Eldest daughter ( going on 15) has confessed of late to not being able to concentrate on any worthwhile books sufficiently to make any headway & thus is experiencing a hiatus.
She’s gone from being a prodigious ( & precocious) reader a couple of years back, to reading next to nothing aside from necessary school material.
I’m pretty relaxed about it, assuming it is an aspect of adolescence, but wonder if AWers have any recommendations – snappy stuff, very funny stuff or perhaps top notch short stories ( not a form I really know) that may work as a stop gap or kick start until normal reading pleasure resumes?
Cheers.
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Jed Clampett says
A very short book with a cracking story might do the trick.
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway, for example?
Kaisfatdad says
What kind of books did she enjoy before she lost interest in reading?
Similar problem here. I’ve managed to tempt my 12 year old back to reading thanks to David Walliams: fast moving, funny, grotesque and not too long.
She’s too old for that I guess. You need to find a writer with those qualities.
http://Www.goodreads.com are constantly sending me suggestions.
When I run out of ideas I usually ask a librarian. Never fails.
Zanti Misfit says
She’s just the right age for Catcher In The Rye?
Zanti Misfit says
Any Roald Dahl?
Dodger Lane says
It might just be that as she has more reading for school work she has lost interest in leisure reading, all a phase and all that. If she had the bug for reading it will come back. However, a couple of suggestions for you; the novels of Shirley Hughes. She has written a couple about kids in the last war, simple and quite charming. Would graphic novels help ?
Poppy Succeeds says
At 15 she is *exactly* the right age to read Bonjour Tristesse, which has the advantage of being nice and short as well as life-changing.
A Clockwork Orange and Of Mice and Men are two other short and easily digestible classics.
Dodger Lane says
Just thought of another one – The letter for the king by Tonke Dragt. I read this (am going through a second childhood) last year and it was brilliant. It’s an old fashioned brave knights, first love adventure story with a nice old fashioned morality tale thrown in. It was recommended to me and I thought it was great.
Fin59 says
JJ – I suspect that you’ll just have to wait until she gets her reading mojo back. However well intentioned, parental suggestions tend to fall on deaf ears as adolescents have acute hearing for everything except sage advice.
I seem to recall all the girls at uni – so a little older than your daughter – were mad for The Master & Margarita. It may have less resonance now as the allegory of Soviet rule is anachronistic but it does have an urbane Satan, a wise fool Jesus, a doomed love affair, a whiff of sex and a talking cat.
Gatz says
Though my girlfriend’s 18 year old daughter (voracious reader and history nut, so you would have thought a cert for M+M) loathed this book when she read it a month or two ago.
ganglesprocket says
I assume she’s done stuff like Harry Potter? Twilight and The Hunger Games?
My odd suggestion would be The Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman. Bright women love them and I re-read them when ganglesprocklet was very young because my ability to read was just wrecked by babygeddon.
Worth a try in The Panopticon by Jenny Fagan. It’s pretty tough in places but it has an appealing teenage girl as a protagonist, is contemporary and is possibly exactly what I’d want if a was a clever girl.
Gatz says
I wouldn’t worry too much about her reading ‘classics’ so long as she is reading at all. In my many years in book retail customers often asked me what they should buy for teens. Those who needed to ask usually wanted to be led towards something ‘improving’ and were not impressed when I honestly told them that at around the age of 15 my favourite reading would have been Desmond Bagley and James Herbert.
Had it existed at the time I would have pointed them towards this wise essay by Neil Gaiman and how reading is crucial, but what is being read can take care of itself – http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
Poppy Succeeds says
Oh well in that case I recommend she reads Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper and Sven Hassel. (*rolls eyes*)
Jed Clampett says
Fair point. When I was that age I was obsessed with Western books, particularly those written by J.T. Edson. Then I found out he was from Melton Mowbray and the magic faded a bit.
molesworth says
A Japanese suggestion. Strange Weather In Tokyo – 170 odd pages, very charming – you can find it the details at the dread Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Weather-Tokyo-Hiromi-Kawakami/dp/1846275105/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434276681&sr=8-1&keywords=strange+weather+in+tokyo
SteveT says
I think it might be a phase. I have the same issue with my daughter – now 16. She was a voracious reader from the age of about 6 up to 13 – on holiday she would easily read 3 or 4 novels. Lost track of the number of times we had to find bookshops to get her something to read because she had read everything she had taken with her.
