What aren't kids reading

Caught this in the sidebar when I was reading about Miguel Tejada tipping pitches to fellow countrymen. How do you feel about this? While there's plenty of merit to letting kids choose what they want to read, I still feel like there have to be books we've all read, whether they're by Judy Blume or John Steinbeck. But on the other hand, our school system's gavage of great literature often irreparably ruins the books in question, if not the entire concept of reading for reading's sake. Too bad it's not enough for our parents and public libraries to say "you really ought to read To Kill a Mockingbird" without study guides and SparkNotes and all that crap.