What I'm wondering is, at the end of the three-day suspension, will the mother send her boy back to that same school? If she does, what the hell is wrong with her?

Ken got it right. This is a golden opportunity to look into effective education options. Sounds like at this school little johnny can't read or write but he does know to always walk and never point his finger at anyone.

Deer PC Principal,

To paraphrase a quote, this world is governed for the most part by the aggressive use of force. Putin, for instance, did not use words to carve out Crimea. It may have been put to a plebiscite after the fact, but that was just a fig leaf to cover the naked use of force.

Having never watched the Power Rangers, I can only go by summaries: a band of heroes join together to fight various and sundry villains, and in doing so protect the weak and the helpless.

That's not the worst attribute to encourage.

Do they read literature in that school?

One of the complaints many boys have is that the literature they are required/allowed to read in schools these days is along the lines of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. Gone are the days when boys could turn in book reports on such non-feminine works as Treasure Island, Captains Courageous, or Ivanhoe.

What destroyed boys' (and girls') interest in literature when I was in high school was the insistence on deconstruction - trying to divine the motive and message of great works instead of letting them stand on their own as stories. Teaching a middle and high school student that a famous work is little more than a metaphorical diatribe against colonialism is guaranteed to destroy his interest in it as a story. And no, Shakespeare did not hide symbolism in every other word of Hamlet.

When I started reading these works outside of Academia, I discovered great stories without having to regurgitate to a teacher that the fardels borne by Hamlet were an allegory for some liberal bete noir.

I don't know if they still do that.

Pretending to be a Power Ranger during recess and pretending to shoot another student with an imaginary bow and arrow.

Did the pretend-shot student die? Bleed? Suffer an injury? Have nightmares about being pretend-shot?

If not, then no violence was done.

TRIGGER WARNING

PC "Science" - sexual orientation and gender identity are hard wired programing in the brain. However, gender roles, despite millennia of evolution, are learned. Furthermore, hormones also have no effect on gender roles.

I apologize in advance for my microaggression.

I apologize in advance for my microaggression. Posted by: Bill O Rights at November 5, 2015 10:00 AM

Microaggression? This is a Mike Rowe Aggression:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252439

One of the complaints many boys have is that the literature they are required/allowed to read in schools these days is along the lines of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. Gone are the days when boys could turn in book reports on such non-feminine works as Treasure Island, Captains Courageous, or Ivanhoe.
________________________________

So the complaint is that boys are ONLY allowed to choose books for book reports that are by or about women? Somehow, I doubt that's the case even half the time.

From a well-known columnist:

"...For the record, in middle school my daughter was assigned exactly one book by a woman: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. In high school she read three, Mrs. Dalloway, Beloved and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while required reading included male authors from Shakespeare and Fitzgerald and Sophocles to (I kid you not) James Michener and Richard Adams, author of Watership Down. Four books in seven years: Is that what we’re arguing about here?..."

(I don't know if the daughter went to public school or not, but either way, the mother clearly wasn't happy about that shortage.)

Could it be that one big problem is that classic pre-20th century novels by or about men, such as the ones you listed, are considered by many modern kids and teens to be too haaarrrrd (waaaah!) or at least too slow-moving to be worth reading, when they're so used to electronic entertainment and reading books with tons of action-filled pictures long after they're old enough to learn to enjoy books without them - say, age 9? Ironically, btw, it wasn't long ago that the comics page (which is considered a more-or-less good barometer of what's happening in American society) featured Jeremy (in "Zits") having to read Ivanhoe for school and not being at all happy about it until he suspects there might be sex scenes in it.

More on that (I just found it after typing the above - it's about the first "Zits" novel):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/the-first-zits-novel-creators-aim-to-draw-reluctant-young-readers-into-the-power-of-artful-story/2013/08/02/9b0f3068-fba0-11e2-a369-d1954abcb7e3_blog.html

...Jerry Scott (co-creator of "Zits") doesn’t simply feel sorry for challenged grade-school readers. Years ago, swirling in a tsunami of prose, he was that reluctant young reader.

“As a freshman in high school, in Arizona, I was the new kid, and it was scary,” Scott recalls in vivid detail. “In my first English class, I got a paperback of ‘Ivanhoe.’ ”

Scott utters the title of the Walter Scott novel as if conveying the name of a particularly nasty disease, with painful symptoms best left to the imagination.

“Reading it was really hard — it was the worst frigging book,” Scott tells Comic Riffs. “There were no pictures in it at all. I had the hardest time. I don’t think I’m alone in this vast sea of alienation that a lot of kids feel...”

