What books did you bully your children into reading?

None. I wouldn’t have forced any book on a child unless I wanted to make him hate it.

I did lots of reading aloud to my kids when they were young. By the time he was six, my older son was an extremely capable and enthusiastic reader (read the entire Oz and Narnia series by the time he was seven). He grew up to become a philosophy major and later attended law school, so reading has been a major aspect of his life.

My younger son, in the same environment, with thousands of books on hand and three readers in the family, never developed the habit at all.

I really don’t know what explains the difference, but it wasn’t because I bullied either one.

Value Tale collection

What an odd concept. My children, like me, loved to read and made their own choices.

We started out by me reading to them nightly when they were young. I chose the books then.

When they entered school and had access to the school library, they chose the books.

They both saw me reading also.

One of the magical moments of my life was the day when my daughter was able to read to me. Dr. Seuss possibly.

Both majored in English lit. at college and my son went on to get an MA in comparative literature.

None.

I have simply always read a lot in front of my children and they kind of just picked it up. I’ll make recommendations but, as mentioned above if you want to make a child hate reading, force them to do it.

@gailcalled Do you find it odd? I bought my daughter a beautiful edition of “The Hobbit”. She ignored it, and asked my permission to read “The Hunger Games”. I had to negotiate with her. Is this specific to my experience?

read the hobbit to my oldest when he was an infant and am currently reading the hunger games myself. don’t see a big difference. reading is reading and both stories are big and compelling.

I have no children. However, I have bullied many parents into having their children read specific books. Sometimes in exchange for money.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought: I can speak only to my experience as a grandchild of readers, child of readers, a sibling of readers, a reader and a parent of readers.

I grew up with books, two morning newspapers, weekly magazines, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. I read them all indiscriminately. It seemed as natural as breathing. My kids felt the same way; they might not have, I guess.

If your daughter didn’t like “The Hobbit,” don’t worry about it. Not having read “The Hunger Games,” I cannot speak to that, but as @Blondesjons wisely says, “Reading is reading.”

None. The children I have had experience with all loved to read, anything and everything, including the boxes food comes in.

None. If nurtured correctly they will devour every book they desire.
NOM NOM NOM

None here either. My kids have not read books I have chosen and loved, and they have devoured books I thought were boring. But to each his own. They both love reading, and do it on their own without prompting.

The only books they have been “forced” to read are for literature classes in school.

I didn’t have to bully them because they loved to read. But I did make an appeal for the Pride and the Prejudice. Ok, maybe blackmail or guilt them into reading it. They would make fun of me for liking such a sappy book and I told them it was more than that.

And that if they wanted me to continue to watch them play games or watch anime with them and continue sharing their interests, that they should read the book. They both did and they both loved them and went on to read other Jane Austin books. I told them it was only fair for them to explore the things I love the same way I explore the things they love.

^^^ Daughters or daughters and sons?

I don’t recall doing that but I will ask them and get back tomorrow.

I would never bully a child into reading anything other than warning labels. Certainly not books. I’d destroy any chance they would love reading.

I read to my first two till they took over for themselves. After they were grown and on their own, my youngest came along to fill an empty nest. He independently started reading before he turned two, and he never looked back. He has always been an inveterate reader. In school he carried a huge backpack filled with books he was reading. The caption his classmates put under his picture in his senior class yearbook was, “So many books, so little time.”

I bullied my mom into reading Harry Potter. ;)

Not really, but she tried reading it once, couldn’t get into it, and didn’t end up reading for years. But I finally convinced her to read it and she ended up reading the whole series in a very short amount of time and loved it.

@forethought

You don’t mention the details or the results of the negotiation.

Just because you obviously loved the Hobbit and spent major bucks (presumably) on a “beautiful edition” of it may be meaningless to your daughter who has her own tastes in reading. Don’t let your ego get in the way of common sense.

Bullying her into something is one way to alienate her. Why would you want to do that.

As others have stated “Reading is reading”. I’ve know of kids who read nothing but comic books for years and years who later went on to have far more diverse reading tastes.

I taught elementary school in inner city areas for many years. This was in private schools so the majority of our parents were highly motivated to do whatever they could to ensure that their kids would be better off than they were, educationally.

My consistent recommendation to them was to make time to read with their kids EVERY DAY; specifically to set aside 20–30 mins. whenever was best for them and either read to the child or vice versa or alternate.

During the first month of school I made certain that every child in the class had a library card. I didn’t care one bit WHAT they read. I only cared THAT the were reading on a consistent basis.

I told the parents to let the kids choose the books regardless of what their choices were. They could make suggestions but that was it. The child had the choice.

If you allow them to own their choices, they will eventually learn to make better choices. But you must allow them their choices or it will just drain the enthusiasm right out of the entire venture.

Please don’t do that to your daughter. Love her enough to set aside your ego. Be glad that she wants to read and encourage it.

@gailcalled Daughter and son. My son even went further into looking into her life story.

Young Lady by Dick Head. Not my thing, but my kids used to love silly little fairy tales.

