Proof! Reading fiction makes you smarter!

I've argued sometimes with friends who think novel-reading is a waste of time that reading makes you more empathetic. People who can't imagine how someone else feels on their own, or in a social situation, CAN when they read a novel, in which all the clues are laid out for them.

Now there is scientific proof that this is so! In fact, some social scientists have gone father and said that reading fiction makes you smarter.

readingfiction makes you smarter (STAR)

reading fiction hones social skills (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND)

Also too (as Sara Palin would say), great artists have great insight -- even Freud said that his theories had been known to "great artists" for hundreds of years. Do you remember the scene in Emma in which Mr.Woodhouse keeps telling his son-in-law what his, Mr. Woodhouses's, doctor thinks the son-in-law should have done -- until finally Mr.Knightley loses his temper?

Jane Austen then says that Mr.Woodhouse had been "unconsciously attributing his own feelings" to the doctor.

Though it's true that Jane Austen also once described somebody reading "the sort of novel that makes people think reading novels is a waste of time."

So maybe it has to be a good book for the magic (or science) to work?

Teaching Readers?

This past weekend I had the luxury of uninterrupted reading time, so I took advantage and devoured the book Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt. I soooo enjoyed it, and it moved me so much that I found myself basically crying throughout the whole novel--and you know I'm a sucker for books that make me cry. It was such a pleasure to immerse myself in the story and with the characters. I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, as I've been trying to slog through another novel that just isn't keeping my interest

Reading Okay for Now reminded me of two articles I've read over the last two weeks. The first was the recent essay by Robert Lipsyte, "Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?" He says:

If we’re to counter this tendency and encourage reading among boys who may collectively resist it, boys need to be approached individually with books about their fears, choices, possibilities and relationships — the kind of reading that will prick their dormant empathy, involve them with fictional characters and lead them into deeper engagement with their own lives. This is what turns boys into readers.

Okay for Now is definitely the type of book I think boy readers would enjoy. It features a great male narrator, sports, brother-brother and father-son relationship issues, and the drama of a tough home life. But there's also horseshoes, Broadway, Audubon, art, and romance. Something for everyone.

The second was an article linked to from Shelf Awareness with the provocative title "We Can't Teach Students to Love Reading."

Personally, I think just reading this long, rather dry article would turn someone off reading. (In fact, it infuriated my friend who has been in education for over a decade and is also a student of history.) One of the article's main points:

The extreme reader, to coin a phrase, is a rare bird indeed. ("I have done what people do, my life makes a reasonable showing," Lynne Sharon Schwartz writes. "Can I go back to my books now?") Such people are born, not made, I think; or mostly born and only a little made.

I think extreme readers are made every day--how many of us have heard people (children, mainly) say that they never liked reading until they read XX book, or that after they had this teacher or read that book, they forever acquired a love of reading?

But this part gave me pause:

I don't know whether an adult who has never practiced deep attention—who has never seriously read for information or for understanding, or even for delight—can learn how.

I wonder. How many people have made it to adulthood without the love of reading, only to acquire it later? Do any of you have any real-life examples?

He finally fell in love with a book!

Some of you may remember my friend Adam, who when he was 7 (he is now 10) had no trouble understanding why writers make so little money once I explained the concept of royalties. He nodded sagely and said,
"Most books are really boring."

More recently, he complained that his teacher last year "made" them read a book a month and how glad he was that school ended "before we had to finish the last one." But now he has read a book that he loved. He's a slow reader, and it took him a YEAR, but he finished it.

So last Sunday, when we went for a hike here,

we mainly talked about books. He described the plot of HIS book in great detail, then explained how 80% of the books published are "terrible," 10% "bad," and the rest, "really good."

He asked me to tell him about the best and worst books I'd ever read--I did, and was surprised that he'd heard of most of the ones I loved:

"Someone in my class read that and thought it was really good," he'd say, or,
"A girl in my class loved that, but I didn't think I'd find it interesting."

He hadn't heard of TREASURE ISLAND and when I told him the beginning, thought it sounded really good, but urged me to tell him the whole story anyway since "I'll never read it." He has just finished the only book he's ever really liked, and wants to read the second in the series. Since the first took him a year, he's not optimistic about starting any other books any time soon. He thought GRIMBLE sounded really, really funny -- he laughed aloud when I quoted it - but didn't want to read that, either: he's saving his reading time for the book after


DORMIA. And yes, this IS the child who said only a little while ago that he liked realistic fiction. He said he liked this because he could picture everything so clearly-- he added that he doesn't like books with pictures because THEY do the imagining for you. He likes really long books because he "hates to choose" and it's good to have something that has "500 solitary pages" --not sure what he meant by "solitary"--he's at an age to use long words to impress).

Lastly, I don't think this proves anything about novels vs. picture books, or realistic fiction vs. fantasy, or kids now or anything else, other than that what makes someone love a book is as completely mysterious and unpredictable as any kind of falling in love. YOU NEVER KNOW, even when you know the person and the book pretty well. I find that encouraging.

Sex vs. Race for the Under Four Set

Jake is the only child I babysit for who loves to read, and at his request, we go to the library every day. We both pull books off the shelves, then he decides if they're worth examining further. We put all the books that pass the first test on the table, and read the first few pages--then they go either into the Yes pile or the No pile.

He loved Ling and Ting, even though it's about people he normally refuses to read about: GIRLS. He got all the humor -- I could tell by his pleased, amused smile at the end of each little story. And I know he loved the book because before we'd even left the library he'd had me read it all twice.

He didn't comment on the characters being Asian, and my guess is that he didn't notice, and I KNOW it wasn't something that had anything to do with whether or not he wanted to read the book. He's three, almost four; maybe when he gets older, this will change; but maybe -- and books like Ling and TIng may have something to do with how it all comes out, for him and others? -- it won't.