Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

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> Yesterday we visited with friends and their 12 year old daughter was on chapter 3 of Count of Monte Cristo and was complaining that it was dull and when it was going to start being awesome. We (her parents and our family) were cheering her to stay with it because the epic tale of escape and revenge (served quite cold) is really good.

It is really good, but one thing I have learned to appreciate is that some books just don't work for many teenagers yet. Classics in particular! You need quite a large frame of reference (history, geography, societal issues and classes) to be able to appreciate a novel written in 1844 which takes place in France in the decades before that. If a book doesn't work at 12, just let it be and find something more accessible for her.

Nothing kills a long time habit of reading better than being forced to read novels that don't (yet) work for you.

You are absolutely right.

I was one of the teenagers who read everything that was in front of me and I think when I read the Count of Monte Cristo at ~12, I already had an understanding of at least a general outline of the Napoleonic wars and some inkling of the geography.

My brother hardly read anything as a kid and laughed at my nose being the book a lot. I remember him calling me when he was in his early 30ies and saying - hey, I am reading this Monte Cristo book and it is REALLY GOOD. I was like YEAH IT IS REALLY GOOD, I told you so! But he couldn't have appreciated it before he was ready...

> It is really good, but one thing I have learned to appreciate is that some books just don't work for many teenagers yet. Classics in particular!

I think it was Forster who wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that trying to teach teenagers literary novels is almost pointless, and more likely to piss them off than enlighten them, because they simply don't have the highly-developed sense of empathy to appreciate them yet.

I was under impression that reading novels was ‘to develop sense of empathy’ not to enlighten them.

It’s pretty much about stretching yourself but not overstretching. The classics might be the latter for a teenager. I guess it depends on the person.

It depends strongly on the person. Blessed are those who have/had a teacher that could recommend them the right books for them at any given time. I didn't start reading for leisure again until my late twenties when The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy drew me in, despite growing up reading everything from Franco-Belgian comics to Karl May.

High school kills any interest in reading more often than not.

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