Yes, I used thumbscrews and isolation/sleep deprivation techniques on my son to force him to read only math textbooks throughout his childhood. Also, I never let him associate with those Neanderthals in the neighborhood who wasted their afterschool time playing mindless, tribal war games such as football. Today I am proud to say he is one of the most valued engineers at NASA and is perfectly self-sufficient, living alone in a Houston suburb without the bother and distraction of a nagging wife or social life. In fact, he is so busy and is so much in demand that he rarely has time to call home, even for the holidays. In line with the frugality and efficiency in which he was raised, he has moved his desk, computer, small refrigerator and microwave oven into the master bedroom and spends all of his time there working away on his various projects, I am sure. Such a good boy. And all of this would be true except for the fact that I never had children.

Never had to bully a child into reading anything. I just tailor it to their interests, make sure it’s enjoyable for them, and they eat it up.

You have young kids, @Adirondackwannabe?

I have nieces and nephews, no kids of my own. I didn’t think I’d be good at raising them so I passed. Silly me.

I made them all read Mommy Dearest after I divorced their mother. ;-)

Science books.

I hated reading as a child and it drove, and continues to drive, my father crazy. He still constantly offers to send me books and talks about books and wants to know if I want to read some book he liked. So, I am the kid not the parent, but he never specifically wanted me to read a particular book as a child, just to read.

If I had kids I would hope they love to read. I wouldn’t care what they read, except for something that might be extremely dark and violent, that would bother me.

None. My kids bullied ME into reading “The Pokey Little Puppy” every night. I HATED that book!

I did bully them into watching Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” when they were 14 and 12. I threatened to ground them if they didn’t watch at least the first 15 minutes. My daughter, the 14 year old, was so MAD at me! Until the coconuts and the sparrows showed up….. ♥

I tried to get them to watch “To Kill a Mockingbird.” They kept refusing (Because it was old and black and white.) My son finally snapped, “Why would I want to watch a movie about tequila???!!!”

I recall my mum welding us to the sofa to sit through the weepy dramafest that was Little Mouse on the Fairy, I hated the crap so much that I eventually gave in to the hypnotic powers of the Ingalls…they were so nice it fucking hurt!

@ucme My mom didn’t let us watch the show. All my friends did, but my mom thought it was too sickening sweet.

@JLeslie That much is certain, it took me half a dozen episodes before it dawned on me, I fancied Caroline!!
I’d have insisted she kept her daft bonnet on during sex, just for the lulz.

Caroline hell! What about Charles? That boy was HOT!

I dreamt there was an episode where the Ingalls & the Waltons engaged in a huge swingers party while the children fished in yonder creek.

I always thought Mr Edwards was the hot one.

My mom didn’t let us watch the Waltons either for the same reason.

I grew up watching MASH, Soap, The Odd Couple, I could go on and on. My mom liked TV.

I liked the film of The Odd Couple, best US shows were Mork & Mindy, Starsky & Hutch & Taxi.

@JLeslie I find it very odd that your mom wouldn’t let you watch a show because it was too sweet.

Friends was a good show too. And Cheers. AND CAROL BURNETT!!!!

@Dutchess_III Yeah, we loved Carol Burnett. We watched so many shows.

The explanation is we had one TV for many years and my mom didn’t like the shows.

Oh, well that makes sense! On Sundays we watched Lassie and Disney and…. what was that nature show? On Mondays I got to watch The Monkees. Saturday morning, cartoons. The rest of the time, if we wanted to watch TV, we watched what Dad wanted to watch. Which meant we were outside playing instead. :)

Ooh, that reminds me, I loved the Banana Splits, epic Saturday morning viewing in those long summer holidays.

HR Puff n Stuff!

I have never bullied my daughter to read anything, though I did kind of twist her arm a bit to get her to read stories I’ve written myself.

How can you bully a kid into reading a book?

When I was about 12, my dad and I made a deal: he would read Moby Dick if I read Huck Finn. I think both of us ended up quietly and guiltily petering out.

You petered out on Huck Finn????

@wildpotato You two missed two fine books, then.

Really really? Most folks tell me not to bother with Moby Dick because it’s allegorical and extremely slow-moving, and a few have mentioned that there’s little to get out of it other than background for cultural reference. But if y’all disagree I’ll put it on my list. Huck Finn too, why not.

One of the best books we were made to read at school was “Bahnwärter Thiel”.
It is about a railway linesman that is sexually enslaved to his second wife, while longing back to his now dead first wife.
He has two children, one is his own, but is mentally retarded, and the other is an infant from his second wife.
One day, his own child gets run over by a train, is horribly mutilated and dies.
Thiel snaps, and brutally murders both his wife and the baby with an axe.

Jesus @ragingloli

I wonder if appreciating books like Moby Dick and Huck Finn were a result of a slower time, when we weren’t raised on two second sound bites and strobe-light instant action….

Add Tom Sawyer to your reading list @wildpotato. When he and Becky get lost in the cave, well, it’s pretty terrifying!

@Dutchess_III
The book is from 1888 and is one of the German classics.

And the Germans gave us The Holocaust.

And americans gave us the holocaust against the indians.

Was that Holocaust comment really necessary?
And the Germans have contributed a lot to literature: Goethe, Nietzsche, Mann, Hesse, Marx and Engels, etc. Even the original Beowulf was closer to modern German than modern English.

@ragingloli Interesting story, so far. Hope it’s a good translation. What grade were you in when they had you read it?

@Michael_Huntington Not to mention the big Hs of philosophy: Husserl, Hegel, and Heidegger.

@wildpotato
Not sure, probably 11th grade, maybe earlier.