Elementary aged kids LOVE to read, but that love seems to wane as our kids get older. How do we get teenagers to read, and what are some good books to suggest if you can’t seem to get them interested in reading?
Don’t miss my free Teen Summer Reading Bingo that will help your kids vary what they’re reading this summer:
Today’s guest is Bryce Moore. He is the author of several teen type fiction books including The Memory Thief and Vodnik. He also has a blog at BryceMoore.com with all his musings and ramblings.
Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines. If you’re looking to get your life into a routine to have more time to promote reading, be sure to check it out!
And, if you’re wanting to up your parenting game, don’t miss Practical Parenting that I mention in the episode:
In this episode we’re going to talk about:
- Why the love of reading lessens as kids get older
- The things we’re doing wrong with our teens that makes them not read.
- Emphasize that reading shouldn’t be approached as a punishment.
- Why teens need to keep reading
Items Mentioned:
Scribd — and my post on why we use it.
Kindle Reader (vs Kindle Fire)
Bryce’s Top 5 Books for Teens:
- Skyward by Branden Sanderson
- Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe
- Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
- Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud
- Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Bryce’s Top Series for Teens:
Disc World Series (Bryce likes this one) by Terry Pratchett
I AM Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells (he also likes Blue Screen)
Other things that might interest you:
I did a post on stuff for teens to do during the summer that has a lot of good ideas for engaging teen activities.
Producer: Drew Erickson
Check out my other parenting podcasts:
Check out all my podcasts:
Transcript:
Hilary Erickson 0:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 45, we’re talking about reading. Now little kids love to read right but I’ve noticed as my kids grow up that love of reading just diminishes and I want to keep it around because reading is the gateway to all the good things right so let’s untangle it.
Welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast, where we untangle everything from pregnancy parenting, home routines, even some family travel because heavens knows our lives are tangled I’m your host Hilary Erickson.
Okay guys, if you want to get in a routine of reading at your house, be sure and check out my free series practical parenting I will put the link in the show notes you can jump in and we’ll get on a routine together. All right, today’s show guest is actually a published author. He has a few books out the me mory thief BOD Nick and Katherine available. My kids have read them. They love them. They are definitely trend on the teen side. I have teen boys who have loved them. He’s also a librarian. He’s Not insanely boring. I want to welcome my cousin, Bryce Moore.
This episode of The pulling curls podcast is sponsored by family routines how to automate your housewife life. ever wish life was more like you pictured it would be before you had kids. Being able to spend less time with the mundane tasks and more time teaching kids the fun and valuable life skills you know they need. Family Routines teaches families to simplify daily tasks into routines that help them feel more peace and joy. Save 15% with a coupon code untangled? You can find it at pullingcurls.com in the menu under courses, or in this episode show notes.
Hey Bryce, welcome to the polling girls podcast.
Bryce Cundick 1:39
Hello.
Hilary Erickson 1:41
How are you today?
Bryce Cundick 1:42
I’m doing okay, how are you?
Hilary Erickson 1:44
Good. We are recording this in quarantine. That’s the beauty of Zoom.
Bryce Cundick 1:49
The beauty of Zoom? Yeah, I think it’s just awesome.
Hilary Erickson 1:52
Yeah, all found the beauty of Zoom.
Bryce Cundick 1:54
Yeah, you know, maybe I’m still looking for it.
Hilary Erickson 1:58
Still on the hunt. Bryce had more backgrounds to his Zoom than I’ve ever seen. It was impressive.
Bryce Cundick 2:04
I’m on Zoom meetings for about six hours a day. At least.
Hilary Erickson 2:07
That sounds like so much fun.
Bryce Cundick 2:08
So I was really excited when you asked me to be on this, and I discovered it was actually another Zoom meeting.
Hilary Erickson 2:14
You’re welcome. All right. So Bryce, give us a little bit of your background.
