Being required to read probably isn’t a good way to endear kids to the practice. It can equate reading with work, and that’s one way to ensure they’ll never want to read again. So when a student was required to read DC Pierson‘s The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To, they instead turned to the Internet for help. Said student posted on Yahoo! Answers in hopes that some benevolent soul would give them a rundown on the book. What they received, however, was an answer from DC Pierson himself.
DC Pierson, for those that might not have come across the man before, is known for being a member of Derrick Comedy — the same group of which actor-rapper-comedian Donald Glover is a member. So, it’s easy to imagine the kind of book that Pierson might write. This is what Pierson’s response, which he posted to his Tumblr in convenient image format, conveys to the young mind that asked the question.
To summarize, Pierson argues that of all the books that this student might skip, his book is probably one of the few that the person asking the question would enjoy. After all, it’s meant to be humorous and includes a number of things that an average high school student would find interesting. He even gives his own specific viewpoint on a particularly sticky wicket of the narrative and suggests the original poster make their own judgment call; the author isn’t always right about their own work.
If every author did this same kind of guerrilla marketing, surely way more folks would be interested in reading books that can otherwise come across as dull and dreary to those being forced to read them.
(DC Pierson via Uproxx)
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