No Wonder Teenagers Would Rather Be on TikTok

I just read this short article in The Week magazine and, as a very bookish woman, I wanted to hear your opinion too.

Here is the article:

Why teenagers don’t read

“Look at the GCSE reading list: Macbeth, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies. Murder; murder; authoritarian rule; social breakdown, the bullying of fat boys with glasses – then murder. If teen reading rates are plummeting, maybe it’s because the reading list is so dry and depressing. Where are P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Adrian Mole, Oscar Wilde, Nancy Mitford, Terry Pratchett? I’m a 51-year-old author of nine books and even I wouldn’t want to spend a long, hot summer going line by line through Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I too would want to go on TikTok and watch a girl with rainbow eyes eat noodles.” — Caitlin Moran in The Times

I believe Caitlin Moran is right. Teenagers need laughter too. Give them humour, adventure, comic fiction. Something that makes reading feel like pleasure, not an unending curriculum of sorrow, murder and horror.

What’s your thoughts?