took place in both sexes, "showing then the beginning of a greater interest in
works of a more general character." Girls read more fiction than boys at every
age, but the interest in it begins to be very decided at adolescence. With girls it
appears to come a little earlier and with greater suddenness, while the juvenile
story maintains a strong hold upon boys even after the fifteenth year. The curve
of decline in juvenile stories is much more pronounced in both sexes than the
rise of fiction. Through the teens there is a great increase in the definiteness of
answers to the questions why books were chosen. Instead of being read because
they were "good" or "nice," they were read because recommended, and later
because of some special interest. Girls relied on recommendations more than
boys. The latter were more guided by reason the former by sentiment. Nearly
three times as many boys in the early teens chose books because they were
exciting or venturesome. Even the stories which girls called exciting were tame
compared with those chosen by boys. Girls chose books more than four times as
often because of children in them, and more often because they ware funny.
Boys care very little for style, but must have incidents and heroes. The author
says "the special interest that girls have in fiction begins about the age of
adolescence. After the sixteenth year the extreme delight in stories fades," or
school demands become more imperative and uniform. Girls prefer domestic
stories and those with characters like themselves and scenes like those with
which they are familiar. "No boy confesses to a purely girl's story, while girls
frankly do to an interesting story about boys. Women writers seem to appeal
more to girls, men writers to boys. Hence, the authors named by each sex are
almost entirely different. In fiction more standard works, were drawn by boys
than by girls." "When left to develop according to chance, the tendency is often
toward a selection of books which unfit one for every-day living, either by
presenting, on the one hand, too many scenes of delicious excitement or, on the
other, by narrowing the vision to the wider possibilities of life."
Out of 523 full answers, Lancaster found that 453 "had what might be called a
craze for reading at some time in the adolescent period," and thinks parents little
realize the intensity of the desire to read or how this nascent period is the golden
age to cultivate taste and inoculate against reading what is bad. The curve rises
rapidly from eleven to fourteen, culminates at fifteen, after which it falls rapidly.
Some become omnivorous readers of everything in their way; others are
profoundly, and perhaps for life, impressed with some single book; others have
now crazes for history, now for novels, now for dramas or for poetry; some
devour encyclopedias; some imagine themselves destined to be great novelists
and compose long romances; some can give the dates with accuracy of the