If a child wants to read 'Twilight' over Middlemarch, they should be encouraged - the important thing is to get them reading in the first place.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Kids definitely go into bookstores after reading 'Twilight' and want something else like it.
You come home to find your 17-year-old daughter engrossed in a book. Which would delight you more - if it were 'Twilight' or 'Middlemarch?'
I actually wasn't much of a book reader at all before the 'Twilight' series. They just draw you in, and people love them. They're terrific books.
Every generation likes to think that children don't read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.
I think it's so important for young readers to find a book or series that ignites their passion for reading, especially boys, whose interest in reading wanes as they grow older.
My own daughter is a big fan of the 'Twilight' stories, the books.
I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.
'Harry Potter' made it cool to read children's fiction, and 'Twilight' did the same for a slightly older age group. What I'm seeing is mothers and daughters who love to read the same books.
If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other direction... Kids can sniff out an adult agenda from an early age. I'm writing for entertainment, not to impress literary judges.
Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.