Bryce Cundick 2:21
Sure, sure. I write books. Under the there’s two parts. There’s two Bryce’s and when we were prepping for this, I was like, “which Bryce should I should I highlight?” and we’re like, go with the Bryce Moore. And so yeah, price more when I’m Bryce Moore. I write books, young adult and middle grade fantasy. I’ve written to vote Nick, young adult and memory thesis, middle grade fantasy, and I’ve got another one coming out next year. Murder castle, which is a young adult thriller for but then I don’t bet does not pay enough to pay the bills. And so to pay the bills, and my normal alter ego is Bryce Cundick, where I’m the library director at a university college library in Maine. I’ve been the past president of the Maine Library Association, very active in the library world. And so there’s that part of me to the library world, the library. It’s a wonderful world. Way better than zoom world, I guess.
Hilary Erickson 3:16
Yeah. Well, I’m part of the labor nurse world. So I guess we all have our worlds.
Bryce Cundick 3:22
I guess.
Hilary Erickson 3:23
I don’t think the library and the labor nurse intersect very frequently.
Bryce Cundick 3:27
Not often now.
Hilary Erickson 3:28
Yeah. Okay. And you have kids?
Bryce Cundick 3:30
I do I have three.
Hilary Erickson 3:31
One’s a teen son.
Bryce Cundick 3:32
I’ve got a seven year old daughter, a 12 year old daughter, and 16 year old son.
Hilary Erickson 3:39
Awesome. And would you say that the books you write are geared towards boys, like in a generic, gender sense?
Bryce Cundick 3:47
ish? You know, I mean, I, you know, I think I’d like, I would like to think every author thinks of themselves as writing for everybody. But the two protagonists of my two books that are out right now are both boys, although the protagonists of my third b ook that’s coming out The summer is a girl.
Hilary Erickson 4:02
Okay,
Bryce Cundick 4:03
But it’s a horror book so I don’t know if the girl likes horror, then it’s the girl book. If the girl doesn’t, then it’s not a girl. You know what I mean? Like,
Hilary Erickson 4:10
obviously there’s inner intertwining of the gender reading.
Bryce Cundick 4:14
Yeah, I don’t write little women. I don’t write, you know, Jane Eyre. So and I also don’t write, The Fault in Our Stars. I write books that I’d like to read. So I guess I’m writing for myself. But you know, I, I don’t think that the boy girl divide is necessarily as big as marketers would like you to think it is.
Hilary Erickson 4:33
That’s good to know. Although I don’t know a lot of boys who read Twilight. I read Twilight. I’ll just leave that there.
Bryce Cundick 4:39
Hey, you know, I know people like to like to rag on Twilight. But I personally think that anything that becomes that popular, there’s something to be learned from it. Oh, I devoured it.
Hilary Erickson 4:50
Yeah. Yeah, I think it was on a car trip. And so I just booked a book to book.
Bryce Cundick 4:55
I read the first I think I read the first two and that was like, Okay, I got it. Now.
Hilary Erickson 5:00
That was that was probably a good stopping point, frankly.
Bryce Cundick 5:03
Yeah, it was just like Aragon Aragon was really big A while ago and I read the first couple of polls and I was like, Okay, I’m good.
Hilary Erickson 5:10
I read the first good 10 pages. I felt good
Bryce Cundick 5:14
commitment.
Hilary Erickson 5:16
Alright, so I see kids who love to read write these aspirations readers in elementary school almost every kid I meet in elementary loves to read at least some something they love to read. But as the kids get older, it kind of wanes. So why do you think teens lose their love of reading?
Bryce Cundick 5:33
So I think a c ouple things for that. Number one, I think the required reading takes up more over more and more. Like do you like to listen to music?
Hilary Erickson 5:42
Yeah,
Bryce Cundick 5:42
you personally, what’s your favorite genre?
Hilary Erickson 5:44
Probably pop.
Bryce Cundick 5:45
Pop. Okay, what genre do you hate?
