yeah! kids are known for embracing and loving the classics, so what gives?

"come on Timmy, I bought you the Shakespeare box-set, get to reading!"

The children doth protest too much methinks!

I’m only talking about picking up books. Please don’t take this out of context. Or in context?

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Finally someone said it! I understand Shakespeare introduced many pearls into literature but I personally know no one who has said that Shakespeare induced them the love of reading in their formative years. So why are we teaching Shakespare to grade school children

Shakespeare has 2 problems for school age children:

1) The language is middle English and difficult to read 2) Its public domain so publishers can't make money from it

When Shakespeare is made into a movie, even when it doesn't modernize the language, those movies are hits. There was an entire generation whose love of stories came from a movie based on Shakespeare using middle English. So this entire line of thought is complete nonsense. The books being published ATM are ideologically driven and that's why people don't want to read them. People acting ignorant about this are the problem and always will be.

Movie might be nice (which?), but Shakespeare sucks.

Let's not forget that girls had no problem getting into books with male protagonists. If boys refuse to read books with female protagonists, maybe we should address that directly?

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kid humans are a perfect miniaturization of adult humans, lacking the corruption of society. are you saying that the perfect representation of humanity is incorrect in some way ? if so, that would imply our society has drifted from the intended purpose of its constituents.

> lacking the corruption of society.

Kids are influenced by their parents, their teachers, and their peers. It's no coincidence that kids raised in some environments are more likely to segregate themselves into gendered groups than others.

did you want to bring up the specific environments in question or are we doing the whole ignore each other's questions in favor of addressing our perceived points thing?

Sure, I can be more specific: I'm saying that boys that are brought up with strong gender expectations, around other boys with strong opinions about things being "for girls" and therefore not for boys, are more likely to categorically refuse to read books with female protagonists, or with themes that they consider to be overly girly.

I was raised in a household without a particularly strong emphasis on gender, but in a society and in a community with a moderate emphasis on it, so I was happy enough to read books with female protagonists, as long as the subjects weren't overly "girly." It's incomprehensible to me to be unwilling to read books with female protagonists, but I understand how it can happen.

Please also note that while you're likely able to gather my position from context, I'm not actually making a claim about whether gender associations are good or bad, just about where they come from.

Is that clearer? I'm genuinely trying to address your complaint, so I'm happy to elaborate or clarify further.

most would appreciate the roundabout discussion format, so i respect that youve put effort into decorum, and i should do well to behave similarly. if its ok with you im more interested in cutting to the point based on inferring your position (please forgive if ive done so incorrectly). my issue with desegregating gender roles is that theoretically this choice is moral, in practice humans are happy to optimize into doing whats most comfortable, resulting in doubling of competition for easy jobs previously associated to any particular gender, and a halving of competition for corresponding hard jobs. regardless, we can push a particular moral set all we like, its still men in the mines and women taking care of kids. there are probably a few issues im not seeing which youre welcome to elucidate.

> kid humans are a perfect miniaturization of adult humans, lacking the corruption of society.

Kids are a product of their surroundings, corrupt or not. Have you never encountered kids with extremely rigid opinions of things they could impossibly have reached on their own?

> are you saying that the perfect representation of humanity is incorrect in some way ?

Incorrect presupposition.

perfect relative to what is achievable outside of a rigid experimental context, and with the caveat of a decaying effect as society and family imprint over time. I encountered kids of all ages willing to question their presuppositions in ways that adults never would.

> I encountered kids of all ages willing to question their presuppositions in ways that adults never would.

At what age? The context is kids at the age they start reading. If your experience is anything close to mine, you're describing teens.