Love of Reading

What kept Reading alive for me wasn't school. It was my parents. Listen, to get kids reading esp if they are in high school or lower, "literature" masterpieces aren't gonna cut the mustard.

BS I hated Reading in School:

• Tale of Two Cities (bought the cliffnotes from Walden Books for almost all of these.)
• Great Expectations 
• The Grapes of Wrath
• To Kill a Mocking Bird
• The Canterbury Tales
• Crime and Punishment
• Slaughter House Five
• Anne of Green Gables 
• Little Women
• Les EXTREMELY Miserable

The Handful I Remember Actually Maintaining my Attention:

• The Hatchet
• Where the Red Fern Grows 
• Ender's Game
• Lord of the Rings
• Narnia
• Gulliver's Travels

College:

• Too many Papa Oscar Sierra books to even recall. Even in the early 2000s, Lit Courses had stuff that would put you to sleep. Deconstruct this, What did this make you fee fee? BOREDOM! Save me from these boring ass classes that are better as an insomnia cure.

My parents, on the other hand, took an active notice on which books caused excitement. So I got to have my out of school parts filled with:

• Redwall
• John Carter of Mars
• Lensmen
• Honor Harrington

Those were my really really big series way back when. If I was a teacher, I'd get my class reading by finding out what they like. 

Do they love comics? That's alright, let them build their reading through many avenues. Not just what current schooling thinks is "Literary." Sometimes the writer just means, "That bird is black." And that's it.