Hilary Erickson 5:47
Ah, like classical like new, new classical where it’s all
Bryce Cundick 5:53
all like abstract and yeah. Okay. What if I told you that you had to listen to new classical abstract for like the next ear and I we were gonna listen to it for like an hour a day and that was like you just had to do that. And you said he would not like you and, and like so the definition of music is now new classical. That’s the best. That’s music anything of anything else that’s not music.
Hilary Erickson 6:14
Yeah, that’s true. That was definitely High School for me The Hobbit
Bryce Cundick 6:20
you would stop like liking music, right? If If everyone was defining music as this abstract thing that you don’t like, suddenly you wouldn’t like it anymore.
Hilary Erickson 6:29
Yeah, that’s true. In elementary like you can work with you know, Captain Underpants is like a- okay.
Bryce Cundick 6:35
Yeah, because everyone’s like, just read something read anything. It’s just great. And then suddenly in high school and in in middle school, to an extent as well, suddenly, you have to read the right things for it to count. And I think that like okay, Case in point so I’m, I’m a librarian. I like to read I’m an author as well. So I used figure I, you know, anything that’s written I’m gonna like doing, like reading a couple of years ago. ago, we did a book club for my library for my campus and the theme we we pick the theme of travel, and I wanted to have one book that was more contemporary and one that’s like a classic. And I was like, okay, travel, travel. I brainstorm for like, I don’t know, three minutes sounds like on the road. It’s a book about travel. It’s literally says on there, we’ll do that for our classic and I had never read it before. Like, it’s a classic. I’m a I have an English master’s degree in English, a master’s degree in library science. I’m sure this is gonna be great. It doesn’t. Things don’t become classics without being worthwhile. I started the book. I was like, I have made a big mistake. I hated it. I could not stand that book. But I had to finish it because it was the book. Everyone was reading that I told everyone they had to read
Hilary Erickson 7:45
that you chose,
Bryce Cundick 7:47
and I chose and I loathed the whole thing. It was so bad. And in hindsight, I never should have chosen that book. Friends don’t let friends choose books for book club that they’ve never read before.
Hilary Erickson 7:59
Did anybody Students like it?
Bryce Cundick 8:00
I don’t think anybody read it. Except maybe some English professors who are like, “oh boy, it’s On the Road,” you know. And in hindsight, like if I have on my, my English master’s degree holding hat, I could, I could look at the book and I could parse the book and be like, Okay, what does this mean, but, and in my head of like, I’d like to read something that I’m actually going to enjoy and No, never. So, you know, I think I think that’s a big part of it, is we start assigning more and more read, like, right reading, correct reading, proper reading to students, and they just don’t like it.
Hilary Erickson 8:33
Yeah.
Bryce Cundick 8:34
The other thing is that we stopped counting all the other reading that they’re doing, and we start saying, okay, the only thing that will count is this, are these books, you have to be reading books. And, you know, I think that a lot of teens shift their reading habits and they’re, they’re reading maybe they’re reading pop things online, maybe they’re reading blogs, maybe, you know,
Hilary Erickson 8:51
Reddit… they’re reading Reddit,
Bryce Cundick 8:53
Reddit read, it’s great. I read a lot of Reddit myself, and you know, so I don’t know I to me, I think it would be more Important to view reading as broadly as possible, because, you know, reading anything helps that said, You know, I obviously I would love it if people read more books, because you know, author and because –books. But I think that yeah they they lose their love of reading is also another thing that I wanted to say is that they just get distracted. There’s so many different things for them to do between sports, after school activities, all the all the learning that they’re doing work, you know, they, a lot of them are starting getting part-time jobs. There’s just a lot of different things they have going on. And that’s excluding all the other pop culture distractions that they can have between Netflix and Hulu. And I mean, you just name it, there’s all sorts of other things they could be doing.
