A book kids should read.

Look, I read a lot of books when I was little, but none stuck out as a cherished memory from my adolescence; nothing that inspired me to stop losing my library card. You know what I was reading when I was an adolescent? Playboy and the Anarchist’s Cookbook. Earlier in life I had Pooh, Charlotte’s Web, and The Owl and The Pussycat. But as a pre-teen, it was all sex and destruction. Did that mean I was doomed? No. I adjusted and flourished in my own way. But I can recommend one particular book for the young reader that–in my mind–is terribly important to their development: Plato’s Republic. I’ll bet you couldn’t find more than a handful of people on Capitol Hill who’ve read it. Likewise with the talk show loudmouth pundits. It’s an important work about a just society, politics, philosophy, and the art of debate. Will this book give our youth a reason to be excited to keep reading? Probably not. But if they are made to think critically at an age when thinking is at a premium, then perhaps some long-term good can come of it all. Maybe one of them will run for office one day. My .02¢