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Letters | Classics in the age of Twitter: for kids who refuse to read

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the star-crossed lovers in Baz Lurhmann’s 1996 Hollywood version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Photo: Reuters
Young people have almost given up reading books, at least physical ones, and are now getting their stories from Twitter and Facebook – or at least 140 characters of the story (“Almost one in three Hongkongers have not read a book for a year”, April 19).
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There are a number of great stories they might miss out on, so some 140-character summaries are provided below to help them decide what stories may be worth following up on.

  • Romeo and Juliet – a couple of kids in love mess up.
  • Moby Dick – a dude goes fishing.
  • Dracula – an old dude sucks.
  • Lord of the Flies – kids don’t always play nice.
  • Hamlet – every family has a few problems.
  • Frankenstein – don’t do surgery at home.
  • Les Misérables – a very long story about a guy who is wrongly jailed and ends up a good guy.

Tell your children the story of their lives should take more than 140 characters to tell.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne

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