And so to read, again, another example for me, about four years ago, I just noticed that I wasn’t reading that much anymore. I felt like I took a step back. I looked at my Goodreads account, like you know, I finished maybe like 16 Books last year, and that felt pretty pitiful for library and I was like, what? They’re gonna tear up my library card. Okay, they’re gonna cut it up. I mean, our library cards are tapered. Now they’re, they’re plastic. And so I had to make a goal to read more. So now my current goal is to read a book a week, and I can do that, but I have to work at it. I have to, and I do it because I love it. But I do have to be like, Okay, I got it. I got to read. Now I got to read some books, because if I don’t, then I just get distracted. I’m like a cocker spaniel. Like, what’s on Facebook? What’s on Reddit? And if that’s me, as a library director, know, how am I supposed? How are we supposed to expect our kids to be able to put up with the same to resist the same siren’s call of Reddit and Facebook and everything else that’s on their phone?
Hilary Erickson 10:48
Yeah. I will say during quarantine my kids have probably read a little bit more.
Bryce Cundick 10:52
What’s it look a little bit more?
Hilary Erickson 10:54
I don’t know. I haven’t forced reading time for an hour at my house. So
Bryce Cundick 10:58
How do you know they’re reading? What are they reading, you know? It’s Lord of the Flies out there.
Hilary Erickson 11:04
We go this Lord of the Flies out there pretty much there’s a head on a stake in my yard. So… but also as we’re getting into summer I think it’s great for parents give tips for parents to maybe get around that I know my junior will be a junior has required summer reading that he is super excited about already.
Bryce Cundick 11:24
So you sometimes I can’t tell your sarcasm meter Are you serious that he’s super excited about it? Or is that sarcastic now?
Hilary Erickson 11:31
What kid loves the summer reading assignments?
Bryce Cundick 11:34
My kids still love Summer Reading like because they participate in the library summer reading program
Hilary Erickson 11:39
to one that’s required at high school honors English so they have a summer book that they have to read and then put 5000 sticky notes and
Bryce Cundick 11:47
yeah, I mean, again, I get that I get the theory behind it like oh, we’re gonna make sure the kids still love reading and don’t forget that they love reading over the summer to me I would. I would much rather that teachers just be like find a book that age appropriate. So don’t read, like, you know, See Spot Run, “look, I read a book.” But find a book that’s at least somewhere in your age group or above, and read it and enjoy it. That, I think, would go a lot farther than just, “hey, you’re gonna read On the Road this summer. And you’re gonna like it. By golly.” No, I think things that parents can do. Number one would be be an example. So if you never read a book, and you tell your kid to read a book, they’re just gonna add it to, you know, their ongoing list of ways My parents are hypocrites, and then not want to read. So, you know, if they’re if you’re if your kids see your reading that legitimatize is reading, reading books, another thing like you could do, it’s crazy concept, but like, talk to them about what they’re reading, not like in a judgmental way, like, oh, you’re reading that? Isn’t there something better? You could? Couldn’t you be reading on the road or something like, you know, more highbrow? protip? Don’t have your kids read on the road? Just because it’s bad content? So you know, like, talk to them.
What are they reading, talk to them about what you’re reading and like, why you Like, you know why you’re not liking it? Like, it’s great to be like, Oh yeah, I started this book, I could not stand it, and I put it down. That’s another thing like, emphasize to your kids, they don’t have to finish what they read. It’s not, this is not their vegetables, reading shouldn’t be approached as a vegetable. It’s not a punishment. It’s not like you better do that, or else I’m going to make you read. Or it should be a fun thing. I mean, it’s not like, you got to do that, or you’re gonna have to watch Netflix kid. I mean, Netflix is a fun thing. Reading is a fun thing. So you know, like, I know, there’s a lot of adults out there who feel like as soon as they open a book and start reading it, they’ve made like a social contract that they will finish that book. No, don’t don’t do that. If you don’t like a book, don’t finish the book. Especially if you’re a slow reader. I mean, if reading a book, it’s gonna take you like, if you love a book, it’s gonna take you a week or two weeks or a month, and you hate a book that’s gonna take you like two months or three months. And then think of all the books you’re sacrificing by finishing that one book that you started by accident, but you just couldn’t put down because you felt like you had to finish it. So yeah, don’t don’t force it with our kids. Don’t make them do things that are not like give access to reading take them to the library regularly aquin libraries were open back. Yes, back in the olden days what I’ve honestly one of the things I do. So I have a Kindle. I know I’m not supposed to endorse Amazon. But I like reading on my Kindle, because I can read at night with the light out, and I don’t bother my wife.
