Dave Barry relates the harrowing tale of how his column on how kids don't read newspapers became assigned reading in a Missouri school. "It is a well known educational fact that if you want young people to hate a writer, you order them to read his writing, form opinions about it, and write these opinions down under harsh classroom conditions. This is why Shakespeare is so unpopular," he writes. He then proceeds to fisk the unintentionally eloquent fiskings he received at the hands of a group of indignant eighth-graders. Assigned to respond to Barry, the students offered advice about how to get more kids to read the paper. Some pointers:

''I don't like reading about death, war and government. Write about things that we can relate to.''

''Make the newspaper more humorous, it is soooo boring. Talk about skateboarding, it is so huge now you don't even know.''

''Talk about not boring stuff. Like the peace thing. It's very important, I understand that. But it's boring.''

"Don't use jokes that we don't understand. In your article, you said, 'a much higher percentage than the general population voted for Stalin.' Who is Stalin? Put in jokes kids understand.''

''When you talk about this stuff make it interesting. Like when we kill a terrorist, don't just say he died, say he blew up in a million pieces or something like that.''

Ý''I think that one way you could improve newspaper sales to young people, would be making the paper look more appealing? Maybe some blue and red ink?

Ý''Another thing that would sell good to kids is by typing bigger.''

''Another suggestion is to make more comics, like Get Fuzzy. There shouldn't be these stupid comics about the guy who talks about nature, that comic sucks.''

Read the whole thing, and behold the intellect of America's youth at work.