Taylor Swift tells kids: Read for a better life
(Agencies)
2010-10-28 14:38
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Asked how to encourage children who don't like to read, she suggested not taking on too much, perhaps starting with a short story or even a newspaper.
"It doesn't have to be a big, thick, long book," she said. "You don't have to pick up something that looks scary."
On stage, Swift cited Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a favorite. Interviewed briefly at a post-show reception, Swift said she loved the novel, set in the South in the 1950s, because of how it was narrated from a child's point of view.
"The main character didn't exactly know what was going on, but the reader does," she said. "It's all portrayed in an interesting way, all the huge issues in the book, like civil right, come from a children's perspective. It's an interesting way to tell a story."
Swift is part of a new Scholastic promotional campaign, "You are What You Read," for which authors, celebrities and public figures from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to "Percy Jackson" novelist Rick Riordan choose favorite books. Swift's picks include E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web" and Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir on divorce and recovery, "Eat, Pray, Love," not a surprising choice for a songwriter known for her romantic laments and explorations.
Swift said during the reception that she was enjoying Gilbert's most recent book, "Committed," in which the author marries the Brazilian man she met in "Eat, Pray, Love."
"Listening to her talk at seminars, especially one that I YouTubed, where she was talking about trying to create her followup project, it made me cry," Swift said. "It was so inspirational."