And she I got her a Kindle so that she can read at night with a lighter and she doesn’t bother me if there’s a successful marriage but not bothering the other person. Right, right. So I have a Kindle, and I subscribe to a thing called bookbub. bookbub sends me an email every single day with deals, Kindle deals, and I shut up every day, I look on and see what’s on what’s on sale. And we’re talking about like, deals that the books are like two bucks or three bucks. And so anytime I see a book that I’m like, Oh, yeah, I wanted to see that. I want to read that or books that I’ve read before a long time ago. I was like, Oh, yeah, that was good book. I buy it. It’s three bucks, you know, I mean, why not? And so my Kindle library is pretty big at this point. Because there’s I mean, it’s not like if you go on bookbub it’s not like automatically suddenly everything that you see is like, Oh, that looks great. That looks great. Now sometimes there’s a lot of there’s a week will go by that I don’t buy anything. But usually, you know, once a week once every other week, there’s at least something that I’m like, Oh, yeah, that one looks good. Like I saw the entire James Bond series went up for sale for I think it was like 10 bucks. Maybe it was 15 bucks. That was like 15 bucks. It was a buck buck. I was like, I’m not sure why not. So I’m reading the first James Bond book right now. That’s the current my current work in progress, but so that way, you said yeah, the library’s closed but I can just show my kids Hey, you can read any of these books that are on all of your devices, because you can share it your kids have Kindles they do. They have Kindles. Actually, I ended up getting my son has a Kindle. My daughter does not she has an iPad. And I did that for my son. He has an iPad as well, but I made him get a Kindle because, again, I had an iPad I ended up getting an actual Kindle Kindle novel Kindle Fire but like literally an ebook reader because it’s less distracting. When I have a Kindle in my hand, I’m reading a book when I’m reading a book on my iPad, like if I get two adults, but I’m like, I wonder what’s on Reddit. I wonder what’s on Facebook. And suddenly, I like, picked up the iPad with full intent to read a book. And 10 minutes later, I am most definitely not reading a book. And so that’s why I have just normal Kindles. Because it’s, there’s less temptation for the cocker spaniel to get distracted in my head.
Hilary Erickson 16:26
Yeah, that’s true. We subscribe to Scribd. But I’ll start a book and then I find an email. Yeah, comes to me. So we have Kindle fires. But I think that’s a good idea. The bookbub is a good idea. Do they have a use books frequently?
Bryce Cundick 16:40
Yeah. With bookbub. What you do is you tell them, what genres you’re interested in. And so I think I’ve checked off mysteries and young adult and fantasy and science fiction and delivers those to you What about like,
Hilary Erickson 16:53
younger kids like tweens?
Bryce Cundick 16:54
Yeah, it’s got some of that into like, I’ve gotten I’ve gotten some classics offered. Again, most of the books that I’m getting on their books that I’m like, Oh yeah, that looks like it’ll be good for me. But I got like I just got a being complete Berenstain Bears. I mean, I know that’s like even younger but I got that for my daughter. I think it was going for like, I don’t know four bucks or something ridiculous. No, that’s awesome. Yeah, so again, so I don’t know for tweens because they don’t get a lot of twins. I did get like the island of the blue dolphin to Newberry winner so sort of a classic I read that when I also got another one. That’s Oh, roll of thunder hear my cry. I’m making this up. There’s a book that
Hilary Erickson 17:35
I remember that
Bryce Cundick 17:36
I got that was excellent. And now I’m like big library and fail forgetting it. There’s probably librarians across the cross. She just heard a gasp as all your library and let’s just call this what
Hilary Erickson 17:46
so many libraries. So many.
