Read at Your Own Risk – Has Dr. Seuss’ legacy hobbled America’s literacy crusade?
Slate offers this look at whether Dr. Seuss has helped or hurt generations of American readers. I don’t agree with several of the author’s conclusions, but the final paragraph truly captures my reasons for reading books.
“Truly absorbing, addictive reading of imaginative writing is intensely private and, in a social sense, escapist. “Serious readers aren’t reading for instruction,” as an anthropologist at work studying American literary habits told novelist Jonathan Franzen. Devoted readers are hoping for a chance to discover, in the narrated lives of other selves, what it’s like to be an individual confronting the unpredictable. Maybe it’s time to stop spreading fears about “reading at risk,” and try generating more excitement about reading at your own risk. How? I wish I could say you could look it up, but you can’t.”