So, Why Are They Called "Classics"...?

 A few years ago at a FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention I participated on a panel on how to get kids to read. One of my fellow panelists raised a very important point. He said a lot of kids don't read, or get turned off from reading, because they're forced to read boring books.

I remember the audience cheered. 

He struck a nerve.

I've thought a lot about that one statement made by the incredible author Paul Genesse. He's right, to a point. Many of the books we were forced to read were boring, not because of the books themselves, but because--many times--we were too immature to understand the book on the same level those forcing us to read them do.

They're called classics for a reason.

I remember when we started homeschooling. One teaching technique placed a huge focus on reading the classics. You want to teach redemption? Read Les Miserables. You want to read about racism, read Uncle Tom's Cabin or Huckleberry Finn. Want to learn about our countries founding? There's so many good books out there. A book that's being read a hundred-years or more after it was first published means there's a reason it's still being read. We learn from the experiences of others. Stories--especially written stories--connect us in a way that no other medium can.

I need to read more. I have dozens of books, great books, written by friends that I have yet to read. Instead I grabbed from the bookshelf a classic, George Orwell's 1984. I know just the tile brings with it a flood of opinions, from every side. Some think it's a story of what our country's experienced over the past four years. Some think it's a prediction of what's coming. Actually, it's political commentary of the world one astute and observant writer who understood human nature and history and who saw and wrote about his day in 1948.

But, the fact that everyone has an opinion of the novel--for good or bad--THAT'S what makes it a classic. 

Oh, and by the way, just the first fifteen pages are terrifying.