A 13 year-old boy tells it like it is - Vampires, simply put, are awesome

I keep an eye on a few other blogs about reading and quite a few have mentioned a letter by a 13 year old to Publishers Weekly. It is worth a read, and makes some great points that might help our Reading Mentors selecting books for boys, here are some thoughts with quotes from the letter.

• Avoid langauge that is any way not 'modern': ""Methinks”? “Doth”? Really?"
• Avoid over emphasised morals: "[don't] smother us in morals that would make a Care Bear cringe"
• Give them what they want, mainly one thing attacking another thing: "today's vampire stories are 100 pages of florid descriptions of romance and 100 pages of various people being emo"
• Don't dumb down: "Do Not Underestimate Your Audience."

At the risk of under-estimating my audience, here's a definition of emo, I think the kids have moved on a bit these days..

[via The Ya Ya Yas]