What Kids are Reading: The Book Reading Habits of Students in American Schools
(this link opens up a PDF report)
After reading the intros, skip to page 22 to start digging into the data, which is fascinating. I must admit I’ve never even heard of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a seriously popular book series for grade schoolers. I need to catch up.
The DOAWK book’s author provides a column in this report which is pretty fascinating. He states the toughest competition he has for getting young boys to read and I thought it was pretty thoughtful the way he owned up to it:
“The toughest competitor, though, is video games. The stories told in today’s video games are as enriching and engrossing as any book. And the kid gets to be the star of the story to boot. I think it’s up to us, as authors, to rise to the challenge. If we want kids to pay attention to our work, we need to write the kinds of stories kids are interested in reading. We know that when a kid engages with a book, it creates a special kind of magic. It’s up to us to sing the siren song that will get kids hooked and turn them into lifelong readers.”
(via aboveandbeyond and vanishingevocations)
