A delightful, short read intended for adults (such as parents, teachers, and librarians) to encourage the joy of reading with all the youth they encounter. After all, our job as life-long readers is to act as a guide (Pennac calls us matchmakers) to the younger generations, letting them taste different genres and writers at their own speed until they find something that clicks. Maybe that will be the first book you share with them or maybe it will be the thousandth; maybe it will be a book that is new to you or maybe it will be your childhood favorite. 

There is a lot of pressure in our education system for reading certain things a certain way in a certain amount of time, and unfortunately that method does not work for a lot of people. I can’t tell you how many people have told me how they did not become “readers” until they were well out of our education system, and that makes me quite sad.

I was, however, surprised with Pennac’s description of what constitutes a “good” book versus a “bad” book (under Right #5, beginning on page 150). Pennac, basically, claims anything in what he calls the “Bestseller Factory” is a bad book simply because “they are not about creating something new but about reproducing existing forms. Because they trade in simplification (in other words, lies), whereas the novel is the art of telling the truth (in other words, complexity). (Pages 150-151)” Perhaps Pennac’s idea of what a bestseller is from 1992 is different than mine, but I find this an extremely narrow view for a book that is supposed to celebrate the joy of reading (and, reading in your own way and reading your own things). Stories are subjective, and one person’s favorite may be someone else’s least. I’ve had several library patrons tell me that bestsellers are what got them into reading, and for many of those patrons those bestsellers are the only books they read because they find them the most enjoyable. Does the fact that a book (or an author) lands consistently on a bestseller list make it bad? I don’t think so. There are such things as poorly formatted or poorly edited books, but to me that just means those books were published before they were ready to meet readers. In fact, at the time of this review, I would only consider a few elements of what could make a book “bad”:

Perhaps my thoughts will change in the future, but at the end of the day my feelings are this: read what you want, when you want, how you want (and yes, audiobooks count as reading). As long as you’re reading (and enjoying it), isn’t that the goal?