Where have all the books gone?

Reading as a kid felt different. It felt different in the sense that it felt the same — the same as video games, the same as watching TV, the same as playing tag with my friends for hours. I could curl up reading “Harry Potter” or “Percy Jackson” for an evening without it feeling like a task I had to plan in my Google Calendar. I’ve been trying to get that spark back recently, but I sometimes feel like a part of my brain went missing all those years ago. If you feel the same way, the reason might be a bit more complicated than your seven hours of screen time. American schools are decentering novels, with the average number of books taught in English classes dropping from four in 2010 to 2.8 in 2026. The alternative? Passages, excerpts and loads more test prep. On the surface, the shift seems logical; standardized tests are largely focused on those very same short passages, so it follows that English teachers would teach similar material.

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