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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

#421

Post by Der_Einzige »

raincole wrote: post #345
pie_flavor wrote: post #138

Anime is an extremely lucrative market, and Westerners spend an absurd amount of money on it, with Hollywood missing out. It's not because it's Japanese, or its weirder quirks, it's just because Japan is making it and Hollywood isn't, because Hollywood is institutionally incapable of believing people want (a) weird fantasy (b) that takes itself seriously (c) in quantity over quality, or even that adult media can be a…

I don't know. As an Asian who has grown up reading manga I find anime generally very cliche. More than Netflix shows. Especially those adaptations from light novels. I think it is just about what's novel to you.

Cliche is why people love it. We’ve become an overly analyzed, postmodernist hellscape with our media. A lot of people really want to see cute anime Waifus acting stereotypically. They really want to see it, badly.

They also like when women start to take notice and dress like the anime characters do. Women love anime because the men in anime usually look very attractive, and in the fujoshi anime that they often watch, the men are willing to be gay.

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

#422

Post by Der_Einzige »

DavidPiper wrote: post #384

> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.” There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expect…

You forgot the last dragon chronicles by Chris D’Lacy. I love me some books about magical clay dragons and that the main characters love interest is a goth witch.

Plus you learn a whole lot of words that start with G: Gadzooks! Gollygosh! Etc

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

#423

Post by nickd2001 »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #217
nickd2001 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.

The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries. But I guess in their words: > the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politica…

Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.

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

#424

Post by gregjor »

bjornsing wrote: post #405
gregjor wrote: post #347

My oldest daughter could read at age four. By second grade, in a Texas public school, she liked to read Nancy Drew mysteries on her own. One day she came home from school crying and told us she didn't want to go back -- she said she had got in trouble for reading her book. Her mom and I went to talk to the teacher. Our daughter had got "caught" reading a Nancy Drew book at her desk while the other kids -- many of who…

Interesting. Having grown up in Sweden during the 80-ties and 90-ties I’m very familiar with this attitude. Here and back then it was almost policy to hold gifted students back, to promote “equality”. But I thought the US would have a higher tolerance for ability. What do you think is the driving psychological force behind this attitude in US schools? In Sweden I’ve always thought it’s mainly a sort of crab mentality…

When I was in school, a long time ago, schools “tracked” students into gifted, regular, and special needs classes. At least in California where I grew up. I’m sure that varied by school district because in the US schools get managed locally and funded by property taxes, leading to lots of variation in quality and available programs.

At some point in the ‘70s tracking got abandoned. I think it happened because of a desire to eliminate inequality but I’m not sure — could have happened due to lack of funding.

Americans have private school options but those get expensive so that’s mainly an upper-middle and upper class thing.

The “no child left behind” idea mandated standardized tests and ranking teachers, which led to optimizing for the tests and grade inflation.

Fortunately by the time I had kids we could homeschool. Religious fundamentalists paved the way in court, making it legal in most states, with different rules and levels of enforcement. I raised my kids mostly in Oregon, ultra liberal and lax about homeschooling.

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

#425

Post by gregjor »

latexr wrote: post #418
gregjor wrote: post #347

My oldest daughter could read at age four. By second grade, in a Texas public school, she liked to read Nancy Drew mysteries on her own. One day she came home from school crying and told us she didn't want to go back -- she said she had got in trouble for reading her book. Her mom and I went to talk to the teacher. Our daughter had got "caught" reading a Nancy Drew book at her desk while the other kids -- many of who…

> The teacher took the book away from our daughter and shamed her in front of the other kids. The teacher told us that "policy" prohibited students reading "non-assigned" books at school. That’s a bad policy, but a worse teacher. They could’ve turned a blind eye. > We didn't make our daughter go back, we withdrew her from school the next day and told the principal we had to move. Why the lie? Was homeschooling prohib…

Simpler to lie about moving than deal with the bureaucracy. Every state has mandatory schooling and truancy laws. We planned to move out of Texas anyway. Easier to say we’re moving than try to get permission to homeschool my own child.

