Did you ever wonder just exactly WHO reads mysteries? I found a fascinating report compiled by Sisters in Crime that sheds some light on just WHO reads mysteries. On page 4 of this report you will find that they polled 1,056 people and include statistics such as: 64% were female; 47% were over 60 years of age, etc. etc. So if you are curious, give it a read.

The results made me ponder. If 47% are over 60 and only 14% are under 30 years of age… doesn’t that correlate to what those who were polled read as children?

Today my two genres of choice are mystery and historical novels. I grew up with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys with some classics thrown in for good measure.
Does the fact that today’s youth are reading fantasy (Harry Potter) and vampire novels predispose them toward fantasy reading in their later years?

In this digital age some suggest that a very small percentage of youth read for pleasure at all. That thought makes me very sad… I have also read that students fail to read complete novels at school after being presented with short extracts and worksheets to practice comprehension and sentence structure (Cliff Notes, Coles Notes).

Don’t misunderstand me, I think it is great that today’s youth are reading, but I am fairly convinced that they should be exposed to a wider selection of genres. What they read now may indeed influence their future choices.