Jack Reacher should be taught in schools

[noblegiraffe]

Lee Child, the famous and prolific author of thrillers has been doing literacy workshops with prisoners based around his Jack Reacher novels.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/dec/19/lee-child-thrillers-uk-school-curriculum-literacy

He suggests that teaching children literary masterpieces is putting children off reading. "He said: “You should have whatever is compelling and whatever gets people into the habit of reading. Then you can have the fancy stuff later, of course, but don’t start with it.”"

I mean, he has a point, there is a crisis in reading among young people, particularly boys (65.5% of boys got a 4+ in English in the summer compared to 75.9% of girls and we know that being a reader improves outcomes across all GCSEs).

• "Just 1 in 3 (34.6%) children and young people aged 8 to 18 said that they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2024. Reading enjoyment levels have decreased by 8.8 percentage points over the past year alone.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/children-and-young-peoples-reading-in-2024/

But I'm not sure what to do with this - Lee Child is finding that male prisoners are engaging with Jack Reacher in prison when there's not much else going on for them, would those same young men have engaged with it at school? On the other hand, his books are certainly more engaging than Of Mice and Men.

I've been teaching over 20 years. It seems that all we've ever done is try and choose books that appeal to boys. But as a pp said, doing it in class often kills it. Even if you're not hammering it with analysis. Stormbreaker used to work. Stone cold was bloody brilliant- short chapters, murder, teen protagonist..... Then books like The Hate You Give, although far too long for whole class reading.

And reading a book in class doesn't mean they'll read at home. My teen dd has read 3 books in her entire life. I cannot, cannot make her read because everything is boring. She can barely watch films either, because they're boring. My other child is an avid reader and, more importantly open to suggestions. He is happy to be pushed out of his comfort zone.

I actually think it gets a bit easier at gcse. I've yet to teach a kid who doesn't like an inspector calls or macbeth. Even if they're not initially keen on the language of macbeth, they get drawn in by the human story.

I've worked in schools with weekly library lessons, but many kids would just try to get out of reading anything- even with a great librarian to suggest stuff. Schools where every form had a class reader, chosen to try and engage them.

The trouble is, nothing can compete with a tik tok video. I have good concentration. I mark for hours. I read every day. But even when I'm reading a really good book, I find myself stopping to check my phone.

The point of any curriculum should be to foster creative and critical thinking, to allow young people to develop the skills to engage with and think critically about ideas, to interrogate the information they are receiving in world around them. The knowledge we offer children in school must be distinctly different from what might be considered common knowledge, gained through experience.

Same, the enjoyment was ruined! I read To Kill a Mockingbird quite a long after and loved it! I thought Scout would make a lovely name for my imaginary daughter at the time!

Why "taught"?
Just have them in a well stocked school library and one English lesson a week is just "silent reading".
We had that at my secondary school.
I remember in 3rd Year (Yr9) half the class was reading Flowers in the Attic.
Our very old fashioned English teacher used to sometimes ask about the book you were reading. She never criticised anything.

Schools always seem to choose the most rubbish books.

I was already an avid reader but I remember having to read Skellig, wtaf was that about?

Great thread and thanks for the article op. I'm mulling on what to 'do' with my 8yo son who is in year 4. He's a great reader and is reading 4 yrs ahead. He reads for pleasure, things like information books, children's encyclopedia, the phoenix comic, graphic style books, and occasionally a series will grab his attention, like how to train your dragon. We are considering whether to put him in for the 11+ and I had an early chat with a tutor. It's horrifically competitive here with 5 applicants per place. And the rest looks really hard! Tutor's suggested he should start learning a word a day vocabulary and get him to read more 'worthy' books. I've googled it, discussed with my book friends, and ordered some I thought fit the bill. They look like good stories! So far, he's not interested. He's re-reading bunny verses monkey for the third time. I'm trying to sit on my hands because I really don't want to put him off. And making beautiful piles of kids books strategically placed about the room. But underneath it I'm well twitchy!

I've yet to teach a kid who doesn't like an inspector calls or macbeth.

They exist! I hated An Inspector Calls (although wasn’t a GCSE text for me), as does a friend’s son who’s currently studying it for GCSE.

I think it's more complicated than the type of book. You can have a book that ticks all the boxes, but it's the sitting and reading that's the proble..How many kids are read to at home (not in mn homes, but all homes)? How many kids are exposed to stories?

