Grand Magazine - July/August 2008 - (Page 60)

So we are not alone By RuTh NaThaN Teenagers read for the same reasons we do: to escape W 60 GRAND JULY AUGUST 2008 iTh all The sTaTisTics proving teens don’t read, it’s hard to believe that a class of boys who’ve had more than a few problems with school make it astoundingly clear that reading matters. And some of these boys—when asked—talk about reading books and discussing them with their grandparents. Project 2000 is a program taught by Allen Einstein (who is the primary photographer for the National Basketball Association’s Detroit Pistons). Begun in 2000 as a three-year experiment for eighth-grade boys in the Birmingham, Michigan, school district, it’s still going strong, with 14 boys currently enrolled. Teens read to get away from life’s restrictions, to relate, to “get real,” to see how book characters solve problems. Sound a bit like why we all like to read? But there’s another reason, too, that the boys probably felt they couldn’t discuss, at least not with me. (Via e-mail, I spoke with some of these boys about their relationships with their grandparents and books.) I know about this reason because of my own childhood with parents who, while not calling themselves alcoholics, certainly drank far more than my friends’ parents. I call it the save-mylife reason. Nancy Pearl, the author of Book Crush: For Kids and Teens, has her own save-mylife story: “My happiest memories of a childhood that

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Grand Magazine - July/August 2008

Grand Magazine - July/August 2008
Contents
Grand View: Love Is All That's Left
Isn't It Grand?: Reassessing the Postponed Life
Grand Central
Just So We Know: One Mixed-Up Lemon
Long-Distance Love: Cuttings
Ask Grand: Stuck on Stuff
Grand Gestures: "Thanks for the Ugly Gift"
Tips on Teens: All That Doesn't Meet the Eye
Live Long and Propser
On the Cover: Peter Yarrow
Presents of Mine
Thicker Than Water?
Reunions: White Water, White Knuckles
The Grand Gourmet
So We Are Not Alone
Looking Grand: Suit-Able
Grandbloggers: Why Watch TV When We Can Talk?
Grand Bazaar
Resources
Grand Finale: What Boat

Grand Magazine - July/August 2008