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Children Should be Encouraged to Read Fantasy Fiction

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Fantasy fiction is often pooh-poohed by academics and intellectuals, but it can whet the appetite for learning.
Jon Miltimore | August 19, 2016

Recently I spoke with a friend who expressed some angst that his 12-year-old son was primarily interested in reading fantasy novels. Efforts to introduce the lad to higher forms of literature were proving more difficult than he’d expected.

Not to worry. Fantasy novels and science fiction yarns, I said, are often gateways to the higher forms of literature. This was not just my opinion, I added, it was my experience.

When I was 12, I was not yet much of a fan of reading. I had enjoyed some young adult fiction writers (S.E. Hinton, R.L. Stein, Christopher Pike, etc.) and enjoyed the histories of NFL football teams, but I didn’t have a passion for books. That changed when my father gave me J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/children-should-be-encouraged-read-fantasy-fiction

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