Two-fourths of a good idea

Uncle Sam wants kids to read more, so he blankets the web with ads like this:

Which I think is pretty cool because

(1)  I’ve been an Edgar Rice Burroughs junkie since junior high school; John Carter and Tarzan turned me into the voracious reader am I today, and

(2) I can’t wait to see the movie, and I’m sure a whole generation of boys are going to read the books to get “the rest of the story.”

But it’s also not so hot an idea because

(3) It wouldn’t hurt to get GIRLS to do a bit more reading, as well, and

(4) There’s more to reading–even for young folks–than pulp fiction.  Long before the pulps, one of my heroes was the “real” Indiana Jones, Dr Roy Chapman Andrews, who popularized paleontology with, among others, his “All About” books.