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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

#491

Post by sonicanatidae »

quirk wrote: post #484
sonicanatidae wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sources: The internet and news. If you look, you'll find it easily. This isn't really about morality alone, imo. This is about attempting to legislate morality with a hammer, which is just as bad. There is no basis for many of the books being banned, other than Republican horse shit. For the record, I'm not seeing Dems line up to ban books. It's activist clowns with an axe to grind. It's all wrapped up in Jesus and F…

So did you read that USA Today article? I did not see a single example of a book being banned from a non-school library. In fact, every example in the article was about a book being removed from taught curriculum, or a state passing a law requiring schools to notify parents when a book contains a sexual content. Your last point makes me think maybe you don’t have kids? Because yes of course every parents knows that t…

This is still about legislating morality, which has never worked, in any circumstance that I'm aware of. This is simply minority groups imposing their personal views upon everyone else.

Why does a minority group get to decide what books are available?

Why does a self-described religious minority get to impose their values upon everyone else, in a country founded, in part, on religious freedoms?

A simple example of the fallacy of book bans is the Bible. The bible covers things that most people would not want a 9-year old to read about, yet, it'll never be banned, because it's special. smh.

People can censor things all they like, at home, but shouldn't get to determine who gets to read what, based on their own personal POV.

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

#492

Post by zeroonetwothree »

theshrike79 wrote: post #371
goblin89 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to say children should go to libraries more. 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. I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying…

> 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…

When I was a kid we lived in a small apartment. We still managed to have room for books though. A single bookshelf or two takes up only about 10 square feet of floor space.

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

#494

Post by wkat4242 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #408
naasking wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just no time, but making even otherwise fun things mandatory with a volume that's overwhelming can suck the fun out of it and/or make it seem dull.

The thread seem to be missing even stronger case, that was true for me: making otherwise fun things mandatory, period. The volume doesn't matter; that a book was assigned as mandatory at all deterred me from reading it. Same with homework, which I was spectacularly good at avoiding.

Same here, absolutely. And the fact that that highly appraised literature seems to be mostly a fringey group of self-centered 'intellectuals' that think they're so important that their drivel must be spoon-fed to teenagers.

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

#495

Post by titusjohnson »

yurishimo wrote: post #403
WaxProlix wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine. There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and yout…

For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I…

8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger.

I purchased a Kindle after that trip. I read a lot more than I used to because between my phone and the physical Kindle I always have my current book ready to go. Physical book purchases can now be hardcover-only because I'm buying for a permanent collection, not endless consumption.

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

#496

Post by yurishimo »

titusjohnson wrote: post #495
yurishimo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, fiction was a way to explore my thoughts and dreams indirectly as a kid. I’ve never been one much for introspection, but reading tickles something in that part of my brain to reflect on my life and sometimes relate what happens to a character to what I’m feeling/have felt. In a story, the author has to tell you how the character feels explicitly (usually) in addition to the normal story beats. Occasionally I…

8+ years ago I accepted an offer to join some family on an impromptu weekend trip. Plenty of pool time was expected so I brought the novel I was 3/4ths the way through, its sequel, and an unrelated book on the off-chance I wanted something different. Combined these books took up half my carry-on satchel (I enjoy long epic fantasy), turning it from a simple carry to a painful shoulder-biter and hip-digger. I purchased…

Yea, I'm also a fan of epic fantasy! I largely find myself moving to audiobooks to get around carrying books everywhere.

Do you have experience with devices that aren't kindle? Not super thrilled about the Amazon ecosystem, though I know it's not terribly difficult to jailbreak them.

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

#497

Post by quirk »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #491
quirk wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did you read that USA Today article? I did not see a single example of a book being banned from a non-school library. In fact, every example in the article was about a book being removed from taught curriculum, or a state passing a law requiring schools to notify parents when a book contains a sexual content. Your last point makes me think maybe you don’t have kids? Because yes of course every parents knows that t…

This is still about legislating morality, which has never worked, in any circumstance that I'm aware of. This is simply minority groups imposing their personal views upon everyone else. Why does a minority group get to decide what books are available? Why does a self-described religious minority get to impose their values upon everyone else, in a country founded, in part, on religious freedoms? A simple example of th…

I’m pretty sure we are agreeing here. Transgender is a minority. Agreed on the Bible stuff too.

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

#498

Post by klyrs »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #490
klyrs wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, I feel the same way. But writing angry screed on the internet accomplishes literally nothing. Worse, it further entreches the people you disagree with.

That's bullshit. The people I disagree with spent the last decade yelling, "Fuck your feelings", and you think discourse is going to pull their heads out of their asses? My rant won't either, but I feel better, and if any of them happen to read it, I hope they enjoy it. Good luck with your campfire and mallows. I'll even send over an .mp3 of Kumbaya and you can hold hands with them, and discuss whatever you like.

Start a militia or STFU. And since you seem disinclined to STFU, you clearly don't have the opsec to start a competent militia. So just STFU already.

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

#499

Post by jgalt212 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #88

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 home…

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

Probably this, but also this. Kids don't even show up for school post-pandemic

36% of NYC public school students were chronically absent last school year

https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2023/9/6/23862246/nyc-publ...

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

#500

Post by goblin89 »

abenga wrote: post #488
goblin89 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to say children should go to libraries more. 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. I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying…

Going to the library means you pick what you want to read from a much wider variety of available books, not just the ones the adults in your life deemed worthy of purchase.

I would almost certainly be on a diet of some attractive but unchallenging fast food like teenage detective novels if I had that choice as a kid. Would my life actually have turned out better if I didn’t read the likes of Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Garcia Marquez back then? Perhaps, but at the time I was enthralled and didn’t mind being able to choose among the books adults in my life had around (likely knowing I would end up reading some of them).
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