What can educators do to make books and reading more appealing to kids?
The thing teachers and librarians can do is to really step back and take a look at their required-reading lists: they don’t have to be all fiction; they can include alternative genres—and they should absolutely include some nonfiction. Humor is another genre that gets slighted. You don’t see that many funny books on required-reading lists. Thank God Holes got the Newbery Medal, because otherwise I think people would have just skipped over it and said, “Ah, Louis Sachar, he writes some funny stuff.” People often think that humorous books aren’t really legitimate. So all of those things—nonfiction, graphic novels, science fiction, humor—should be on teachers’ and librarians’ lists. What I’ve found, too, is that a lot of boys just don’t gravitate toward serious fiction. Teachers will recommend their favorite book and feel personally insulted when the kid goes, “Uh, Little House on the Prairie? I’m not really feeling it. Do you have another shark book?” Maybe Little Shark on the Prairie wo
