When I've had the chance to introduce new books to a class, one of my favorite genres to teach is also my favorite to read: sci-fi! I have a power point presentation that lists the reasons to read sci-fi, including the fact that anything that has ever been invented was thought up first, and usually by sci-fi writers. Good sci-fi looks at what IS now, and extrapolates to what MIGHT BE, then writes a story about it.
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is one book I'll never get tired of re-reading and of teaching. When kids tell me it's boring, I ask them if they'd like to have a room with TV screens on all 4 walls, and the actors in the show asking them inter-active questions by name. Of course they would! And he imagined that in the 1950s!
Bradbury's quote: You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. If the current trend continues, with some adults not having read an entire book in the past 6 years (scary, huh?) then his prediction will be happening sooner rather than later. I don't understand how getting lost in another world, becoming someone else, can be considered boring. But I've loved words, and in particular, fiction stories far removed from my real-life, for as long as I can remember. My husband likes to read, and we raised 4 voracious readers.
It's been said that Teaching is loving something so much that others start to love it too. That's my fervent hope: that my love for reading is somehow contagious, and students will be inspired to follow my lead and READ!