Summer Reading

I am having a hard time understanding the problem with my boys and their summer reading assignments. They know what's expected, they know they have to get it done. One learned his lesson last year by putting it off until it was too late. He's been furiously reading for a day now. The other has one of his books but keeps walking around it like it might bite. I've picked it up...I want to read it but don't want to discourage him from liking it because his mother does. Lord knows they won't touch anything else I recommend. I long to go back to the day when someone told me to "finish that book this weekend or else!" Ah, the things I did to avoid reading back in the day. I suppose it's just a characteristic of youth to shrug off anything "required" like belts, closed toe shoes, dentist appointments. I had to learn the hard way....I remember vividly not knowing the answer to a question "Why is it wrong to kill a Mockingbird?" I don't remember the answer I made up but I do remember thinking what a clod I was not knowing...I looked just like the girl in the movie for heaven's sake why hadn't I read the book? I have paid my debt to Ms Harper Lee several times over now by reading her only famous work many times...ask me a question today Mrs Whatley!! The problem though is I no longer get graded for my efforts. I suppose that should be a blessing I count along with ADD medicine and my library card but I really wish I could have the chance to take classes in literature and the classics again now that I actually appreciate those works...I don't suppose there is anything keeping me from starting at the top of the summer reading list and going from there. I've read some but certainly not all or even most of them. Truman Capote's Cold Blood doesn't sound like my cup or tea but there again some people believe he penned "Mockingbird" for his childhood friend Harper, I'd love to know but feel sure she'll take that one to her grave. Maybe after I read all this wealth in book form I'll crank out a great southern novel, kind of makes me laugh to think about it but crazier things have happened. In the meantime, I have to find a way to convince this next generation to
partake of the feast laid before them on the grand dining table of the written word....what do you think?...Me neither, maybe I'll stick to what I know.