This morning's NY Times reports on the declining availability of picture books, and finds that current child rearing practices are partially to blame. Apparently today's Gradgrind parents insist that their children renounce the decadent kicks that illustrated texts offer, & buckle down to chapter book reading, pronto:
Some parents say they just want to advance their children’s skills. Amanda Gignac, a stay-at-home mother in San Antonio who writes The Zen Leaf, a book blog, said her youngest son, Laurence, started reading chapter books when he was 4.
Now Laurence is 6 ½, and while he regularly tackles 80-page chapter books, he is still a “reluctant reader,” Ms. Gignac said.
Sometimes, she said, he tries to go back to picture books.
“He would still read picture books now if we let him, because he doesn’t want to work to read,” she said, adding that she and her husband have kept him reading chapter books.
Who wouldn't want to rescue poor, deprived little Laurence from such monstrous clutches?