And, from The Literary Omnivore:

"...I first encountered Ivanhoe in, of all things, Zits, the comic strip. The teenager of the family, Jeremy, was forced to read it for class, and his father decided to read it along with him–with hilarious results, as both father and son couldn’t stand it. Ivanhoe, then, has always been an impenetrable classic to me ever since I was a wee lass. However, as my reading has expanded and I’ve gotten older, bits and pieces about Sir Walter Scott and his writing have filtered through to me and put several dents in my old conception. Needing a lengthy read for a bit of travel, I decided to dive in headfirst and take a library copy of Ivanhoe with me.

"Yes, its reputation for downright debilitating prose is well-earned, but there’s an amazing story once you acclimate..."

Not to mention that since boys are pushed (by peers and the media) to wallow in video games and high-tech interests all the time, why wouldn't they feel at least a little embarrassed and reluctant to read "masculine" 19th-century novels from an assigned reading list, since there's nothing high tech about them by modern standards? (I have no idea if Jules Verne's novels appeal to modern boys or not - I certainly don't hear of today's boys picking up his books for fun. Unless they happen to be steampunk fans already.)

Could it be that one big problem is that classic pre-20th century novels by or about men, such as the ones you listed, are considered by many modern kids and teens to be too haaarrrrd (waaaah!) or at least too slow-moving to be worth reading, when they're so used to electronic entertainment and reading books with tons of action-filled pictures long after they're old enough to learn to enjoy books without them - say, age 9?

Possibly. But I think the teacher's choice of books also plays a role.

I read a different columnist who, on going through her son's reading list, expressed dismay that there were no "boy" oriented books, just Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, the Brontes, et al. She wondered how she was supposed to get her son into reading if all he could read for school were period romances.

For the record, I loved Ivanhoe. I saw the TV movie as a kid (it was a remake of the Errol Flynn movie) and immediately went for the book. And, yes, it is a bit of a plodding read. Moby-Dick was worse.

At least one professional athlete is pushing books over video games.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-andrew-luck-book-club-1446675595

Volunteer as a recess monitor for a week, document all interactions, lie if you have to.

At the end of the week give the principle a report documenting the real and pretend violence of hundreds of students all at once.

When he fails to suspend half his school en masse, sue him for selective enforcement and sexual discrimination

At least one professional athlete is pushing books over video games.
___________________________________

Trouble is, as it was pointed out years ago, kids know perfectly well that athletes and rock stars didn't get rich by reading, so it's doubtful how much intellectual influence such athletes have on kids. (How many of those who pose for library posters really make time to read?) Many of them never even finished high school.

Not that ALL celebrities would have made it without reading a good deal. For example, Houdini didn't get much schooling because his parents moved around so much, but he didn't get most(?) of his training by watching other magicians - he got it by reading a ton about the profession! He eventually accumulated a huge library.

I like to say: It's OK if you really don't want to go to college (provided you're not planning to sponge off of anyone); what's not OK is using that as an excuse not to READ. Especially newspapers. People won't treat you like an adult when you're 30 if your vocabulary and knowledge are the same as when you were 15.

I read a different columnist who, on going through her son's reading list, expressed dismay that there were no "boy" oriented books, just Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, the Brontes, et al.
______________________________________

Again, is that really the case even half the time, in schools in GENERAL? Is there a difference in private schools? In which direction?

Trouble is, as it was pointed out years ago, kids know perfectly well that athletes and rock stars didn't get rich by reading, so it's doubtful how much intellectual influence such athletes have on kids. ~ Posted by: lenona at November 5, 2015 11:53 AM

I suspect they have some influence if they are shown to be readers in real life and that their reading had a major beneficial influence on their career. But as you pointed out, that's not their main claim to fame, so those who want to emulate them look to their other attributes.

I like to say: It's OK if you really don't want to go to college (provided you're not planning to sponge off of anyone); what's not OK is using that as an excuse not to READ. Especially newspapers. People won't treat you like an adult when you're 30 if your vocabulary and knowledge are the same as when you were 15. ~ Posted by: lenona at November 5, 2015 11:53 AM

I don't know if that's still true today. Far too many successful rappers, musicians, athletes, and even actors and politicians, when not scripted. sound like they're stuck intellectually in middle school. And this does not diminish their influence.

We've gone from the '70s and '80s where intelligent characters in movies and television were portrayed as socially-inept and hopeless nerds (e.g., Urkel) to today when engineers are cool (only if they work in Silicon Valley) but must act, dress, and choose their music like teenagers to be seen as cool.

Again, is that really the case even half the time, in schools in GENERAL? Is there a difference in private schools? In which direction? ~ Posted by: lenona at November 5, 2015 11:57 AM

I don't know. I don't have kids. Admittedly, my statement was a generalization based on one columnist's experience.

