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Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

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Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#81

Post by keiferski »

janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

I think you dramatically underestimate the influence that TikTok has on young people. If you want something to be popular amongst young people, making it popular on TikTok is a huge way to do so.

Libraries already have thousands, if not millions, of books on hand. I don't think it's a funding issue.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#82

Post by adolph »

The industry can’t depend on Captain Underpants forever, even though, as [Brenna Connor, an industry analyst at Circana, the market research company that runs Bookscan] noted, “The devil works hard, but Dav Pilkey works harder.”

"Book people" know why 9-year-olds stop reading. "We have met the enemy and he is us.” [0] (which my child read from the reissue [1]).

0. https://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2022/04/we-have-met-the-enem...

1. https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/walt-kelly

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#83

Post by LordDragonfang »

com2kid wrote: post #45
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #30

I can only speak to my own personal experience, but I was a voracious reader as a child and then sorta just... stopped. The longer life went on, the more I was instructed to ignore or hide my personal feelings and so I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable. There was as large a stretch between the main characters' behavior and what I was taug…

Here are some authors to try out instead, biased towards Science Fiction - Greg Bear - Amazing science fiction author who builds incredible far future worlds. He is asking questions like "what will humanity be like 10k years in the future". Charles Stross - First off, wonderful characters. His Laundry Files series is like "what is a 1990s geek, complete with a Palm Pilot, worked for a secret government agency that ha…

>Cory Doctorow

Little Brother was, for a long time, my absolute favorite novel. That and Pirate Cinema.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#84

Post by tigen »

janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics.

"In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans"

Yeah this sounds false.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#85

Post by SpaceManNabs »

janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

> They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.

Sure. The next step is helping them making a decision on which book to read and provide a social environment for doing that. Libraries do not really do that and haven't done that even in the early 90s.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#87

Post by SpaceManNabs »

tigen wrote: post #84
janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics. "In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans" Yeah this sounds false.

> Yeah this sounds false.

I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#88

Post by gwbas1c »

Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have.

I went to a private "college prep" high school, and the amount of assigned, mandatory reading was insane. I spent so much time reading assigned novels that I just didn't have time to read for pleasure. (And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my homework?)

Once I was out of college, I rediscovered reading.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#89

Post by OnionBlender »

65 wrote: post #68

Another issue is books are too long. Especially non-fiction books. Book publishers know no one is going to buy a 50 page book, so there has to be filler and excessive detail to make a book long enough to be sellable. It ends up just being the same thing over and over again. The author explaining minute details about the day they interviewed someone, what the weather was like, extreme details of the interviewee's faci…

Self help books are especially bad for this. I was reading Dopamine Nation and the author describes their office:

> My office is ten by fourteen feet, with two windows, a desk with a computer, a sideboard covered with books, and a low table between the chairs. The desk, the sideboard, and the low table are all made of matching reddish-brown wood. The desk is a hand-me-down from my former department chair. It’s cracked down the middle on the inside, where no one else can see it, an apt metaphor for the work I do.

> On top of the desk are ten separate piles of paper, perfectly aligned, like an accordion. I am told this gives the appearance of organized efficiency.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#90

Post by beaeglebeachh »

Obtaining information through books is like trying to put out a fire by sucking water out through a straw. The printing press was great but it's a slow and constrained way to get into from the greatest minds. I read voraciously as a child but when I came to university I pretty much stopped reading when the experts were there to teach in real life using all the senses.

If I were a 9 year old today I'd probably pick YouTube over reading. When I built my house I found myself learning way faster watching tradesmen and listening to them on YouTube than having to suck that information through a tiny straw that is reading a book . I find myself truly hating reading now, far too inefficient.

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