, I read (trashy genre fiction) novels at work during my breaks, I purchase expensive 1st editions to read and rearead and then display in my office, and I have several books I look forward to reading at least once per year. If you want kids to read, to love books, there has to be a family involved to pass on that love for the written word to them.

It's not that the internet or video games or whatever globohomo media bullshit you want to blame are to blame, it's that the family as a concept is dying (so you can still blame globohomo, kinda) and most parents would rather shove an iPad into their kid's hands to shut them up for an hour instead of sitting with them and helping them with the big words. If you want your kid to read, you have to value it yourself and then spend the time to teach them to value it on their own terms.

It doesn't help that new books are almost always trash, but it's not like Catch-22 was new when I read it.

Same, kinda.

I was basically encouraged to read and the family tried to support it all the time. I think every family member that wasn't a nigger was able to at least mention and talk about their favorite books/authors.

 

[Greedy Fly]

It doesn't help that new books are almost always trash, but it's not like Catch-22 was new when I read it.

Yeah, I understand being unhappy about the state of publishing right now, but when it comes to finding things for kids to read right now, all the books you grew up reading are still extant. As a kid, I got through a lot of classics because I'd finish my school reading list then devour my older sister's list as well. Little Women, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte's Web, Misty of Chincoteague, White Fang. Not exactly titles hot off the New Releases shelf.

That said, I think people who feel pessimistic about their kid not reading in their spare time should consider that it's still a leisure activity. I think your responsibility as a parent is to teach literacy (the earlier the better), give kids every opportunity to read, model the behavior you want to see, and expose them to every possible genre to see if something lands. But at the end of the day you can't make them turn it into their hobby anymore than you can force a kid to specifically love gardening or rock climbing or chess. All my siblings were raised with the same resources, all four of us are well-educated and properly literate, but only two of us grew up to have reading as a major hobby. The other two will read a book every now and then and be able to discuss them intelligently, but they devote their spare time to other hobbies (crafting and hiking).

 

[WelperHelper99]

So I'm reading Halo: The Fall of Reach again. Specifically the 2011 edition with additional pages, corrections, and lore adjustments- they didn't expect Halo to blow up the way it did when they put out the first 3 books.

There are 3 'eras ' of Halo novels. The Del Ray classic era with the first 3, the Tor era, which reprinted the Delray books along with printing a fuck ton more, and the Gallery Books era, which is current year. Of these three, the older I get, the more I respect the Tor era. It enhanced everything Del Ray had going on while putting out a bunch more of the classics that have stood the test of time better than half of the Gallery Books era.

All of this is to circle back to this:

Time to repost this infamous letter to Forrest j. Ackerman.
View attachment 7077248

Too true Mr. Burroughs.

If reading isn't fun, if you are forcing yourself through a book white knuckle, you will come away with nothing and hate the art of literature. If it's engaging, if you love every second and can't put the book down, you will read a book a day. No exceptions.

That was Halo to me growing up. I collected all the way up to Infinite launching, which is over 20 novels, many out of print. I loved every second. Even the bad ones.

On boys reading: give them a fun universe and they'll read. Guys don't want to read the 500,000 horny wine mom "romance". They want action, violence, war, and moral dilemmas. That's how you get guys to read. There is a reason Starship Troopers is still in print and recomended to fresh officer cadets in the Military.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

So I'm reading Halo: The Fall of Reach again. Specifically the 2011 edition with additional pages, corrections, and lore adjustments- they didn't expect Halo to blow up the way it did when they put out the first 3 books.

There are 3 'eras ' of Halo novels. The Del Ray classic era with the first 3, the Tor era, which reprinted the Delray books along with printing a fuck ton more, and the Gallery Books era, which is current year. Of these three, the older I get, the more I respect the Tor era. It enhanced everything Del Ray had going on while putting out a bunch more of the classics that have stood the test of time better than half of the Gallery Books era.

All of this is to circle back to this:

If reading isn't fun, if you are forcing yourself through a book white knuckle, you will come away with nothing and hate the art of literature. If it's engaging, if you love every second and can't put the book down, you will read a book a day. No exceptions.

That was Halo to me growing up. I collected all the way up to Infinite launching, which is over 20 novels, many out of print. I loved every second. Even the bad ones.

On boys reading: give them a fun universe and they'll read. Guys don't want to read the 500,000 horny wine mom "romance". They want action, violence, war, and moral dilemmas. That's how you get guys to read. There is a reason Starship Troopers is still in print and recomended to fresh officer cadets in the Military.

There's a reason Jack London, Robert E. Howard, and Edgar Rice Burroughs still remain printed despite all the whinging from slacktavists.

 

[asceticHedonist]

The author interviewed here has the right idea: kids will imitate those they admire. And he and his wife apparently homeschool. That must help.

 

[Grand Duke Snowfall]

This makes me unbelievably sad.

Spoiler: Reel Screenshots

According to this bitch in the reel and 15.7K Instagram users, we might as well not even have names for our female protagonists because they are literally me. Or you can have her do something horrifically, unforgivably immoral, that might snap them back to reality real quick.