I'm willing to bet she's not too far off the mark, however.

The AADUSD middle school summer reading list linked here does have a number of "boy" books on it. Ivanhoe is even worth 40 points.

http://aadusd.k12.ca.us/hds/languagearts/summer%20reading%20list.pdf

Note, this list does not show which of these are actually being taught in the classroom.

Lenona,

There is a difference between male/female authors and male/female oriented books. I love C.J. Cherryh's works. The fact that she is a girl is insignificant. Her books are boy oriented. Jane Austen by comparison is super female oriented. That Yuu Watase is a girl is also insignificant. Fushigi Yûgi is as girl oriented as Jane Austen.

People won't treat you like an adult when you're 30 if your vocabulary and knowledge are the same as when you were 15. ~ Posted by: lenona at November 5, 2015 11:53 AM
__________________________________________

I don't know if that's still true today. Far too many successful rappers, musicians, athletes, and even actors and politicians, when not scripted. sound like they're stuck intellectually in middle school. And this does not diminish their influence.
__________________________________________

When I said "you" I was referring to average, anonymous people who are still in their teens and still have time to develop better lifetime habits before reaching adulthood - of course, the majority of such teens will not become lastingly, nationally famous in ANY field. Celebs in the entertainment world, per se, can get away with sounding stupid and immature - and so can many politicians, unfortunately, so one can only hope they don't make it to the final round. (If they do, imagine what that says about huge number of voters.) Most famous scientists, thankfully, cannot get away with not sounding mature - that is, scientific, thoughtful, and cautious.

There is a difference between male/female authors and male/female oriented books.

Posted by: Ben at November 5, 2015 12:22 PM

I know, thank you. Pollitt was clearly implying, at least, that the four female-written books she listed that were assigned to her daughter were also the ONLY four books in seven years, at that school, that featured female protagonists. And if you don't count "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that makes it only three, since Uncle Tom is the main protagonist. (Before that paragraph - maybe I should have quoted this too - Pollitt made it clear that she knew that some boys, at least, consider reading ABOUT female fictional characters to be worse than anything else.)

Read it here, if you like:

http://www.thenation.com/article/girls-against-boys/

lenona,

The celebrities I brought up influence how younger people speak and how they expect successful people to speak. If all we see today is ebonics-spouting celebrities, it will have a deleterious effect on our language and discourse.

And that's not limited to celebrities.

Look at how the Silicon Valley executives carry themselves. T-shirts, jeans, flip-flops, rap music, and the vocabulary skills of a 15-year-old.

Other companies are starting to emulate that. Everybody wants to be the hot place for the 18-24 crowd to work and the hot brand for them to buy. That means anything with a hint of stuffy, like proper language and grammar, goes out the window. Think Different!

I worked for a fashion company a few years ago and the CEO wore jeans and boots. The chief of one of the brands wore his hair long and stringy and talked like he just got back from hanging 10 at Zuma Beach. Dude!

We're dumbing down our language. And the rappers, athletes, and celebrities are sounding the siren call beckoning us down that path.

...and the vocabulary skills of a 15-year-old.

Why do you think those annoying business buzz words are so common? It's the only vocabulary some, even college educated, folks have and the only way they can think of to sound smart.

Mary Leonhardt (ninth-grade teacher and author of "Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don't" - a book that has gotten rave reviews for years and was reprinted in 2013) said in that book that she's lost track of the number of parents who come to her at the beginning of the year and say sadly: "I just don't know why he doesn't like to read. We've read to him ever since he was a baby." She said that in those cases, very often the previous teacher was to blame. However, while she did go into detail, I don't recall her saying anything about teachers who push "too many" female-centered books on male students. IIRC, her main complaint was about teachers who just don't want to remember that their students are individuals with individual tastes - and/or don't really care about teaching kids to ENJOY reading.

Not to mention that while teachers like that can be a problem, since she taught in Concord, Mass., she probably didn't encounter that many families where the PARENTS are the real problem - and any inner-city teacher can tell you about trying to teach students from families where the adults just don't keep books in the house, don't read for fun, and don't admire those who do. I wouldn't be surprised if semi-literate parents like that were more often the problem than teachers are.

Bottom line: It doesn't really matter which books kids are forced to read in school if they've never learned to LIKE reading in general. As Katha Pollitt said in her award-winning essay, "Why We Read: Canon to the Right of Me":

http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2014/01/why-we-read-canon-to-the-right-of-me-by-katha-pollitt.html

"...In America today the assumption underlying the canon debate is that the books on the list are the only books that are going to be read, and if the list is dropped no books are going to be read. Becoming a textbook is a book's only chance; all sides take that for granted. And so all agree not to mention certain things that they themselves, as highly educated people and, one assumes, devoted readers, know perfectly well. For example, that if you read only twenty-five, or fifty, or a hundred books, you can't understand them, however well chosen they are. And that if you don't have an independent reading life -- and very few students do -- you won't LIKE reading the books on the list and will forget them the minute you finish them..."

