T N. maybe they're banning books like twilight because they're actually so SO bad that it should be a crime to even write such nonsense.

K D. Haven't read them but one of my daughters hoovered them up - enjoyed them at the time, then later decided they were pretty thin stuff. I'm happy to see modern kids read anything - get them hooked on reading and they'll eventually / hopefully move to decent stuff. Force 12 year olds to read Jane Austen and it'll probably put them off reading for life...

T N. I agree with you on some level but I do think the standards could be higher. When I actually engage in reading *with* students, demonstrate enthusiasm and create a world out of it, they're a whole lot more invested. We underestimate what they can and cannot do / read - I think the trick is in how to do the "forcing".

K D. Yes, but most of the voracious readers I know read virtually everything when they were young - I think the key is getting them to enjoy reading - seeing stories inside their minds instead of on a screen. Of course, good guidance helps as well.

T N. what does your daughter read now that she's not into twilight anymore?

Jeremy G. I agree--banning books just seems wrong in any open society. I do like the idea of discussing in schools why a book was banned. It would be great to have kids think about why certain books are seen as evil during one time period only to become literary masterpieces in another.

Re: Twilight/children reading anything debate. It reminds of famed English Prof. Harold Bloom's Wall Street Journal editorial trashing Harry Potter: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/comp/108f10/Assignments/BloomArticle.pdf

Personally, I read everything as a kid, and I *think* I was better off for it.

K D. Hi Jeremy - I’m afraid I found the Harold Bloom essay to essentially be pontificating highbrow snobbery and a lament for the literature of his childhood – ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ et al. I’m amused at his sniping against the New York Times – and I suspect that it would be very tedious to have to listen to one of his lectures.

I’ve actually read all the Harry Potters – along with my children – and thought them generally well written, imaginative and enjoyable. Some of them, granted, could have done with tighter editing and a reduction in size. The key point for me is that they woke many millions of children (and quite a few adults) to the joy and delight of reading a good story.

Only time will prove if they turn into ‘great children’s literature’. My own suspicion is that they might. They did not set out to be great literature – Rowling wrote a cracking story that was designed to entertain and enthral. That she achieved this is witnessed by the fact she is now apparently wealthier than the Queen – and Professor Harold Bloom. I vote for JK!

For Tran - I'll ask my daughter what she has read lately when I can be granted an audience in her busy social and school schedule. (My name has now changed from'Dad' to 'Taxi! (unpaid)'

Jeremy G. I don't disagree about Bloom, but when that article came out it created quite the stir in the US since he is/was our best known literary critic. I think a love for reading, learning, and imagination are the best things kids can get from books. And if they get that, I don't know if it matters what they read. Since I loved all the Tolkien books as a kid, I'm sure I would have loved the Harry Potter ones as well.

K D. You working the night shift Jeremy? If you've got a handy kid as an excuse, why not read the Harry Potters? The other writer of kid/ teen lit that I really enjoyed with the kids is Philip Pullman - his 'Dark Materials' trilogy id brilliant. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

K D. The 'id' was just from my subconscious... I meant 'is'.

From the author's point of view, being banned or at least having banning debated is usually ironically excellent for sales....

K D. For Tran - have just been granted a daughter audience (!).
Discussed Twilight – she agrees they are rubbish but said she enjoyed reading them.
Recent pleasure reads have been:
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres – she loved it and cried.
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – enjoyed.
A Gathering Light - Jennifer Donnelly – Good
Several Sue Grafton thrillers – Q is for Quarry etc – fast reads, relaxing
Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd - Made her cry – very good
Die Letzte Sure – Zoe Ferraris and Matthias Müller - Good.
Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton – OK – old fashioned.
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene - OK
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald - OK

Jeremy G. Haha, my days and nights are just one long shift. I do not yet have a handy kid, but I probably should not wait for an excuse. However, I'm enmeshed in Anna Karenina at the moment so I might be busy for a few months/years. I also missed Philip Pullman although I'm sure I'd enjoy it too. When I was young, I enjoyed Frank Herbert, Ursula L'guine, and Llyod Alexander. But your daughter is quite precocious. I could barely get through The Great Gatsby in high school, although I loved it when I read it again when I was the age of the main character.

T N. I think Keyth's daughter is probably older than 12 now, no?

Chris O. This article by Professor Bloom was written for the Wall Street Journal as an attack on the New York Times, a long-time enemy. His very first criticism, that a childrens' book which lacks "original imaginative vision" is not worth reading, is a sideswipe attack on Tolkein, who committed the academic indignity of writing the most popular work of childrens' fantasy ever - and one of the most popular works of literature, of all time - whilst being a language professor of great note. Almost immediately after this initial poke, Bloom describes Tolkein's work as "a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing", which suggests to me that he wishes to convey how heavy on him is the toll of such constraints. But then Bloom was not a Tolkein fan; elsewhere, he wrote of the Lord of the Rings:

“I am not able to understand how a skilled and mature reader can absorb about fifteen hundred pages of this quaint stuff."

So let's view this article in context: it's a paid opportunity for a rant against a couple of selected sacred cows, by a person whose opinions are known in advance and which does not advance our understanding either of Harry Potter or Tolkein or the NYT or indeed, of the writer himself. In other words, someone has wound him up and let him run down, in a predictable way, preselecting only the number of column inches required for the performance in the knowledge that everything else will work out just fine.

Not being a WSJ reader or a NYT reader and not even having been here in 2000, I have no idea whether this article was regarded as a success or a failure by the literati or Bloom himself. I haven't researched it or its subsequent commentators, if there were any. Until today I'd not heard of the guy. So I am going out on a limb here with an uneducated opinion, something I don't usually do, but hey, it's Friday.

I think this piece of propaganda has no significance to anyone, whatsoever. It breaks no new ground, enlightens nobody, isn't even memorable except in the sense that I may remember it exists. Inconsequential, is the word. And he might have done so much better. After all, whether you agree with the man or not, he does feel very strongly about fantasy literature and despite being regarded by some as a "bitter old cynic", I think I read somewhere, he has more to say, and with much more authority than this.

Chris O. BTW @Jeremy I was really, really disappointed by Pullman. I seem to be the only one, but IMO the author got in the way of the tale too much.