The other day I had my kids read their "Accelerated Reader" books to our pets. My son read to the dog, and my daughter read to the chickens. (You laugh, but this is my system: they read twice silently by themselves, ask me about big words they do not know, and lastly out loud to a live audience with some animation, like they were giving a show. "Live" to be interpreted liberally. Brought their scores up significantly.)
My son read a book we bought for him of the appropriate reading level, a kid's version/translation of The Odyssey. My daughter's was one of the mediocre new-scrubbed PC-pablum inclusive titles on the mandatory reading list. Five minutes later she runs in from outside, hollering, "Daddy, the chickens ran away after I started reading!" I looked at the book and decided that the chickens may be bird brains, but they knew crap writing when they heard it. I told her to chase one chicken down, hold it under her arm and make it listen. And that this was a lesson by itself in that sometimes you have to put up with fools and foolish decisions.
Meanwhile, my son and dog are having a grand old time. Kid & dog-smiles all around. "Daddy, he told the cyclops his name was 'No Man.' Get it? Then they poked out his eye and the cyclops yelled to his friends in the other caves that 'No Man has attacked me!' and his friends said, 'If no man is hurting you, stop crying like a big baby!'" This followed by paralyzing guffaws. Throw in sword fights, sea voyages and a princess at the end and he ate that sucker up.
Quality counts. Stories & authors tested over hundreds or thousands of years beat most the new PC-plot affirmative-action-author batch every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
FTR, I just dug out all my old out-of-print Tom Swift books. My son will be ready for them next year.
