trepanning for gold

observing classroom interactions. Our research represents thousands of encounters teens had with books they found most engaging: those that don't shy away from the complexities of being human or the different ways of being human in a diverse society. And, yes, books that shared qualities with those being challenged or banned in unprecedented numbers.

Here’s what we learned. The students, most of whom reported previously reading little or nothing, started reading like crazy-in and out of school-and their reading achievement improved. While this was the initial motivation for the teachers, it became the least interesting outcome. Students reported becoming better people, a change also noticed by their parents and peers. Reading engaging narratives about characters with complicated lives, they reported, helped them become more empathetic, less judgmental, more likely to seek multiple viewpoints, morally stronger, and happier. Yes, happier. They reported improved self-control, and building more and stronger friendships and family relationships.

Central to these changes, they explained, were conversations about the books with peers, teachers, or family members-whoever they could recruit for different perspectives on provocative or confusing parts. They pestered others, including parents, to read the books. Parents reported welcoming opportunities for conversations, conveniently through book characters, about drugs, sex, relationships, and depression. The image of young people reading “dangerous” books alone, in secret, and in distress, was neither what we observed nor what the students described.

Initially, we too were cautious about some books until we learned how off-base adults can be in their hypotheses about what young adults take away from them. Students described characters’ questionable decisions as cautionary tales, not narratives to live into, a concept they found laughable, plausible only to someone who hadn’t read the book. The books helped them to see the consequences of problematic decisions and language. Because they all brought different experiences and purposes to their reading, the conversations were constantly lively, meaningful, even philosophical, and relationship-building. The /end ID]