We work this morning with the powerful sense that finding book-related news would be as easy as, well, opening our laptop. Wrong. It is as if the world took the entire weekend off. We cannot understand what could be happening — it seems like something should be catching our attention.
In unrelated news, it appears that reading is on the rise. If you factor out high schoolers (and there is a small but vocal group who strongly believe that this is the least one should do during these difficult years). Though it is entirely possible that another study, completely contradicting this one, will be released later today, for now we feel safe in saying that the world is safe for reading and other thoughtful activities.
The difference shows: Statistics released Thursday show that 9-year-olds’ reading skills have risen since 1971, and the biggest jump has come in the past five years.
Reading skills of high schoolers have actually dipped since 1999 and are essentially unchanged in a generation.