Later on, she quotes Randall Jarrell's 1953 essay "The Age of Criticism."

The whole essay is very much worth reading. Here's another excerpt:

"Now, I have to say that I dislike the radicals' vision intensely. How foolish to argue that Chekhov has nothing to say to a black woman -- or, for that matter, to me -- merely because he is Russian, long dead, a man. The notion that one reads to increase one's self-esteem sounds to me like more snake oil. Literature is not an aerobics class or a session at the therapist's…"

I checked just now and Leonhardt has written at least six more books for parents and teachers - I'm guessing three of them are for teachers, anyway. One is titled: "How to Teach a Love of Reading Without Getting Fired."

One reviewer of that book wrote, in 2013:

"...Many points are made, to assist teachers with setting up student centered reading programs, but I am going to highlight two.

"The first I have already used, to great success: If your administrator complains that the students are, 'just sitting around reading' ask if they'd object to kids sitting around, 'just doing math'?"

"The other, to advocate for independent reading, is to point out it helps with all kinds of administrative headaches, such as inclusion for special ed, parents trying to censor books, and making accommodations for gifted kids…"

(end)

And another book is: "The 7 Toxic Reading Myths that are Killing School Reform."

"Now, I have to say that I dislike the radicals' vision intensely. How foolish to argue that Chekhov has nothing to say to a black woman -- or, for that matter, to me -- merely because he is Russian, long dead, a man. The notion that one reads to increase one's self-esteem sounds to me like more snake oil. Literature is not an aerobics class or a session at the therapist's...." ~ Katha Pollitt ~ Posted by: lenona at November 5, 2015 2:14 PM

Now that, I wholeheartedly agree with. Maya Angelou is on record as saying she thought Shakespeare had to be a black girl because he knew exactly how she felt. Sonnet 29 spoke to her.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/what-maya-angelou-means-when-she-says-shakespeare-must-be-a-black-girl/272667/

Which is why I don't like people monkeying around with the canon of English literature. Yes, it needs to be updated from time to time, but today's academicians concentrate on race, gender, and orientation to the exclusion of any other standard. Just because it was written by a woman does not mean it should be studied by high school students as great literature.

When I was majoring in English in college, I had a professor that taught Aphra Behn. The class debate centered on whether Oroonoko should be considered the first English novel or should be considered a fictional travelogue along the lines of Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

The professor argued that Behn's Oroonoko belonged in the canon and was only excluded because Behn was a woman - not because she was a Catholic and chose the losing side of the English Civil War, operating as a spy for Charles I.

And not because her book is fluff. Perhaps it could be considered the first romance novel, as the author describes the doomed protagonist, Caesar, in flowery terms as masculine perfection - an ideal no mortal man could achieve.

It does not deserve to displace the works of Behn's contemporary, Shakespeare, or Pilgrim's Progress as that period's canonical literature.

My son was called on the 3rd grade carpet for drawing pictures of WWI dogfights--the airplane kind. I went ballistic.

"I love C.J. Cherryh's works. The fact that she is a girl is insignificant. Her books are boy oriented."

But the ships in the Merchanter series recognize matrilinear powers, and the mekt-hakkiki of the Compact is the first hani captain to allow a male on a jumpship. CJ and Jane are big into competency and other realisms necessary for spaceflight.

"My son was called on the 3rd grade carpet for drawing pictures of WWI dogfights--the airplane kind. I went ballistic."

Ha! We did that in 1965, with the teacher occasionally holding up the best artwork to show us all. Of course, I could have a sheath-knife in public without anyone calling the SWAT team back then. We have completely bought into a culture of fear.

"But the ships in the Merchanter series recognize matrilinear powers ..."

That doesn't counter what I wrote. I'm assuming you are a guy. I am a guy. What percentage of CJ's audience would you guess are men? I would bet at least 75%. There are men who love Jane Austen. But they are a significant minority. My grandmother introduced me to CJ's works. She loved them. But I expect she is in the minority.

Lenona has repeatedly claimed men don't want to read things with female authors and labels this sexism. If it was true it would be sexism. But Conan didn't object to the author's gender. He objected to the misapplied audience and the view that men are just defective women.

