What Do You Think of Reading Books as a Punishment?

From an article in The New York Times, a judge imposes juveniles to read from a list of books and report on their reactions.

  • A Virginia judge handed down an unusual sentence last year after five teenagers defaced a historic black schoolhouse with swastikas and the words “white power” and “black power.”

    Instead of spending time in community service, Judge Avelina Jacob decided, the youths should read a book.

    But not just any book. They had to choose from a list of ones covering some of history’s most divisive and tragic periods.

    The horrors of the Holocaust awaited them in “Night,” by Elie Wiesel. The racism of the Jim Crow South was there in Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” The brutal hysteria of persecution could be explored in “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller.