Books for Christmas!

So, my wonderful husband sends me articles from the NY Times, so that I can be semi-aware of the world happenings around me. We never watch the news at our house because it is so incredibly depressing and disturbing. The most recent article was about the lack of pleasure reading that is going on among youth and young adults. Click here for the whole text.
Some of the sad statistics that this trend is causing (according to the article):

• Reading test scores are declining.
• Employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.
• FEWER THAN HALF of Americans over age 18 read novels, short stories, plays or poetry. (Okay, poetry???--I rarely read that stuff either unless it's cited in something else I'm reading.)

I don't want to be redundant with my thoughts here seeing that I recently spoke about reading for fun, but seriously, less than half of our population ever picks up a book and reads for fun? Do people just veg out in front of the TV or computer as their sole source of satisfaction? I mean, Harry Potter books, love 'em or hate 'em, brought back a plethora of youth, and adults, to the love of literature.

I just can't believe that parents are allowing their children to play on the computer, or video games or whatever else it is that they are doing without somehow ever picking up a book. Being that I had no siblings to play with during my childhood, books were such a blessing in my life. I would escape for hours on end in the pages and feel the emotions of the characters and let my imagination create scenery and faces from the text. I suppose that most of these youth and young adults mentioned are still reading, they are probably reading various things on the internet, some of it's even worthwhile...like my blog! I just think we should consider stretching ourselves a bit more than a two page internet article.

The article also mentioned that ours is not a society where the love of books is promoted. Seriously, when's the last time you turned on the TV and saw an author (other than JK Rowling) as the main guest on The Tonight Show or any other program that would draw a younger audience. It's really sad too because I belong to two different book clubs and I love discussing the literature and seeing the book from each person's perspective.

We are seriously seeing such disturbing trends in our culture--we're fatter than we've ever been and now we read less. Seriously, what's next...