Meet Joe Black was written by two men and directed by a third. It is almost entirely a male generated creative piece but it is female oriented. I, like most other men, would rather chew broken glass than sit through it. It is just as bad as Jane Austen. And similarly many women love the movie. It has entirely mixed reviews from Saturn awards to Razzies. It is a perfect complement to CJ showing the gender of the creator is not inherently related to the effective audience's gender.

Lenona has repeatedly claimed men don't want to read things with female authors and labels this sexism.
____________________________________

Kindly refresh my memory. First of all, I don't think I ever said that MEN, as opposed to boys, won't read books by or about women.

However, as a famous cartoonist, in 2000, once made Hermione Granger say: "'Bollocks!' cried Hermione. 'I'd be running this show if those slags in marketing weren't convinced girls will read books about boys, but boys won't read books about girls!'"

Maybe it's unfair to call this "sexism," per se, in young boys, but any psychologist will tell you that one's actions mold one's attitudes more often than the other way around, which is why it's so important for teachers - and fathers - to teach boys, again and again, to enjoy critically acclaimed books (especially those that have stood the test of time) about girls, so the boys won't convince themselves, as they grow older, that male-centered novels = mature literature and female-centered novels = sentimental trash. While there's plenty of trash on both sides for all ages, it may be safe to say that almost any book that's read ONLY by men or women is likely to be trash.

Not to mention that J.K. Rowling felt the need to hide her sex when she got started - before then, she went by Joanne Rowling and had no middle initial.

But again, the consensus seems to be that if you give boys a choice between a hero created by a female author and a heroine created by a male author (assuming neither author is famous in any way), the boys will go for the former. That would tie in with Rowling's above-mentioned decisions about her name and about Hermione.

"But again, the consensus seems to be that if you give boys a choice between a hero created by a female author and a heroine created by a male author (assuming neither author is famous in any way), the boys will go for the former. "

Yes, but the same is true of preteen and younger teen girls. That's just an inevitable part of children trying to work out their identities -- they want to find out about what mature (well, at least older) people of their sex do. There's no sexism per se in it -- children of that age don't understand that concept. They just want a role model, and they aren't old enough yet to understand that "role model" does not necessarily imply the same sex or identity group.

I'll accept the correction of boys instead of men Lenona. And what you describe is sexist. But I still say it is false.

You bemoan that most boys don't want to read Jane Austen and romance pieces while ignoring that most girls don't want to read sci-fi or action novels.

By the way the Pride of Chanur by Cherryh has an almost all female cast. There is one male main character who incidentally is the sole human. He is regularly described as pale, weak, and pathetic. Cherryh has many books with female main characters. Even so I would call her works male oriented. Boys by and large eat that stuff up. Girl tend to find it boring or stupid.

Is the joke about Granger correct? Perhaps. I won't object to calling the publishing industry sexist and more realistically severely risk adverse. After all, who really needs another superman or batman remake? But they are the low risk option when you really can't tell what will and what won't sell. The book industry certainly suffers from the same problem.

Lenona's right in th sense that pre-teen boys don't tend to pick up books about plucky girls (Nancy Drew, etc.). I think Cousin Dave hit upon the reason, less sexism, more finding one's way while growing up.

The Twiglight and Hunger Games book series seem limited in their appeal to girls and adults whereas Harry Potter has attracted boys and girls.

The gender of the author seems to matter less than the gender of the protagonist and the types of adventures in which the protagonist finds himself.

Boys prefer fewer romance overtones and more adventurous antics. Despite the adventures contained therein, at their hearts, Twilight and Hunger Games are romance stories, modern updates of Edith Wharton and Jane Austen.

As they become adults and are exposed to a wider variety of literature, boys will learn to appreciate Wharton's and Austen's works as comedies of manners. They may never displace Tom Clancy in the guy canon, but they'll have a place.

However, one cannot expect a middle school boy to truly appreciate the romantic misadventures of Darcy and Elizabeth when he'd rather read about pirates, space ships, and boy wizards or skip reading at all and play video games wherein he plays the part of a scantily clad female archaeologist.

No Conan. Just No. The vast majority of men as they grow up will not develop a personal appreciation for Pride and Prejudice. They will recognize that women like it. But the vast majority of them will never want to read it, watch it, or otherwise experience it. (Alcohol helps but only so much). The same applies to Anne of Green Gables and so many other pieces of classic feminine literature.

As you point out it is the type of story that is significant. Men are drawn to action and adventure while women are drawn to romance. As Mattel recently pointed out men want to kill the bad guy while girls want to make friends with and convert the bad guy.

Are these 100% universal trends, no. There are outliers. But they are >75% trends. And they extend equally across books, movies, and video games. That is why I reject the protagonist's gender argument. There are too many counter examples where men enjoy a work with a female protagonist.

