Harry Potter has gotten everyone reading, teens in particular, and YA literature is so engaging and profound, everyone is continuing to read. I remember reading Beat lit, and non-fiction as a teenager, but I was deprived of decent contemporary fiction. I read a lot of plays and short stories in late high school/early college.
Other material I loved to read as a teenager:
Anything Oscar Wilde
John Barth
Virginia Wolfe assignment
Once and future King assignment
TC Boyle
Jane Austin
James Joyce
Mark Twain
However, the teens I meet with at the Brooklyn Public Library seemed to love reading and do it all the time although they might have been exaggerating to try and impress me. I think teens are so much more literate today than ever for a couple of reasons 1) they are always reading and writing and reading very quickly and coding and decoding text through a varity of electronic and print platforms , 2) they are also youtube video editors and producers making them more effective visual and oral communicators.
It is common knowledge that teens have to be more academically competitive than in the past, especially girls going into college. This drive to get into the best schools is a theme throughout YA lit. The article we read about teen readers last week cited research that teens that read for pleasure do better academically. I would think that many librarians and parents have already guessed that. That many adults understand the importance of reading for fun, not as true when I was growing up hence a lack of YA focused lit, will help teens perform better. Teens now know how much fun it is to read.
Also, I like what you said Jack about the Library as place at the Bronx Library Center. The library is a place where serendipitous learning can occur along side serendipitous fun. It seems that with the explosion of YA lit that there now really is a book for every reader.
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2 comments:
When I was a teen I read some pretty fun garbage. But I wonder how much of it was REALLY garbage? I was a skater kid, and I read Thrasher magazine cover to cover regularly. I live in NYC now, and while magazines like Thrasher or Transworld Skateboarding were things elders despised, they are now regarded as important pieces of cultural history and are regularly referenced by academic pundits.
A lot of the time serendipitous fun can turn into inspiration. We should encourage that kind of experience in libraries. Nice post.
You know when I was a teen all I read was horror and Nancy Drew. I was a huge Christopher Pike fan and read lots of adult mysteries, like John Grisham. I read Anne Rice too, and then I was obsessed with reading classics for some reason...dont' know why, but I was. I read Forster, Hardy, Wharton...weird eh?
But you're right about Harry Potter. It did get so many kids excited about reading, and really opened the door for them for all the other lit that's out there.
Which reminds me, we should totally make a Youtube in class...i wonder if we'd have time?
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