Getting a grip on a "good" book

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

I walked into my local bookstore with my daughter.

"I love the way it smells in here," I said.

"It smells like, um, paper," she replied. "And it smells clean."

That's my girl.

We walked through the Bestsellers, the New Non-Fiction Hardcovers and the Bargain sections. We strode past the coffee shop and the gift wrap without stopping, on our way to the Independent Reader department. It didn't take long to realize she is too old for those books. No more Beverly Clearly (not that she ever read Beverly Clearly, much to my dismay).

At almost 13, she's reading books from the hotter than hot YA (young adult) genre, about girls her age and older who are troubled, happy, fat, thin, pimpled, rich and poor. Many of them have superpowers or at the very least, the ability to perform magic. Then there's the vampire section, where she finally decided on a book with my help and approval.

I just want her to read a good book.

"This IS a good book," she assured me, waving the book in the air to showcase the black, slick cover.

Even though I don't get it, this is what YA's are reading, at least YA's like my daughter. It's not Judy Blume, that's for sure. Sigh. Perhaps it's just Judy Blume after midnight. With fangs.

I have resigned to leave the force-feeding, or force-reading, of classic literature and "older" books, to her teachers. I'm happy that my daughter reads for pleasure, even if I wish she was reading Anne of Green Gables and instead she is reading Bras and Broomsticks.

Can you imagine Anne wearing a bra? Or riding around on a broomstick? It certainly wouldn't be practical with one of those dresses she wore (I always wanted one of those), now would it?

Really, it's not just about my daughter. I grapple with the same thing for myself. I want to read flowing literary ramblings and the highest form of published works. I so wish it lured me in and held me there. I think it would make me smart(er). Or at least look smart(er) as I weaved my way through the check-out line.

But I read, um, you know...commercial fiction. Sometimes a mass market paperback from a turning rack in the supermarket. I even read chick lit.

And don't tell anyone, but they're really good.