As I said earlier Lenona is 100% correct that marketing teams (of all genders) are horribly racist, sexist, and down right moronic when they don't really know how to provide a product. Feminists have complained for decades about male dominated and male directed video games. In response you get Barbie's Fun House. Which is a piece of drivel no one with a hint of intelligence or self respect liked. It truly represents the worst in sexist stereotypes. So why did they make it? Simply because they had no fricken clue how to design a game girls would like. The Sims on the other hand was not designed for girls but it was the first female oriented game. Some men enjoy The Sims but most women love it. It was not designed for that market segment, but it successfully fell into it. Other games have followed the Sim's success by accidentally falling into the female dominated market. Most notably cell phone and facebook games. The major thread that runs through those is non-killing cooperation and competition.

The gender of the author and the gender of the protagonist are equally irrelevant. As is the format be it book, movie, or game. The type of story is what matters. Boys play tomb raider and girls play farmville. Want to turn off boys start focusing on feelings and relationships. Want to turn off girls start killing people.

I know I'm being too long winded but I wanted to go back to an earlier point. Lenona may be correct that the reading lists are not the problem. I haven't kept up with school reading lists so I don't know. But I remember most of the books being horribly boring and stupid. The pedagogical technique could easily be the issue.

How many teachers make reading into a competition? Put up charts and graphs showing who is winning and who is losing and by how much. Update the charts over time. Pit student against student. Boys love that stuff. Girls usually don't. Competition is an effective training technique for most boy. Just remember false competition is very destructive. There are few things worse than having a clear winner and a clear loser and then having the teacher/ref/coach say, 'Hey, you are all winners!' or 'Everyone gets the same award.'

You bemoan that most boys don't want to read Jane Austen and romance pieces while ignoring that most girls don't want to read sci-fi or action novels.
______________________________________

Excuse me, I never said anything about boys and Jane Austen. I don't think ANYONE under 17 or so should necessarily be expected to appreciate someone who writes at Austen's level - in part because so many of the 19th-century words and concepts in that book can be misleading without a lot of guidance. (For the record, my mother tried to give me "Pride & Prejudice" when I was 14, but I couldn't get past the first page; I didn't even realize the famous first line was supposed to be humorous; it was too subtle for me. After all, I couldn't very well begin to understand/identify with Elizabeth's mother at that age, and I also probably misread the first line as meaning "only unmarried men have any money; wives spend it all.")

I thank you for your support, but you completely ignored something I said - that the emphasis needs to be on "critically acclaimed books (especially those that have stood the test of time)." In other words, the other three categories you listed ALL sound pretty trashy. (Not sure what you mean by romance pieces - but romance novels that are sold in supermarkets are obviously not important to read for either sex.) Just because Asimov has stood the test of time as a writer doesn't mean most popular SF writers will - and do today's boys read Asimov at all without some adult's pushing them to do so?

BTW, while I've never read any novel by the late-19th century G.A. Henty (and likely won't, since his books have been called pretty racist and imperialist and are mainly popular these days with fundamentalist families), those books are called both adventure novels and romances.

To clarify a bit further, while all great writers were once new and unknown, that doesn't mean that kids should be allowed to wallow in nothing but current popular literature once their homework's done - to paraphrase the Tiger Mom, their idea of "literature" could easily be nothing but rantings on Facebook, so parents need to provide more guidance and encouragement in more intellectual directions. Even if kids DO read challenging modern lit for fun, they still need the expansion that comes from reading those books a century or two old that are still in print - for good reasons.

Another excerpt from Pollitt's "Why We Read: Canon to the Right of Me":

"...Books have, or should have, lives beyond the syllabus -- thus, the totally misguided attempt to put current literature in the classroom. How strange to think that people need professorial help to read John Updike or Alice Walker, writers people actually do read for fun."

...the emphasis needs to be on "critically acclaimed books.... ~ Posted by: lenona at November 7, 2015 9:48 AM

Which critics?

...I've never read any novel by the late-19th century G.A. Henty (and likely won't, since his books have been called pretty racist and imperialist.... ~ Posted by: lenona at November 7, 2015 9:48 AM

Books and stories by the likes of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and even George Orwell have been called pretty racist and imperialist, yet they're critically acclaimed authors that have stood the test of time. Where do they fit into your canon of great literature?

According to wikipedia, "Henty's heroes – which occasionally included young ladies – are uniformly intelligent, courageous, honest and resourceful with plenty of 'pluck' yet are also modest. These virtues have made Henty's novels popular today among many Christians and homeschoolers."

Henty was dismissed as xenophobic even during his own Victorian times and so is on very few people's list of canonical writers. "Even during his lifetime, Henty's work was contentious; some Victorian writers accused Henty's novels of being xenophobic towards non-British people and objected to his glorification of British imperialism." However, Henty did denounce acts of British imperialism in some of his novels and sided with the American colonies in a few.

Mind you, I'm not defending Henty, never having read him, but letting others determine what you'll read seems myopic. As myopic as not reading Wharton because she's writes chick-lit.

The vast majority of men as they grow up will not develop a personal appreciation for Pride and Prejudice. They will recognize that women like it. But the vast majority of them will never want to read it, watch it, or otherwise experience it.

Having just finished Jane Eyre, I'm not the target audience for that comment.

The vast majority of men as they grow up will not develop a personal appreciation for Pride and Prejudice.

They might, however, develop a personal appreciation for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or possibly Death Comes to Pemberley; which could, in turn, lead to an appreciation of Pride and Prejudice.

Damn it. Forgot to preview and now look at the formatting of my comment.

We need an edit function.

"Having just finished Jane Eyre, I'm not the target audience for that comment."

That is why I said the vast majority. It is not 100% by a long shot. But it is true by a significant margin. I agree there are some good zingers in Pride and Prejudice. But for the majority of us men it is a tedious and boring waste of time. And that is coming from a tedious and boring man. You would think we would be a match.

As for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I don't know and I expect I never will.

Lenona,

Boy do still read Asimov. His work is rather juvenile so it works well with a juvenile mind. His books still sell quite well and they are a good introduction to sci-fi in general.

As for critically acclaimed, you really don't want to read any sci-fi that has been critically acclaimed or well awarded in the last 40 years. Virtually all of them are poorly written, simplistic, and bizarrely bigoted. I must say thank god for reader reviews on amazon. They are far more honest than the critics or summaries. As for why this is, Amy has linked numerous times to articles about how the progressives have taken over the awards foundations and are judging based on extremist ideology instead of quality.

Which critics?...

Books and stories by the likes of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and even George Orwell have been called pretty racist and imperialist, yet they're critically acclaimed authors that have stood the test of time. Where do they fit into your canon of great literature?
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Quite simply, when critics (and teachers) decide that some 19th- and 20th-century writers (like those three) are worth keeping in most schools, while Henty is not, that says something important, IMO. I'm guessing Harold Bloom, who is of course both a critic and professor, would be one such critic. (BTW, I've always wished I'd taken the chance, when I had it, to ask him just how are teachers supposed to convince kids from illiterate families to love difficult books, since book-hating parents existed even before TV - such as when he was a teen, in the 1940s, so he should be able to remember that and have more sympathy for such kids. IF he ever met such families.)

At any rate, while H.G. Wells had some pretty awful ideas about ethnic cleansing (according to Richard Dawkins), I'm guessing the critics would say Wells is also worth keeping on your kids' bookshelves, even if he's considered too escapist to be on school reading lists (I don't know if that's the case). Same goes for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - that is, from what I heard, schools don't make kids read his poetry much anymore because, in part, he's considered too sentimental, and even "Paul Revere's Ride" isn't considered to be a very good poem these days - it even said as much in a recent juvenile biography of Paul Revere. But for the sake of historical literary nostalgia, at least, many critics might suggest reading those poems to one's kids even if the teachers don't. Who am I to argue? When BOTH the critics and teachers, in their heart of hearts, tend to agree on what's a waste of time from a century ago or more, chances are they're right.

To Ben: I don't care much for MOST fiction, per se, from the last 40 years. After all, every decade's literature is at least half trash, while the trash of previous decades goes out of print - but only after quite a few years. This still leaves a ton of good old literature that never goes out of print to catch up with. Granted, even those who award the Nebula or the Newbery Awards can be wrong-headed, I suppose, but we'll have to wait and see which books stand the test of time - and why.

(BTW, even young people don't necessarily swim with the tide of their peers; one young man I met in 2010 - he may have been 20 - said: "Harry Potter sucks!" While I enjoyed the first three books, I tended to agree that that was certainly true about the later books. Circa 2000, my mother - a children's piano teacher - read the first book, since her students were talking about the series and she grudgingly said: "I SUPPOSE it's a little better for kids than reading comic books!")

As for critically acclaimed, you really don't want to read any sci-fi that has been critically acclaimed or well awarded in the last 40 years. Virtually all of them are poorly written, simplistic, and bizarrely bigoted.
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Oh, yes - forgot to say: While I don't know which direction you mean when you say "bigoted," that would seem to back up what I said about how most CURRENT romance, sci-fi, and action novels are ephemeral trash. Again, only a minority will stand the test of time. (I admit I don't know how likely it is for the truly best books to do that - but then, even the most popular trashy books and movies can become annoyingly dated in one way or another.)

