The other book thread (on the IM-speak book that was taken from a middle school library and placed in a high school library) inspired this. A lot of dopers were saying that they didn’t mind if their kids read books that weren’t great. That is, books that are considered lite…series books like Sweet Valley High, or stuff like Goosebumps, the Babysitters Club books. Their rationale was that this was better than reading nothing at all and that it could inspire them to read more.
Do you guys agree? I myself read pretty much everything at that age–the crap series books (that I now have serious nostalgia for) and the “good” books. And…er, this trend continues. I still sometimes read the crap books, but those are supplemented by true crime, internet message boards, and nostalgia lit blogs. And these days I read a lot of nonfiction, serious books…whatever I can get my grubby little paws on. So I don’t think reading those things inspired me–it was more like I already loved reading so I’d read everything at my disposal.
What about you?
ETA: Damnit! Is there any way to edit my thread title?
Let me tell you a story of my high school years. It’s Just Some Guy and the Giant Sack of Paperbacks.
Once upon a time long before I learned to be horribly bitter I read a lot of crappy books. My particular vice was line fiction, those licensed novels that tied into a television series or movies or line of games. I thought they were the pinnacle of artistic achievement and how dare someone suggest otherwise.
So one day a friend of mine who had similar… I’m hesitant to call it “tastes”; let’s say selections in reading material. Anyway this friend was clearing off his book shelves and gave me one of those large paper grocery bags filled with Dungeons and Dragons fantasy novels (this being the eighties they were less numerous than they are now and this was the majority of the line).
So naturally I began working my way through the bag like a company strip mining for copper. Even at a rate of a book a day there was a month of reading. So I read each in turn and as I did something happened.
[ul]
[li]Week 1 - “This guy is brilliant! Why don’t we have to read this for school?”[/li][li]Week 2 - “That was okay, I guess but it seemed kind of familiar somehow…”[/li][li]Week 3 - “If I read one more book about cats, opals, and magic rings I’ll screams. And for professional authors these seem off somehow.”[/li][li]Week 4 - “I hope someone cuts Ed Greenwood’s fingers off so he can never use a typewriter again.”[/li][/ul]
Thanks to that massive overdose of crap my body began developing natural immunities against it. I couldn’t read those books any more without seeing the shoddy writing, the paper thin plots, and the characters who were so flat they had multi-classed to Wallpaper.
I had a massive backlash against the whole thing and moved rapidly into the literary snob phase of life which is a story unto itself. I eventually moved to the healthy center of recognizing the value of escapism even when the book isn’t good though my tolerance for garbage books would never be that low again.
My point is this: the fluff is a necessary stage of development for the reader. While someone doesn’t have to take such an extreme bootstrapping like I did anyone who doesn’t go through it is going to have some shallow roots. The only catch is not becoming stuck there in an eternal childhood being unable to identify the merits (or lack thereof) of a book.
Anything that gets kids reading is all right by me. You can use those books as a springboard to get them to read weightier stuff. I don’t like to hassle kids about what they choose to read because I’m just happy that they’re choosing to read for pleasure. This will built their skills so that reading becomes easier, and then will seek out stuff that’s more advanced naturally. Also, sometimes it’s fun to read fluff books. It’s like eating fast food: tasty for once in a while.
I haven’t read the “lite” series mentioned in your OP, but if more rational adults had monitored my reading habits I never would have wasted my time reading all that outer space nonsense by Heinlein, Asimov, Sturgeon, and Campbell, among many others.
I should have been a nice well adjusted middle manager in some corporate machine instead of an engineer who is making six figures while travelling the globe on my customers dime. Thank God for the irresponsible adults who let me waste my time. I let my children read whatever they wanted, from Dr. Suess to Dante, and I’m pleased with the results.
Fluff books are great - and so are books well below her reading level.
My mother teaches reading to students with literacy problems. She’ll get them advanced two or three levels up the scale and then ask them to read the first book they worked on - it gives them an instant boost to see how far they’ve come.
By the same token, my kid loves reading adult books but will happily spend a morning going through all her old ‘little kid’ books. Same as I sometimes read fluff novels, junk food for the brain which in moderation, does no harm at all.
Your line about reading everything - just to be reading, that’s me and the kid to a tee!