Getting kids to write stories is getting harder. They don't read. They barely know even fairytale. They rarely watch films. They watch fucking you tubers or influencers, so where are they getting their love of stories from? The gaming kids have more of an idea, because often the games will have a narrative.

I teach A level students who baulk at the idea of reading books 'in their own time' because they don't really like reading. This was not the case 10 years ago.

Does that mean our next crop of English teachers are going be non readers too?

To be fair, dd will probably hate it. She'll probably be on Mr Birling's side as well. And she won't get the ending. Even though she's seen the actual play.

Ds is in year 11 and hates an Inspector Calls. Tolerates Macbeth and loves A Christmas Carol (to the point it has encouraged him to read other Dickens books)

"where are they getting their love of stories from?"

Omg this is so sad. Not really thought about it before, but yes, the information they consume is in shorter and shorter bites. There's no time to build any sort of overarching narrative. Even TV shows only have 8 or 9 episodes in a series these days.

I trained and worked as an English teacher for many years, and so did my colleague (we both still teach post-16 in a related but different subject). We love to discuss books and both enjoy reading and we agree the current English curriculum is not very inspiring, to say the least. Either at GCSE or A level. Some texts are still on there being taught exactly the same way as when I trained over 20 years ago. And meanwhile there is so much good stuff out there to read. I’m not convinced by Jack Reacher…but there really is an argument that maybe it’s better for a kid to get all the way through a novel, no matter how non-literary, to build up tolerance/resiliance. They always seem to choose very miserable texts too!

Skellig is excellent. DS discovered that on a list of 100 books to read before you leave yr 6. He liked it so much I had to find the follow up about the girl Mina.
His yr 7 tutor also tried to introduce it to the class for shared reading during Tutor Time.

DS2 is in Y11 and hates English lessons. A large part of that is because of the texts studied and how they are studied.

He isn’t a voracious reader, but there are certain types of books that hold his attention. When he was younger, it was books like Robert Muchamore’s Cherub series, several of the series Anthony Horowitz wrote, etc. Then he moved on to books like Jack Reacher, Stephen Leather’s Dan Shepherd books, some of James Patterson’s books, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series and similar. Not classics, but it means he is reading.

I work in a reception class and it’s scary how few children have bedtime stories now, this year we had a lot of children coming in who had no idea how to use a book. We walk them to the local library regularly and most have never been before.

I don’t know what the answer is but I think the problem starts from a young age because reading isn’t normalised in most houses. Children don’t see parents reading and the parents don’t read to them. There have been schemes to try to help get books into houses but if they are never opened it’s pointless.

I’m an English teacher and genuinely don’t know any schools that still do Of Mice and Men. If yours still does @noblegiraffe, they are way behind the curve. We do modern novels in Y7, Y8, Y9, Y10, Y12 and Y13, interspersed with the obligatory Shakespeare and 19th century texts. We also have accelerated reader, book clubs, visiting (modern) authors and a great library and librarian. Please don’t tar all schools with the outdated brush.

That is so sad! Years ago (pre internet) even if your parents didn’t read they probably read the newspaper so children were exposed to some reading in the home. At my primary school we all got to take out two books at a time from the school library, these could be fiction or non fiction.

Despite being a grown up I love the Alex Rider books and the Cherub series.
I have been wondering what the best "adult" equivalent would be.
Do you think I should start with Reacher?

@Sirzy Mumsnetters of little children seem to rave about the Toni/Yoto Boxes.
Aren't they basically an electronic reading machine?
I often wonder how many parents just use those rather than actual books?

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books are excellent thrillers, but I think if you like the Cherub and Alex Rider books, I would start with Stephen Leather’s Dan Shepherd books.

We studied it in 3rd year, then it turned up on the O level for our cohort.

I detest the book. Oh and this was a girls' school it is no surprise we didn't identify with any character.

Thanks.
I will have a look.

I've said many times on here that the way schools teach literature and the style of literature is what is turning kids away from reading.

My son was an avid reader until he went to secondary school and then it was all about reading the classics, analysing texts to the nth degree, etc. He never read "for fun" again! He didn't even read the set texts for his GCSEs - just read York Notes and some revision cards and still got a grade 8!

I've got to be honest
I'm ashamed to say I haven't got the concentration to read a book
By the time I get to the end of the page ,I've forgotten what I've just read
Nothing inspires me to read

Yes ..I did English literature at GCSE ..never read again for fun ..it's just not relaxing.
I'd love to be the sort of person who took a book to a coffee shop to relax ..but sadly I'm not