Amy has well detailed the takeover of the Hugo and Nebula awards by the SJW movement. Books are judged more based on the group the author is assigned to than the quality of the writing. This has lead to some really poorly written books getting nominated. Which is to be expected when you are voting for a work because the author is gay/female/black/yada yada rather than because the work is good.

On a personal note I didn't really care for Harry Potter. There was soo much foreshadowing. After the first chapter of the first book I knew how it was going to end. But I'm an adult and it was aimed at children and young adults. Clearly it worked for it's intended audience.

And Dawkins was correct about Wells. Wells was a eugenics socialist. He was all for 'exterminating the inferior races' and idiocy like that. Many classic sci-fi authors have not been good or admirable people. Heinlein had multiple unsuccessful marriages and was big into nudism. But that reinforces my point, a work should be judged based on itself. Not on the properties of it's creator.

I think a lot of authors don't even know what they did or how they became successful. I extolled Cherryh above but I seriously doubt she understood what she wrote in Cyteen. Writing is more of a savant process than an engineering one. The creator may successfully create but often doesn't understand how they created.

Lenona,

Please don't take what I've written as disparaging of Austen or her works. I can fully accept and understand (and even endorse) that Pride and Prejudice is a literary masterpiece. And at the same time I honestly would rather chew glass than experience that masterpiece.

I was just saying that there are sexual distinctions. So I can say with a 95% certainty you would not like Call of Duty (it has a 95%/5% male/female audience) and similarly you can say with that same confidence I and Conan would not like Sex and the City (5%/95% male/female audience). And to loop back to Amy's point, shooting things is normal healthy male behavior. Suspending or expelling someone for normal healthy behavior like this principal did is inappropriate.

would not like Sex and the City
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Jeez, I never liked that show much either. (Aside from my not identifying with ANY of the women - and Mr. Big being creepy - the only thing I REALLY liked about it was the fantasy image of Manhattan as a place where you always have enough money to go anywhere and do anything - and you have dozens of friends to do it with.)

In the same vein, I can't be bothered to watch most OTHER current shows - they just aren't similar to MY life.

And Dawkins was correct about Wells. Wells was a eugenics socialist. He was all for 'exterminating the inferior races' and idiocy like that.
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I know he was also a great writer - I plan to read The Invisible Man someday, for starters. I've seen some of the more obscure movies, too.

My questions: 1. Did he ever change his mind about eugenics in any way? I couldn't find ANYTHING about eugenics in one really thick biography of his!

2. Does that aspect of his life show up in any of the novels?

"Does that aspect of his life show up in any of the novels?"

I don't think so. At least not enough to matter.

For a lot of fantasy writers you've already made a big enough break with reality that their personal lives don't show up even when inserted. If I hadn't read about Heinlein's nudist tendencies elsewhere I never would have made a connection to the nudism in Stranger in a Strange Land. After all I'm pretty sure there aren't puff ball aliens living on mars ruled over by their dead ancestors. Once you've hit that level of unreality a few nudists just doesn't register. I certainly hope Heinlein wasn't a cannibal. If I had to stretch I can see where some Darwinian eugenics concepts effected The Time Machine. But it's a stretch.

As for Wells changing his mind about eugenics, I don't know. I've never heard about him repudiating his earlier writings on it. But that doesn't mean anything. Eugenics was fairly popular before WW2. Many of it's former supports just stopped supporting it. They didn't make a big stink about no longer supporting it.

As for Sex and the City, I'm betting you never thought about killing Carrie. From my perspective she brings nothing but pain and misery to herself and others. Therefor the merciful thing is to put her out of her misery which also improves everyone else's life. Baring that to avoid her so she can't damage you. Thankfully option two is easy to accomplish by shutting the TV off. Unfortunately it is harder to tell what people will like than what they will hate. That is why I phrased my statement 95% chance I (a man) would not like. There are plenty of women who dislike or are completely neutral to Sex and the City. But almost all men viscerally hate it. The 95% number is not an exaggeration and may actually be low. But it is not 100%. There are some men who love the show.

I don't have any numbers but if I had to guess I would put Pride and Prejudice around 80%/20% F/M.

From my perspective she brings nothing but pain and misery to herself and others.
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I wouldn't know - I didn't watch enough episodes (20 at the very most) to find out if she did that any more than the average selfish AMERICAN, per se. Plus, IMO, anyone, male or female, who has more than one sex partner per year is very likely to become somewhat callous and/or bitter over time.

For what it's worth, I am younger than ALL of the four actresses on that show - but not much younger than the youngest (Cynthia Nixon), so I suspect it's not a generational thing so much as simply seeing a big gap between what happens on TV and the decorum level in real life.