As we’ve seen of late, sometimes professional book reviewers (or, rather, less-than-professional ones) forget that Authors Are People, Too. Well, so do book-reviewing students. Behold this exchange, in which a student turned to Yahoo! Answers to help write his book report on DC Pierson‘s The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To… and the author responded. Pierson posted the kid’s question and his response on his Tumblr feed, giving the kid some reasons he might actually want to read the book and suggesting strategies for doing it. Here’s an excerpt:
I’m not going to sit here and act like I didn’t sometimes not read assigned books for class in high school. Even though it’s referenced once in my book, the book you’re avoiding reading, I’ve never actually read “The Scarlet Letter.” So I’m sympatheic to your plight. But I think you’ll find there’s a ton more sex, swearing, and drugs in my book than anything else you have been or will be assigned in high school, and I don’t mean in the way your teacher will tell you “You know, Shakespeare has more sex and violence than an R-rated movie!”
No word on whether the kid ended up reading the book after all—but I gotta think it’s a bit more likely, no? (Aside: I’m not sure if I were the author, I’d be able to respond so kindly and sincerely! Kudos to Pierson for that.) Via.
Further Reading:
- If a note from the author can’t get a teen to read, how about a note from Peter Griffin?
- How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening
