Though the book is titled "Rights of the Reader" he spends the first three-quarters of the book discussing how (and how not) to develop a love of reading in children so they become lifelong readers.

But, there is a method to what he is doing. He builds the story by discussing childhood reading as it progresses through the life of a child, and ends with what every reader should have the right to do, including the right to not read at all.

Though it might perhaps be mis-titled, it was an interesting exploration of what we do wrong when we try to instill a love of reading in children, and offers examples of what we can do right. And it is all done with a singular style and point of view. ( )

Very charming. Great for teachers and parents. ( )

Comme un roman is a short book — an extended essay, really — about the pleasure of reading and the risk we run of losing that pleasure as adolescents in the hands of the school system. As a parent, a teacher, a writer and a former adolescent, Pennac is able to put himself in turn into all the different roles involved in the epic struggle between the teenager and Madame Bovary (which refuses to advance beyond page 48, whilst the book-report is due to be handed in tomorrow morning), and as a novelist he can't resist dramatising those scenes for us, so it's fun to read, but there's a real message there as well.

Pennac insists that what kills the desire to read for pleasure is not parental apathy or video games, television or the Walkman, but the way school turns reading into a task that is scored and evaluated, with production quotas and the expectation that we should be able to make the correct sort of intelligent comments about what we have read, and the corresponding fear of being labelled ignorant or lazy if we don't accomplish the task in the right way. He describes his strategy — borrowed from the actor/poet Georges Perros — for overcoming that hurdle by reading aloud ("gratuitously and unconditionally") to his teenage students to reintroduce them to the idea that books contain stories written to entertain the reader. He waits until they have been bitten by the bug and started to read again on their own account before moving on to the books he's supposed to be teaching. And the book concludes with his charter of "basic rights of the reader", which starts, significantly, with the right not to read. ( )

I needed this book. Personally, I still like reading but I don't make as much time for it as I would like. This book reminded me that it's OK TO LOVE TO READ, even when life goes crazy and there are a million distractions vying for your attention. And it also reminded me that reading to my 8-year-old son is for the fun, not for the education. Impossible to say how grateful I am for bringing that link back to my life. ( )

How children lose the love of reading.
Reading was never forbidden to me when I was very young but as I grew older there was concern expressed about solitude and chores and questions about why do you always have your nose in a book. As I got much older and social, it was always a trade off...I still preferred books to people and participation. Then came marriage and family and duty and attention must be paid to others and guilt entered the picture so it became a stolen pleasure. Not quite forbidden but I felt the silent criticism that I was not giving of myself, I was being selfish, I was...god forbid...wasting time. But to me reading was never a waste of time. Hours could pass that I would never get back and I did not begrudge them because books were better than any other activity in my mind. I looked around at how others were using their hours and did not envy them. Older still I had the courage to refuse to go places and do things or spend time with other people when with all my heart and soul I wanted to be by myself with a book. Old age and singlehood has given me the gift of books of my childhood...guilt free reading with all the time in the world to devote to it. ( )