Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

I pray for them all to be cancelled. Only way anyone's going to read them these days.

True story: How to get your kids to read. Parents, are you anxious because your kids don't like reading? Follow these steps:

https://twitter.com/frasermatthew/status/1374649116878385152

1. Do not view books are "very important to your child's development and college education." View them as "something that might shut them up for a while so you can be in peace." Buy every book marketed "for children" on the market.

2. Key: Provide *no* other sources of entertainment--certainly not you. They'll start reading. Worried this will screw them up, emotionally? Probably will, yes.

But they will read. (And they won't lose their minds in a pandemic lockdown, either.)

3. Then: (This part I'll tell by means of an anecdote.) Age 8, my mother is as usual practicing; my father's not in the room, there's nothing else to do so as usual I go to the bookshelf and pick up a book. I start reading. Not a book my mother's read,

and she's not paying attention, either. The book? Last Exit to Brooklyn. I'm finding it a little boring, and would probably have put it down before getting to *that* scene.

My father walks in. He looks at what I'm reading. His eyes bug out. Sotto voce, he says,

"Toby, she shouldn't be reading that."

Get it? This is the key. *Forbid the book.* This was the first time it had happened to me. From that moment on, my unique drive, my life purpose, my every thought, was "How do I get them to let me read it?"

I've never been so curious about *anything,* except for Saturday Night Fever, about which they made the same stupid mistake. I wheedled. I whined. When they said, "Clean your room," I said, "I will if you let me read 'Last Exit to Brooklyn.'"

The more they said, "No," the more obsessed I became. It was the Holy Grail. (So go ahead: Cancel Pound, cancel Céline; their estates will be thrilled for the revival in sales.) Finally, after dealing with an especially long day of wheedling and whining,

my father wisely realized it was hopeless and said, "Fine. Clean your room and you can read 'Last Exit to Brooklyn." Want a kid who eagerly does both? That's how you get one. I ran with joy to the newly-liberated book and discovered, to my sorrow, that it was boring.

(It isn't. It's a masterpiece. But I didn't realize that until I re-read it when I was 10. Eight was just too young. No, I wasn't permanently traumatized by it. Not one bit. You can't be traumatized by a book, period.)

To review:
1) Have a lot of stupid, kid-friendly books in the house.
2) Offer *nothing else to do.* Really, they won't die.
3) Forbid them from reading *Last Exit.* Preferably, in an urgent, low-voice, parent-to-parent conversation they can only barely hear.

It's that simple.