Beach Reading

I spent the weekend at the beach and thought I would do a little light reading while I was there. I ended up reading Civil Disobedience. My daughter had the same intention starting out, but wound up with a Dean Koontz horror novel in her hand. Not exactly a copy of Cosmo, there, chic. Maybe the inability to read total crap for the sake of merely passing time is hereditary? My youngest son was spotted reading some robot adventure paperback, but what he asked for at bedtime was The Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe it really is hereditary.

Now that I think about it, though, I have my doubts about the heredity theory above. Nature versus nurture… I would like to think nurture wins this time. My kids watch me and I like to think that I have set a good example, with my nose buried at any given moment in anything from Wuthering Heights to The Time Traveler’s Wife. 

For an admitted lit geek I am not much of a book snob, really. I do not make the children read Shakespeare. I do not redline their Santa letters (well, maybe I do it in my head, but I sure don’t let them catch me) and none of them have ever been forced to read anything that a teacher did not assign. I just encourage a love of reading and try to guide them gently towards worthwhile material. I am happy no matter what they read; I smile when I see one of the kids enjoying a Harry Potter or Twilight novel. I just smile a little bigger when I see one of them crack open Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies, instead. If they choose Dean Koontz or Stephen King now and then, well, it isn’t Thoreau, but they are young. They still have time. Besides, they get the horror novels off my bookshelves, anyway.