Reply to How to convince DD 10 to read anything else than comics (graphic novels)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD is younger, but I will qualify that as an avid Gen X reader, I hated the idea of graphic novels. But, I have really softened to the idea that reading is reading. Reading should be enjoyable, and who knows - my parents may have hated the choose your own adventure books I loved (Along with stuff too old for me, like Flowers in The Attic).

DD was begging for Raina Telgemier’s books. They’re graphic, but far from “comics” I think. “Guts” really struck a chord with me, even as an adult. There’s lots of challenging vocabulary, an excellent story, but laid out in a way that makes it interesting to engage in.

The thing is, this is what kids who have been raised on screens and in a media world are consuming. I’d rather my kid read a book with pictures than be on a screen.

Literature changed from Shakespeare to Jusy Blume. Language and story telling are always changing. You need to understand that these books are not to speak to you, they are to speak to the generation that your child is part of.

They can explore the classics when they’re older, but you probably didn’t read Ulysses as a child, and if you did, it probably didn’t resonate like it would now. Let them love reading, in whatever form speaks to them, so they can explore their world, and learn about what’s around them. [/quote]

Hard disagree that your kid will just naturally explore the classics as a child. One of my college English professors, on his blog, was just pointing out the way that The Wind in the Willows impacted JRR Tolkein and C S Lewis. It's much easier to read the classics if you steep your kid first in fairy stories, then in children's books from the Golden Age of Children's Literature (where the authors themselves were steeped in the classics), and then the classics themselves. If you think the classics matter - and some people don't and that's cool - then you should put your kid on a trajectory to read them. The best way to do this is really read-alouds. My kids don't particularly enjoy reading, say, the 19th century prose of George MacDonald but they'll happily listen to an audio book of The Princess and the Goblin or let me read The Light Princess aloud to them.

Reading is formation. Screens are too, but just because reading is better formation than screens doesn't make all reading the same.[/quote]

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