Bryce Cundick 17:50
So many. Yeah.
Hilary Erickson 17:52
All right. So we’ve talking about books do you have like five ish that you love for teens if parents if kids are like I don’t know what to read. Whatever five that maybe parents could
Bryce Cundick 18:02
put up, okay, I did narrow down to five books that I can. Okay for a library library and author coming up with like, a list of five anything is very difficult. But hey, I didn’t have a zoom meeting this morning. And so I did take some time to come up with the number one like the best book I’ve read in probably like the last five years, is a young adult book skyward by Brandon Sanderson. It’s science fiction. And I. So when I read a book, I keep track of everything, and I read it from one to 10. And skyward is one that honestly if I could have given it 11, I would have given it 11 he was just that good. I recommend that this book even like to my mom, and she finishes, she loved it. She loved it so much. She got the sequel, which is not as good as the first one. But it’s still very good. But yeah, skyward is just hands on. My wife has loved it. My son devoured it. I think it’s awesome. It’s just a great book. It’s a book. So it takes place on a on a different planet. There’s a girl who’s sort of stuck Down in the in the caverns of this planet. It’s on this world. You can’t see the sky. Something happened on this world long time ago sort of encase the planet basically in these big things of moving metal and there’s a class system down there. They’re sort of like the peons who have to like, sort of scrounge for food this girl’s like one of those scroungers but she dreams of one day being being able to become a starship pilot and spoiler she does get to become a sky sky. Man, you know, I didn’t it’s called skyward Come on. Say it’s excellent. It’s just great read and a ton of fun. So there’s that one I get
Hilary Erickson 19:34
the love. They love a lot of it. Yes. Yeah.
Bryce Cundick 19:37
He’s, I mean pretty much anything but and he’s written he’s written a lot of young adult he’s written some adult ones as well. But he wrote the flightless firefight series in firefight say now I’m, I’m failing as a Brandon Sanderson fan as well. But so if you only asked me for one, you know, I did not want to come up with a list of five Brandon Sanderson books. That’s why I’ve got so if I recommend one Brennan Center book it would be skyward. Okay, awesome. Another one that I would recommend is sufficiently advanced magic by Andrew row. And this one is it’s one that I would just call like, pop fun. It’s like if you were reading a Final Fantasy game. And so there’s sort of a sub genre and fantasy right now that’s called lit RPG literary role playing games. And it’s like you’re reading a video game. And so the book is, it’s a fantasy book. It was self published a while ago, I picked it up on a whim, I’d heard good things about it. I was like, yeah, I’m probably gonna put this down after 20 pages, but I think it was on sale for maybe free or maybe two bucks, so why not? And I loved it. It was so much fun to read. It’s just about this kid in a fantasy setting your classic fantasy setting but like, there’s science to it. And so he like develops ways to like measure how much magic capability has and he like, it’s just a lot of fun. I’d recommend that one more on the thriller II scary but middle grade side, there’s a series called the lock series. The first one is called screaming staircase. And it’s written supposedly for middle graders. But this book actually scared me as a Stephen King reading adult. I had to put it down and I was like, Okay, I think I’m just gonna step away from this book for a bit. It’s really creepy. It’s about a teenage murder investigator sort of, they investigate the paranormal. It’s really creepy and a lot of fun and yes, it’s like, supposedly middle grade but I think teams would really like it. I know I really liked it. I’ve another library and adult librarian recommended to me that’s how I’d heard about it in the first place. So if you want some creep, definitely go with that. But you’d also thriller
Hilary Erickson 21:39
II was my nickname in college. Oh, yeah. No doubt.
