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Reverse Psychology to Get Kids to Read Books

By grrlscientist on October 20, 2006.

What is a good way to get kids to read particular books? Ban those particular books and then place them on public display. Of course, if you are genuinely banning those books for being controversial, there are problems associated with this;

"But I don't think we should tease kids into reading a book by trying to say, 'there might be something juicy or controversial in this book. Therefore, it would be a good one for you to sneak home and read."' [Cited story]

Speaking as a former kid myself, I can say that banning particular books -- titles that you want kids to read -- is an especially effective way to pique their interest with very little effort on your part. Throughout my life, I have made an effort to read so-called banned and "subversive" books for the purpose of finding those passages or ideas that made certain special interest groups ban them. Even now, I have a "subversive literature reading list" and I make it a point to borrow those books from the public library so the government can find out what I read. The best part about last summer's "subversive literature list"? I discovered several excellent books, particularly Dewey's Democracy and Education, as a result.

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Tags
cultural observation
your inner child

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I remember my mother forbade (is that a word?) to read The Color Purple. So what did I do? I immediately read it! As a kid, I didn't really know that books got banned until I was old enough to understand that it was a really horrible idea.

Well, bless you for this fine post. I think book banning tells more about the insecurity of the banners than the alleged wrong of the banned.

I, too, read banned books, and I'm going to make it a point to begin checking them out at the library, just as you do.