I was thinking Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith or Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell but those may be a bit advanced
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I was thinking Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith or Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell but those may be a bit advanced
I wouldn't recommend books necessarily, as for children they might be a bit difficult to digest. Some kids just aren't interested in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII9NZ8MMVM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyV0OfU3-FU&t=83s
Yes, that would be my first clarification question: do they even like to read, or has government schools made that so painful they hate it?
One of the things that really hit me when I left school was that I actually enjoy reading and maths. However the government mandated versions of it made it so fucking boring and pointless not applying to real life that I could not get into it and as a result my grades suffered badly.
School made me hate reading. Prior to around 7th grade, I used to read a ton. Easily one like "adult-sized" book every two weeks. Up until that point, school reading wasn't much of a thing. We might read a book at school or the books were honestly so below the level I could read them in spare time at school over a couple days.
Suddenly, they want to heap on all these books. I didn't even hate most of the books if I'm honest, but it's all the twisting them around to dig up all these supposed hidden meanings and analyse the shit out of them. Don't dare submit a paper questioning the approved analysis either. I eventually said to hell with it about 9th grade and just started buying those cliff note things and making up essays the night before. I would do just as well anyway.
The last paper I ever submitted to an English/Literature/Writing type class was the final paper for a college course, it was a pretty open ended type assignment and I did it on why the overanalysis of literature was a bad thing. It was very detailed, cited, etc. Far and away the most time I spent on a college paper for such a class. It was also the worst grade by far I ever got on a college paper for such a class. Yeah, the one I forgot about and wrote at 2am the night before it was due full of drivel did better.
I was almost 30 before I really got back into reading again, and still not at the level of kid me. Albeit, I have less time to spend on it now.
You are nowhere near the first person I heard say this. Modern schools do this a lot, especially to boys, and I firmly believe it is intentional, because as we can see it is easy to mislead children when they are not connected to the foundational literature that the west is built upon.
I didn't read much until my mom made me a deal that I could see Jurassic Park once I read the book (which was a crazy deal to make, because the book was way more violent and "adult" than the movie).
Then after that I started reading all the Michael Crichton books, and 10-12 year old me got to learn about sexual harassment and murdering prostitutes and all the other fun stuff in his books that my mom would absolutely never let me see if it was in a movie.
I got hooked on reading early, the grade school library had Tom Swift and The Hardy Boys books, and I devoured them all. By high school I was reading those thick Tom Clancy books that are 900 plus pages. I read so much I developed a speed reading habit, and now had hundreds of books of my own, three entire floor to ceiling book cases of hardbacks alone.
Yep, I was into reading fantasy books when I was younger and I also read a bit of Tom Clancy, it's not kids that are the problem it's schools, but you'll never see parents or teachers admit to it in a public setting.
My mom made us go to the library from a young age and also made us listen to cassette tapes that had vocabulary words to learn. At the time I hated it but I can thank my mother that I’m a heavy reader today
Ugh. I still remember having to slog through 'Flowers for Algernon' as a kid.
I could read through Jurrassic Park in a day or two, but that book took me weeks. I fucking hated that book. Still do.
Maybe schools should try and push reading for pleasure than trying to cram some sort of philosophical sob story down my throat.
I didn’t care for Flowers for Algernon as a kid but like it more looking back at it.