Bryce Cundick 21:45
On the other side, so yes, for girls recommendations as well. This I had to go a bit farther back. But have you ever heard of the book Angus thongs and full frontal snogging? No, but it sounds bad. So it’s, it’s British, so snogging British snogging is British for kissing. It’s a young adult book, supposedly like the sort of like a tell all book by a British teenage girl. It’s hilarious. It is so much fun. And it’s not I mean like granted It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember I read it I liked it enough that I read the next two in the series. And again for me if I I will read anything except maybe on the road. But oh, you know, I want to be exposed to things and so I’ll read it like like with with Twilight, I read Twilight enjoy Twilight. read the second book because I enjoyed the first laugh didn’t like the second book enough to keep on reading beyond that. But so Angus thongs and full from just mocking the fact that I finished. The next two shows that I really did enjoy it. It’s not fantasy. It’s contemporary, but it’s funny. And the fifth one also has a girl protagonist it’s called uglies by Scott westerfeld a beer and you’ve that. Yeah, I’ve read the PDF. That one I really enjoyed. It’s back from 2005 which is sad. When I say it’s back from 2005, and then I realized that’s 15 years ago, before a lot of these teenagers were born, which makes me feel very old, but hey, what can you do? So, I like that one. uglies, it’s a book about a girl so it’s a sort of post up nap, not post apocalyptic, but you know sort of non utopian society but this in this society you can have a surgical procedure that makes you beautiful and makes it so that you can like hobnob with all the best people but then they discover that that’s coming at a price there’s always a price you know, always a price What’s up with that? So the five yes Skywards sufficiently advanced magic Lockwood series Angus thongs and full frontal snogging and the ugly series I would I give any one of those so stamp of
Hilary Erickson 23:44
approval and I will link all those in the show notes of parents are looking for them. So that’s awesome. Any other series’s? That sounds like those I know uglies is a series
Bryce Cundick 23:53
Yeah. And Lockwood is and Angus became one sufficiently advanced magic has some sequels and every Thing skyward Yeah, so I guess those are all series but you did ask for series and I have two more series that I can recommend. The first is the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. And the best way entry into that, like terrified is a feature sprawling series. It’s probably like, I don’t know, 30 4050 books, many books, and they’re not like chronologically dependent. So it’s not like you have to start with book one and read book two. They’re just all populated in a in a place called Discworld. Their humorous fantasy. And the wee free men has a great entry point for it for teams, or even teen girls. It’s about a girl who becomes a witch. And she has a runnin with these band of like, basically milsim Smurfs, called the knack Mack seagull, and they’re Scottish. And they like to steal and cuss and drink and they’re very funny.
Hilary Erickson 24:51
They sound like my people.
Bryce Cundick 24:52
Yeah, you know, if you were just a bit shorter and blue, that’d be you. So I really recommend that and I also love one of my favorite books from it. It’s called the end more reasons as educated rodents to take on the on the Pied Piper tail. Except there’s a cat who has a group of trained rats that go along with him everywhere and make everyone think that there’s a rat infestation. And then he comes close to that he’s a talking cat, except they come across an actual rat problem. And drama ensues. It’s good. A lot of fun. Well, it sounds interesting. And then the other series that I’d recommend would be book by Dan wells. He’s got two series out that I really like, versus the series called I am not a serial killer, which I think is just a genius title. It’s about a kid who knows that he has all the sort of pre like the red flags in his personality that would bet like he reads a book. He reads up online, like, how do you know, typical signs of a serial killer? And he’s like, that’s me. Me, me. Me also. And he’s so he realizes you know, he’s a basically like a A teenage psychopath and he doesn’t want to doesn’t want to be a serial killer. And so he develops a whole bunch of rules for himself that he’s like, Okay, I need to not like torture animals. And I know this just sounds like horrendous, but it’s really good. And then it’s got it’s got a twist toward them for the middle that takes it even more into the foreground, but it’s a lot of fun. And another series by him is blue screen. And that’s more post apocalyptic, Techno thriller, about some teams who are dealing with, with a virtual drug. And it’s written in the in the near future, probably, you know, like 1020 years in the future, and it’s a lot of fun.
