I would like to see books that don't look like anvils of education being dropped on my head, so to speak. Phrases like "It really can make students think about..." are instant aversion triggers. A book can't MAKE you think about anything, and if it's clearly assigned with an anvilicious moral in mind, it's more likely to teach cynicism.
I'd like books that make the kids happy to read them. Not depressed, or "oh, jeez, I have to read this THING." I see no reason every book has to have a *REASON* for being on the list, besides "DAMN, that would be fun book to read". I see reading as fun, I want my kids, and other people's kids, to learn nothing more or less than that: reading is fun. Anything that books have to teach will come NATURALLY once kids decide reading is something worth doing for its own sake.
I personally try to write books exactly in that vein. I want people to think "hey, reading this made my life a little brighter".
(Also, for Gog's sake STOP assigning Shakespeare's TRAGEDIES. The comedies, please, or The Tempest, but not four years of death, stupid choices, more death, humiliation, death, Pyrrhic victories, death... is there a pattern here?)
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I would like to see books that don't look like anvils of education being dropped on my head, so to speak. Phrases like "It really can make students think about..." are instant aversion triggers. A book can't MAKE you think about anything, and if it's clearly assigned with an anvilicious moral in mind, it's more likely to teach cynicism.
I'd like books that make the kids happy to read them. Not depressed, or "oh, jeez, I have to read this THING." I see no reason every book has to have a *REASON* for being on the list, besides "DAMN, that would be fun book to read". I see reading as fun, I want my kids, and other people's kids, to learn nothing more or less than that: reading is fun. Anything that books have to teach will come NATURALLY once kids decide reading is something worth doing for its own sake.
I personally try to write books exactly in that vein. I want people to think "hey, reading this made my life a little brighter".
(Also, for Gog's sake STOP assigning Shakespeare's TRAGEDIES. The comedies, please, or The Tempest, but not four years of death, stupid choices, more death, humiliation, death, Pyrrhic victories, death... is there a pattern here?)