1984 Resumed

I started up on 1984 again last night. Made it through about 75 pages in 3 hours. Not very good, but good for me. (In high school, I used to read about 1 novel page per 2 mintues, so this is close to that.)

YGO has been getting epically good. I have about 12 episodes remaining. So sad but so fulfilling. It would take a miracle to fuck this one up at this point. At every single twist and turn for the last 12 straight episodes, I have been pleasantly surprised. All of the questions I've had burning inside of me since 2003 have either not yet been answered or have been answered spectacularly, beyond my wildest dreams.

Reading 1984 has reminded me that American schools' English programs would be improved if they covered a wider swath of popular literature in the 6th-8th grades. The kids are old enough to handle it yet still too young for the English classics. Instead of reading books like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry or A Christmas Carol, I think we would have been better served had we been exposed to at least one, if not two, famous titles from the genres of science fiction, fantasy, romance, criminal mystery, and historic fiction. For sake of argument, books like what Matt and Sean read for Accelerated Reader: Orson Scott Card, Michael Crichton, Douglas Adams, that sort of thing.

The importance in children's reading isn't what is being read: it is primarily in getting children to read at all and secondarily in discussing what is being read. You stifle a love of learning by drilling into children's minds, "These are what good books are like," and shoving nothing but literary classics onto their plates, the sorts of books which only the educated elite and the super-snobbish read of their own free will. (Face it: none of us would ever have read Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Ethan Frome or My Antonia on our own.) Less Old Man and the Sea, more Jurassic Park. Not in high school, necessarily, but in middle school. In middle school, when children are being weaned off of children's literature and gradually brought into the fold where difficult assigned readings are the norm.