When my son Jake was in third grade, the one required summer reading book for his whole class was Little House on the Prairie. Jake’s first impression? “Why are we reading this? Reading is for girls.” Jake is now in high school, but along the way he has worked through required readings of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Michael Dorris’s Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Toni Morrison’s Sula. Jake’s current impression? “Reading is definitely for girls.”
