NC recently for this as it feels hugely disloyal......
DS is 15 and doing GCSEs next year. He is predicted all 9s - he's not a genius, just an all rounder at a very expensive school that spoon-feeds the boys, for want of a better word.
He is thinking of doing English A level ...... but he has read ONE book in the last year. I can't think of any before that.
It was Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc, translated from French and it took him 7 months. He has never read anything by a classic english author - this is all apart from what they read and study in class. I mean for 'pleasure'.
By his age, I'd was deep into Thomas Hardy, all the Brontes, JD Salinger, Harper Lee.
I've given him short stories by HG Wells and a couple of PG Wodehouse schoolboy tales. If he doesn't look at them this summer, wibu to go into school before he makes a level choices and advise the teacher of his reading habits, or lack of? It seems ridiculous.