A Letter to Edgar Rice Burroughs

In 1931, a schoolboy wrote a fan letter to his favorite author, Edgar Rice Burroughs. It said, in part:
I am a fourteen year old boy and am a low Junior in High School. Today at school our teacher was discussing "good literature." I asked if Edgar Rice Burroughs was all right for a book report. I knew she'd say "no" (teachers always do) but I didn't expect her to lecture to the class for the whole period about how terrible your books were!

The author of the Tarzan novels wrote back, in part:
My stories will do you no harm. If they have helped to inculcate in you a love of books, they have done you much good. No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.

Which explains why I bought the Twilight books for my youngest daughter. The 14-year-old boy who wrote the letter was Forrest J. Ackerman, {wiki} who grew up to coin the term "sci-fi". Ackerman was a film producer, actor, and the editor of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, and made a name as the biggest science fiction fan ever. Read both letters in full at Letters of Note. Link

No, I haven't read Stephanie Meyer's books, although I read many of the Tarzan novels. I was willing to sink to great depth's to get my kids to read anything. However, I have Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, and Kurt Vonnegut waiting for them.

Once I convinced my oldest to read A Wrinkle in Time, she became an avid reader. My youngest had read all the Twilight books and is now reading To Kill A Mockingbird.
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I went through a huge ER Burroughs phase at about 9. Lots of imagination, and a lot of crafting worlds/cultures, especially in the Martian series (a pulp Tolkein, almost)...

Still, by the 6th or 7th Tarzan book, I started noticing more and more boilerplate paragraphs...

They do hold a special place in my heart, and I still can't watch most Tarzan adaptations (with maybe the exception of the '80s film version) because I get huffy over the 'ignorance' of having him perpetually pre-verbal.
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I grew up on Famous Monsters of Filmland. It was the first magazine I ever subscribed to - paid with my own allowance money. Forrey and the Ackermansion were legends in our time. . .
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I loved those ERB books, especially the Mars and Pellucidar series. I still feel kind of sorry for the Mahars...

How come whenever I hit refresh, someone's web address appears?
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I love (and agree with) the part of Burroughs letter about a lot of the stuff on reading lists killing the joy of learning (or reading)... of course, his sons' list may have looked different than mine did but there was some stuff on my reading lists that was like chewing shoe leather...
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It's not a comparison; it's just saying that one shouldn't be so "snooty" about popular literature. When it comes to getting a child to read, it's the READING part that is important. That was what was so great about Harry Potter; lots of kids who never thought of reading before became HOOKED on books!
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From observational data only, I find that practically everyone I consider as "being smart" is a book lover (i.e. always has at least 2-3 books in the process of being read - starts process anew every week or so - has a nice home library - etc).

Yet when I talk to the average parent and ask if their kid is a reader, the majority shrug and say "not really" - and the disturbing fact is it doesn't really seem to bother them.

The western world is heading down the path detailed in the comedy "Idiocracy". It'd be funny if it wasn't real life.
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The Xanth series is what turned me into an avid reader, and while it's a silly (and some of the later books were a little bit of a let down) it grew the seeds in me to love words, the ridiculous and satire. While I detest Twilight for it's depiction of an unhealthy relationship,however I don't care for any vampire romance fiction as I cannot see a food driven killing machine loving it's meal, otherwise we'd see harbor seals and sharks frolicking in the seas.
I do agree that it's a great way to get a literary foot in the door, once you get someone hooked on using their imagination there's no going back.
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I'm curious: did the Harry Potter books really get kids hooked on reading, or hooked on Harry Potter? And speaking of "To Kill A Mockingbird," I'm currently rereading it. Always interesting to rediscover the books you loved when you were younger, through more adult eyes.
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Vonskippy, the first thing I notice when visiting a person's house for the first time is whether books are present. How many? Displayed how? What kinds? And yes, it bugs me too how little the skill (or art, or love) of reading is valued anymore.
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