My son, Andrew, is seven, but he is a very good little reader. I may have mentioned before that in my despair at the amount of effort he was investing in reading about Pokemon, I put him on to Narnia. Since that time, I asked on this site and others for books I should encourage him to read. A number of people mentioned the books about Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Andrew read The Lightning Thief and then The Sea of Monsters.
Naturally, Andrew began talking about the books and so I decided to read them just to make sure they were okay and to be able to carry on a conversation with him about this new world of imagination. The Lightning Thief held my attention so well I found myself looking forward to lunchtime at work just so I could sit down with the book. I am now working on The Sea of Monsters.
I have been thinking about how much I have enjoyed these books. Consider the number of adults who read things like Percy Jackson or Harry Potter or Twilight. Why do so many adults like to read young adult fiction? I think I have the answer. I think we like to read it because it has limits. Young adult fiction has be judicious in the amount of sex and violence it contains. The descriptions can’t be quite as graphic or gratuitous. That means in order for a story to be successful, it really has to be good. A story has to have merit instead of relying on titillation of one kind or the other to succeed.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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