Advice for son who does not care about grades

SmithieandProud
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:12:12 +0000

A lot of kids experience literature classics at too young of an age, before they can really appreciate them. It’s not the end of the world, they may come back and re-read them later, once they have some more experience.

To give you an example, when I was 10 I read Animal Farm (we had a copy in my 4th grade class for some reason). And I literally thought it was an interesting but slightly strange story about animals on a farm. So I read it, finished it, shrugged, and never really got what the fuss was about until I was old enough and mature enough to read Orwell and understand the many layers of context and meaning. Similarly, I tried to read Catcher in the Rye when I was 15 or so and just did not get it. I didn’t get into it, wasn’t able to relate to the characters, etc etc etc. I spent a lot of time telling people (in my infinitely brilliant teenage way) that Salinger was like, soooo overrated It’s kind of embarassing to look back on that now…