Anecdotal (from NL): I had access to a library end of 80s/90s. Everything mandatory wasn't fun, but had to be done. Providing a small, meaningful choice would've been more fun. Comics and non-fiction for kids was available, but if you did not like fiction then you are kind of hosed. I 'never' (esp in early youth) liked fiction because I could not easily imagine the story, or it just did not interest me. It wasn't real, so I couldn't see the point of it. My weakness for sure, but if I had access to more/better informational non-fiction I would've read it like the info sponge I was. And having fun while doing so.
I remember very well when I was about 8 or 9, I always lost the trail when we did group reading at school (each kid one sentence). And then I got punished for that. Also not very... let us say encouraging.
Nowadays, I'm still not much of a fiction sucker, but I've come to enjoy quite some fiction. Just not in time for high school, and even then I liked books which weren't for my age or my gender or whatever.
If my kids don't like certain fiction, I won't force it upon them. I want them to read, and will try with suggestions and what not but if they really do not like fiction, forcing it upon them won't help.
I just hope they won't waste their time on something as useless and nefarious as TikTok. One could argue that is the comics or TV series of the 21th century. Well, even if TikTok were harmless to health and a great application, comics or TV series didn't profile you for an authoritarian state.
EDIT:
> Yet, somehow, reading persists; more books are sold today than were sold before the pandemic
This does not mean, at all, that [all] these books are read. Terrible assumption.
I remember very well when I was about 8 or 9, I always lost the trail when we did group reading at school (each kid one sentence). And then I got punished for that. Also not very... let us say encouraging.
Nowadays, I'm still not much of a fiction sucker, but I've come to enjoy quite some fiction. Just not in time for high school, and even then I liked books which weren't for my age or my gender or whatever.
If my kids don't like certain fiction, I won't force it upon them. I want them to read, and will try with suggestions and what not but if they really do not like fiction, forcing it upon them won't help.
I just hope they won't waste their time on something as useless and nefarious as TikTok. One could argue that is the comics or TV series of the 21th century. Well, even if TikTok were harmless to health and a great application, comics or TV series didn't profile you for an authoritarian state.
EDIT:
> Yet, somehow, reading persists; more books are sold today than were sold before the pandemic
This does not mean, at all, that [all] these books are read. Terrible assumption.