Hilary Erickson 26:36
Yeah. Is there any book about people who wear masks and have to stay far away from each other? feel like this is your option, Bryce, get it
Bryce Cundick 26:47
done? Sure it is I’m doing it actually, the book I’m looking at the book right now takes place in 1918. And I was attracted to it because there’s a serial killer involved and I didn’t even realize until I was doing research down like wait 1918 this is this is Spanish influenza and so I could totally do something which makes me even more water right?
Hilary Erickson 27:04
Yeah, it sounds fascinating. I love wearing a man Yo,
Bryce Cundick 27:08
isn’t a great it’s like, I just watched Oh, sorry. One thing the other night contagion that
Hilary Erickson 27:15
that’s too much for me right now.
Bryce Cundick 27:16
Steven Soderbergh 2011 and it is just bizarre because you totally like this could be about now except the diseases that is a little bit more deadly. And it’s funny because like I remember watching when it first came out, and they’re talking about like our values are knots and all this like Oh, that’s so interesting. So the disease and this has an R value of two and like it causes like the world to like blow up and I’m looking at it now like I really have to come on. You got to get that R value up a bit three or four or five or six that might you know, but to come on. Yeah. Good movie. Interesting, scary.
Hilary Erickson 27:50
I have stopped watching all medical dramas, which is usually my form of entertainment. So yeah, little too close to home now.
Bryce Cundick 27:58
I wonder why.
Hilary Erickson 28:00
So is it important to get our teens to read?
Bryce Cundick 28:04
Yes, it’s important because I will I mean, okay, it’s important to get kids to read in general, because the more you read, the better you can consume information. And if you can read and consume information in more information makes you a better person being able to read and understand what you read and apply it like as librarians to librarians. I know a lot of people just think of us as like, you know, those people who like we’re the gatekeepers to books, library, I use libraries more as gatekeepers to information, and encourage people to be information literate. And that means being able to find information, analyze information, understand information, and apply information. And I don’t know about you, but I think people are really struggling with that these days on like, like on Facebook, though, they’ll find something on Facebook, and they’ll be like, well, that I read it on Facebook. And so it must be I read it, it was online, and you need to be able to discern good information from bad information. There’s lots of bad information out there and you it’s hard to do that if you don’t read regularly, because there’s nuances to it. And so if you can read, and you’re comfortable reading, it just makes everything so much easier. And I wish that more people in the world would read because I really don’t feel like a lot of our problems would be solved by readers.
Hilary Erickson 29:17
I love it. Reading is the gatekeeper to all the things. All the things yeah, even calculus, which, frankly should be kept behind a gate as far as I understand.
Bryce Cundick 29:29
Word on the Street.
Hilary Erickson 29:30
Alright, thanks for coming on Bryce. Thanks for having me. Okay, I hope you guys liked that episode. It really got me thinking about how I want to approach my teen this summer with reading. We’re not going to be doing like worksheets and stuff. I do have my younger ones still doing some worksheets and math and stuff like that. I am going to have my older one doing some LSAT prep, but I really want him to be reading like things that he enjoys. versus just like Reddit, which is a hot topic in our house. I have to say so I hope you guys got some ideas to get your teens reading this summer as well as fertilizing a love of reading for your kids throughout their life. And if you are inspired to get your teens to read more, I actually created a teen of reading bingo, which sounds kind of dumb, but my teen tweens have been pretty excited about it. It just has different genres. That’s all I was aiming for nothing like crazy, or it’s kind of hard because I don’t have access to a library at least when I’m recording this. So I wanted them to be able to find stuff online and it’s really been helpful so far. So download it, it’s in this shows episode show notes. If you can’t find the show notes, you can go to pulling curls, calm to podcasts. And this is Episode 45. If you liked today’s episode, we’d love it if you would share, subscribe and review it really makes a difference. We drop an episode every Monday and until then I hope you have a tangle free day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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