War on literacy? Give me a break

My mother always told me growing up that if I announce the fact that I hate reading it makes me sound unintelligent. Well I'm all grown up now and believe I'm pretty level headed without reading for pleasure. It may just be me, but I find staring at words for pleasure tedious, not too mention it puts me to sleep. Whenever someone comments on a movie based on the book, I feel all I hear is, "Oh the book was way better!!" How??? I can either sit down and flip pages putting a strain on my eyes or get some munchies and refreshments and go on a cinematic adventure. With all the special effects that go into today movies, even the most boring of movies would be more appealing to me than reading for pleasure.

Now that's my stance on reading for pleasure. I do believe when it comes to education that there's no escaping some forms of literacy. In the article, it mentioned several books I read in grade school, such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and I believe that these are extremely important to keep teaching to kids. Not only do they capture how it was when the book was written, they're American classics and relate to history. I think whoever says any of the books on the list shouldn't be available or taught to kids in grade school should go play in traffic. There is always some radical group of parents that has something to bitch about whether it be because of the "language" or the "sex and violence" these stupid naive people are probably the same people that rally and then go out buy there son or daughter the video game "Grand Theft Auto" or don't restrict what they can see on the Internet or TV. These books teach kids how it was through different eras, let them use there imagination creatively and most importantly introduces them to how it is in the real world. Guess what? People swear, people have sex, there is a homosexual community, there are racist people and if your biggest fear as a parent or teacher is your son or daughter discovering these realities through a book then you have bigger problems. Instead, let the kids read these books, let them ask questions about it. Let them think multi-dimensionally and be able to understand that just because all this stuff is out there, they don't have to believe in it or do it.