so we learned quickly to get books that we actually wanted to read!
***That’s the key, right there. Let kids read Harry Potter or romance novels or Sci Fi or the bible or whatever.
Parents make a big mistake when they "forbid" their children to read certain things and force them to read only what they think they should read.
That approach does nothing to foster a love of reading and can actually turn the child off to reading for life.
I still remember friends coming over to my house to read MAD magazines and comic books because their parents wouldn't allow them in the house!
Yes, I read a lot of junk growing up but eventually I got bored of it and moved on to more serious reading. By the time I was 12, I was reading history books and biographies for pleasure. Of course with a little National Lampoon and racy fiction thrown in. My parents literally did not care what we read and they figured if we were able to read and comprehend it, we were mature enough to deal with the content. They were right and I took the same tack with my children in the 1990s. They had their Harry Potter books, their Goosebumps, the Hobbit and all that. But now they are out on their own and building their own impressive libraries.