Beowulf was the number one movie in the box office this past weekend.  Although I haven’t yet seen the movie, the book was required reading for for me back when I was in elementary school in the 80s. 

The disturbing trend I find now nowadays is that classic literature is not being introduced to kids.  I asked my kids about Beowulf they look at me like “what the heck is that…is it about a dog?”.  Now we have read the Harry Potter series and I have introduced my kids to the Narnia series I loved to read as a kid.  But other than that if Beowulf is not mentioned on Hanna Montoya then they just don’t know about it. It is easier to watch the movie and have the likes of Brad Pitt star in it(The Iliad), then to  to get us to read it and use our imagination.

Which leads me to this AP report (here) 

“The latest National Endowment for the Arts report draws on a variety of sources, public and private, and essentially reaches one conclusion: Americans are reading less.”

Surely, I take responsibility for my children’s education and the nuances in our daily lives will not be an excuse for me not to encourage more reading in my household.  Schools have their own agenda besides educating kids.  The social aspect of yesterday’s literary classics can not be taught with today’s mind set.  If Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were lovers then probably the school system would require all the kids to read it. 

We still have time to read Beowulf before we go see it.