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.

Absolutely, but yet again it’s schools filling in the gaps left by parents. Growing up we had open access to any book in the house. My mum was a voracious reader and we all read for pleasure. My kids see me reading all the time, and I read to them and with them. At one point we had a family “book club”, reading the same book and chatting about it. If kids sit with parents who are glued to a screen, they’ll follow suit, schools can only do so much.

That went from many schools because a) Ofsted fear and b) libraries reducing staffing, books and even not existing. Our private reading lessons went because there was a belief that every lesson had to be 'productive'...

That might be true but if it gets teenagers reading that’s a good outcome. If one of my children became a reluctant reader I would just want them to find some books they enjoyed. If it wasn’t by a multiple award winning author. I wouldn’t care!

I agree with him. Foster a love of reading of all manner of books. And podcasts come to that.

I remember one of the very few times my mum had my back as a child.

I was an avid and excellent reader and well above the majority of my year. As a result all of the books on offer to me at my “level” were boring as hell and decades old.

Lower level readers on the other hand got to read all sort including fun puzzle books.

She went in and pointed out it was hardly fair and asked that every 3 books I could pick any one I thought I might enjoy and they allowed it. Because frankly it was putting me off.

It moved me to absolute boredom back in the 90s. We also did All Quiet on the Western Front which was similarly dire. No consideration to what girls would find engaging there...

Of Mice and Men definitely still taught in my school, think it got moved to Y9. I read on MN that a lot of schools did this post-Gove taking it off GCSE.

My brother is an English teacher. We were talking about Animal Farm recently and he said he had to use it in his lessons. He said the kids didn’t like it and all the meaning behind it went straight over their heads.

It's a great book and well written but I can't see its appeal to many teenagers, plot wise. I imagine it gets pulled apart and analysed to death.

I miss the days when you could just read books to children.

What age are they? One issue is kids doing books like LOTF and AF too young.

Year seven.

Oh I remember doing that one at school at I think GCSE ugh. I loathed it.

reading we gave them whatever they wanted
playboy,soldier of fotune.believe it or not romance novelsl period ones
reacher books ,lotr,when theyrealized it was actualy books those went over
well

Yes, I could have written that better - to be clear, I agree that all reading helps with comprehension and vocabulary at lower levels. But once you’ve mastered that, the likes of Jack Reacher isn’t going to develop advanced comprehension and critical skills.

That’s not to say reading what entertains to keep your reading habit going and for escapism, creativity, whatever, isn’t important. But literature that is more demanding is too. We don’t think maths and science should be dropped or made easier because many children find them difficult or boring.

That's too young. It's like some schools think Orwell wrote a kids' book!

Actually I do think kids should be able to drop maths and science once they reach functional competency in both.

I’ve never understood why literature (as opposed to literacy) is considered more important than things like music or art.

The TV show is based on the books 🤷

Hardly modern, set in the 1980s. And Adichie is one of the most celebrated authors of our time, so not a 'worthy' choice (although I'm not sure what that means or the implications of the term), just a fairly obvious one if you're trying to offer a broad reading experience ( we do Great Expectations in year 8 so we're not averse to the canon)

At one time it wouldn’t have been too young, but clearly is now for most children!

Agreed. But. You start with the Beano, progress through Dogman etc to Beastquest. Then you gradually move them towards longer books like How to train your dragon, The wild robot etc. then they start more grown up books like Hornblower, fantasy, sci-fi. Get them on to non-fiction like the Adventures in time books, then, eventually, they end up with Wolf Hall.

However, this only works with access to a variety of well-read adults with different tastes who also read for pleasure and can recommend books that might interest them. That might be the school librarian. But with schools in increasingly cash strapped, I wonder how many schools actually have someone like that who is available for kids to talk to about books.

I agree that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the GCSE English curriculum. My boys were both avid readers until about year 8, after which they were so bored out of their skulls by their set texts at school that they went off reading completely.
A level English lit yes...you have chosen to study it and are ready for complex, historical and 'important' texts.

I think it always has been. It is emphatically not a kid's book. I read it too young. Rereading it as an adult was far more rewarding. I love teaching it to year 11s and have found boys, in particular really like it.

My DS loved it when he read it. But it made him cry. As did OMAM and LOTF (to a lesser degree). He is a sensitive soul. Some boys are. He has never read a single Jack Reacher, hates Alex Rider type books and all fantasy. Found YA books mainly tedious in their obviousness especially issue driven ones ostensibly about sport. He loved A Christmas Carol and liked Frankenstein well enough.

Lets face it, the classics are better written.

I am adamant that that isn't the books though, It is the tedious, assessment driven teaching styles. For which I do blame Gove and various other ideologue politicians- but also a lot of my fellow English teachers who have swallowed the everything must be assessed pill.

I don't think analysis and assessment are the same thing.

I was bored out of my skull with my set texts long before Gove got anywhere near the education portfolio.

Teaching styles may not help, but it’s also that a lot of classics just aren’t that engaging to more modern readers.

Currently reading Of Mice and Men for January book club. Can't see what all the fuss is about tbh.

Well ,after 30 years of teaching I beg to differ,

A Christmas Carol once got a round of applause.

Its ideas are highly relevant.

You obviously had your experience but I am not sure it's fair to generalise that outwards.

Teaching and its requirements definitely did change around the time of Gove but Blunkett was also pretty responsible.

When we had some coursework it was more independent and imaginative. IGCSE still has that luxury. There was a great Shakespeare from page to screen unit.

You obviously had your experience but I am not sure it's fair to generalise that outwards.

It’s the experience of more adults I speak to IRL than not (and the subject comes up surprisingly frequently, as a lot of my social circle have secondary-aged children). Never did A Christmas Carol at school, though. Oliver Twist was the only Dickens, and although the themes are no doubt still relevant, they are overshadowed by the tedious writing style.