At 13 it was like a tap being turned off. I am hoping the muse comes back but one thing is for sure you can’t force it. She will read when she is ready.
Kaisfatdad says
That Gaiman piece was wonderful, Gatz. What a wise man!
Junglejim says
Thanks for suggestions & insights – I will explore with allowances for what I think are her preferences – any further ideas, please keep ’em coming.
I’m pretty sure it’s a phase, probably a natural one. She’s very into her music at the moment – playing the Joanna & hacking away at an acoustic in her room – this all meets with my approval as a veteran if numerous garage bands at about the same age .
My only ‘ concern’ I guess is that the teaching of English at school ( pre-GCSE stage) seems to squeezing all the joy out of what is one of her fave & strongest subjects. I suppose I’m hoping to put some stuff under her nose that is a reminder that reading is genuinely stimulating.
My own reading at her age was sporadic at best & I barely skimmed the set books at school, but Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut & Hunter Thompson were mind blowing & never felt like work to read, so I happily did them in my ‘own time, without even thinking about it.
Wheldrake says
My daughter loved a couple of graphic novels I introduced to her, Chiggers and This One Summer. Perfect for teenage girls, or indeed anyone. Reviews are here on the excellent Page45 website:
http://www.page45.com/store/Chiggers-sc.html
http://www.page45.com/store/This-One-Summer.html#SID=174
Kaisfatdad says
There is nothing like having to read a book to pass an exam to take away the joy of reading. A good teacher can help to alleviate that. A disinterested English teacher is a disaster.
johnw says
It may not be a phase and what’s the problem of it isn’t? I used to read book after book until I was about 15 then stopped and have never started again. I’ve tried it a few times but books clearly aren’t for me. I read loads though, magazines, newspapers, the internet, I’ve always had a first for knowledge and reading fiction means I’m not learning. In recent years, I’ve started to listen to audio books but still I go for the factual sort. If I want a good story, I’ll watch a film. I don’t think I’m missing or any more than I do by not listening to opera or any other stand of the arts.
Junglejim says
I confess I hadn’t considered it from that perspective, but it’s an interesting take.
She’s a curious soul, who thanks to her old man’s music collection & the internet has made far more interesting connections & discoveries than I could ever have conceived of at her age.
Given what reading has given her up to now, it seems inconceivable she’d turn away from it, any mor than I can conceive of any length of time without music. But who is to say?
johnw says
I should point out, the errors in my post were due to auto correct on my tablet and because of my illiteracy!
Moose the Mooche says
Some of the errors in my past were due to tablets.
Oh, you said “post”
H.P. Saucecraft says
I can thoroughly recommend Baddha by Elson Quick. Not only is it reasonably short (as a service to the reader) it has plenty of steamy, perverted sex in it, and drugs and stuff.
Junglejim says
That’s the ticket H.P. , just what the doctor ordered!
At the end of the summer I’ll take her out mushroom picking & get her started on my Burroughs collection. ( W.S. not Edgar Rice!)
JustB says
Kids need to be bored. Massively restrict their access to screens – laptops, phones, TVs. They’ll get reading soon enough.
Chrisf says
My first thought was the Ian McEwan short stories – First Love, Last Rites and In Betwenn The Sheets.
Depending how comfortable you are, you could also try The Cement Garden also by Ian McEwan, which is a pretty short and easy read and has an “adult” subject that would probably appeal to a 15 year old.
moseleymoles says
As 13-year old minimole has just started on Game On Thrones – from the Guardian Guide Today lesbian sex – yes, beheadings, yes, betrayal, yes – I think that what they read is less important than reading. Son reads ‘1001 buildings you must see before you die’ – or rather we hope that he glances at the words next to the pictures. Non-fiction, magazines with words etc – doesn’t matter what they read as long as they read.