Should they read what they like?

For generations children's librarians debated whether children should be allowed to read any book they wanted--series books? comic books? books with bad grammar?--or whether libraries should concentrate on collecting only the best books. That debate has pretty well been ended, with popularity conquering "elitist" librarians' tastes. Now the schools are going through the same arguments. According to a front page story in today's N.Y. Times, English teachers in some schools have given up on class novels and turned to a new approach that lets every child choose his or her own reading. Tempting books on a variety of reading levels are offered to middle grade or high school students who choose according to their own taste. The teacher discusses the reading individually with each student. Does this work? Apparently in some schools children become enthusiastic about the books they choose and enjoy the process. Whether it is realistic to expect a teacher in a large class to read and discuss the dozens of books on an individual basis is another question. And whether it is important for children to have some experience with the classic reading of recent years is yet another issue. The results aren't final yet, but teachers, desperate to get kids to read anything, are offering wider and wider choices in reading and the trend seems to be toward more pop culture and fewer class novels.