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

#426

Post by theshrike79 »

raincole wrote: post #420
theshrike79 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the variance in plots in Manga/Anime that's the thing. Some of my very favourite anime have been about: - Kid learning Go (the board game) from the ghost of an ancient grandmaster (Hikaru No Go) - Baking bread (Yakitate!! Japan) - Playing Tennis (Prince of Tennis) There is exactly zero chance that "Hollywood" would make any of these.

What does "Hollywood" mean in this context? Cause there are so many western movies and TV shows about sports and cooking. Of course you won't see Hollywood make the exact Prince of Tennis because, uh, it has been made.

There are shows about cooking, but not many fun ones.

The Bear is definitely a good show and kinda about cooking, but it's definitely not a relaxing watch even though it's been winning comedy Emmys :D

As for sports Friday Night Lights is the only one that comes to mind, I watched it because it was good, not because it was about American Football (a sport I couldn't care less).

But the basic premise was that manga and anime allow the authors to go _completely_ bonkers with their ideas with no limitations on what's marketable.

Like One Punch Man shouldn't work, but it does. Or Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon is one. Or Delicious in Dungeon another one.

They're all way too wacky to ever pass the gauntlet of middle management deciding what goes on air in the US.

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

#427

Post by theshrike79 »

goblin89 wrote: post #406
theshrike79 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate. You know what isn't cheap in the 2020s? Space. My grandparents had a full-ass room just for books. I can't even fit my modest blu-ray collection in my apartment, they sit in storage along with my DVDs…

Your grandparents’ house must be huge. We never had a room just for books, not me, not my parents, not their parents. A family of 4 in 2 bedrooms, one living room. Shelves are not expensive and you’d be surprised, they can fit quite a lot of books. Over time some books were lent or given to libraries, others added.

Not huge, they just had a full-ass house custom built from scratch at my age.

I'm still trying to get my first proper apartment instead of renting =) And know I make more in a year than both of them combined in 2-3 years.

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

#428

Post by goblin89 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #427
goblin89 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your grandparents’ house must be huge. We never had a room just for books, not me, not my parents, not their parents. A family of 4 in 2 bedrooms, one living room. Shelves are not expensive and you’d be surprised, they can fit quite a lot of books. Over time some books were lent or given to libraries, others added.

Not huge, they just had a full-ass house custom built from scratch at my age. I'm still trying to get my first proper apartment instead of renting =) And know I make more in a year than both of them combined in 2-3 years.

I know someone who owns some land to build a house. I envy that person, who is definitely in a more secure position than myself.

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

#429

Post by DavidPiper »

red_admiral wrote: post #392
DavidPiper wrote: post #384

> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.” There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expect…

If you're trying to get kids to read books, those are all great choices. If you're trying to make money, few of those have the option for making a whole new franchise with merch and films and theme parks and video games. (They sort of managed that with Tolkien and the LotR films, though.) And that's before we get into the whole politics angle. I'm with Freddie deBoer here, who said: if you want your art to change the…

I guess those are the things I find unusual about the article. They think they've figured out "why kids don't read", but all they've discovered is "we're not making as much money as we'd like", and maybe this demographic is a problem because "THE LUCRATIVE TEENAGE MARKET" could falter in a few years.

I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to - and there's plenty out there they _could_ be exposed to. Once they're exposed to enough to develop taste, they start caring about Good Art -- or at least art they enjoy more than others.

They didn't talk to any 9-year-olds, or even their parents. Why aren't they asking parents what books they're exposing their kids to? ([1] One possible reason, I know this is a controversial/poorly sourced topic though).

> Or, as O’Sullivan asked, “Is this generation just iPad babies?”

I mean, it's a boring answer. But seems more likely to me than "These kids can name over 500 Pokemon on cue but don't read a thing because not enough of them are on TikTok yet, we haven't managed to scout the next Harry Potter, and our 9-year-old reading curriculum is far too intense which is ruining the joy for them."

[1] https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/48239-54-per...

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

#430

Post by DavidPiper »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #422
DavidPiper wrote: post #384

> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.” There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expect…

You forgot the last dragon chronicles by Chris D’Lacy. I love me some books about magical clay dragons and that the main characters love interest is a goth witch. Plus you learn a whole lot of words that start with G: Gadzooks! Gollygosh! Etc

Oh, I never read them! I'll have to see if my cousins know them :)
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