My kids are 9 and 11 and both read well above their grade levels. They also both enjoy those fluff books and frequently get out their old picture books to re-read as well. As long as they are working on something more challenging fairly often, we let it go. The draw to the more challenging stuff is that it usually has more interesting themes. At our parent-teacher conference last week we had to reassure her that, yes, it really was okay with us that our son was reading Poe. (He wrote his reader response journal on The Murders in the Rue Morgue.)
We used to tease my youngest sister about the Babysitters Club books, and I do feel kind of bad about that. She’s never been a really big reader (comparatively).
But don’t wait for kids to ask for the good stuff – they might not know it exists. Ten-year-olds don’t read book reviews. Give them one or two popular Newbery Medal winners – with the medal on the cover. That’ll help them know what to look for.
Hell, I read the Three Investigators, baseball story books, all kinds of stuff as a kid. Now it’s no different - I loves me a good Clive Cussler or Preston/Child novel. As long as the kid isn’t reading Penthouse Forum, encourage it!
I was spoiled being the son of an elementary school librarian, but she really didn’t care if I read formulaic crap like the Hardy Boys and such as long as I was reading something. I did tend pretty quickly to more well written books, and thankfully had an expert to recommend them to me.
I don’t care what my kids read either, as long as they do it. My daughter is a voracious reader, my son… I’m working on. He’s a difficult one to find interesting books for. He likes sports, but also liked a Rudy Rucker book recently too.
Whatever works to instill a good habit.
Just like you start reading with little words and work your way up to big words, you start with fluff books and work your way up to more serious stuff.
Like what everyone else said, fluff teaches you how to have good taste. If it doesn’t, it’s still fun mindless entertainment that don’t do no harm.
I read the Babysitter’s Club. I read Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, and Choose Your Own Adventure*. I used to own a lot of Xanth novels. I still have a lot of Pern novels and the entire Belgariad/Mallorean/Sorcerian series as well as the first two Anne Rice vampire books. The ones I don’t read anymore taught me what I do and don’t like in a story. The ones I still have I enjoy for the escapism and familiar characters. I don’t get all superior to people that read the current fluff just because it’s not my taste. It must be someone’s taste or it wouldn’t sell. It’s also a nice break from Important Literature (which, IMO is crappier than the fluff a lot of the time. The fluff is more subtle.)
*Whatever happened to those, anyway? They used to be all over the children’s section of the library and now there’s only a couple of them left.
I figure it’s easier for a person who is in the habit of reading at all to transition into reading “good stuff” than it is for a person who isn’t even in the habit of reading.
And that applies for adults as well as kids.
So, yeah. Let them read as much fluff as they want. Make sure better books are available to them. And just be happy that they’re reading.
My kid has always been an avid reader. She’s read some of those books mentioned above. I don’t see anything wrong with them, but they’re not books she read more than once. Edgar Allen Poe fell apart in her hands from rereading at the same age.
Some reading is educational, some is recreational. I enjoy racing though some easy reading detective novels in between something meatier.
Fluff can be very comforting to a young/inexperienced reader. You’re reading, gaining skills, but you know there aren’t going to be any nasty surprises. You know pretty much what’s going to happen, which is reassuring when you’re still working on the mechanics of reading.
And younger kids like repetition anyway; remember when your 4yo demanded Green Eggs and Ham every single day? This is just a step up from that; repetitive pattern with variation.
So: fluff is good! A steady diet of all fluff is not good, but it certainly has its place.
Yeah, eventually I figured out that the Goosebumps books were basically the same things over and over, just the most random twist that could happen (oh wow, they were all aliens/monsters/ghosts/dogs). In my defense, those twist endings were STILL better than M. Night Shymalaan’s entire collection of films.
And I guess a lot of people assumed my Stephen King habit was adult-fluff, but it made me happy (and I happen to disagree). Hell, even the “classic” horror books I read in high school were probably considered fluff in their day. Dracula, Carmela, and so forth.
I still read fluff myself (just read a Meg Cabot YA yesterday evening, in fact.) Why should I expect my kids to avoid it? Besides, with the way my oldest one reads, it would be impossible to keep her stocked in books if I insisted on serious stuff only. They only award one Newberry a year after all. She reads a book a day. You run out of the good stuff in small town libraries pretty quickly at that rate.
I’ve often used the reading pattern: serious/fluff/serious/fluff/serious . . . . The fluff in between actually helps me apreciate and internalize the serious stuff better. I always need chick lit after reading Tolkien or Hardy.
Filet Mingon is nice, but sometimes you just want a burger and fries.
