Quote:
Originally Posted by JDK1962
Personally, I think a lot of people have their opinion confused with fact.
A book is "good" or "bad" for an individual at a particular time and in light of what experiences they've had and what they've read before.
I'd be happy to rag on Jane Eyre all day, since as an 8th grade male, being forced to read that book was torture. There was nothing in it for me. On the other hand, I loved Catcher in the Rye when it showed up as an assigned reading, and I loved Watership Down when I picked it up outside of class, and I loved Ivanhoe when I finally got to it in my 30s (Jude the Obscure, read around this same time, made me want to kill myself...I'm surprised there isn't more Hardy on that list).
Liking/disliking books is like throwing spaghetti at a wall: some will stick, some won't. But blaming the spaghetti seems dumb.
|
I agree. And sometimes, I was assigned a book, thought I would hate it and ended up loving it. People are so vastly different that we can't be sure who is going to hate any given book.
And I don't see anything wrong with "forcing" a child to read something. If you left it up to most kids, they wouldn't be in school at all. They need to be taught discipline, and the concept of sticking with something even though it may be hard at the time. I had books that I didn't enjoy that I had to read. But, actually I'm still glad I read them.