That's appalling snobbery on his part.
Children who read for pleasure (even if it's chick-lit/point horror/whatever) are more likely to be more adventurous with their reading eventually. Lots of kids don't like reading, and will only ever peruse the pages of "Heat" and the Radio Times.

It's like with classical music: I absolutely HATE "crossover" artists like Katherine Jenkins and Russell Watson: what they're performing is a poor mockery of the original music, they don't have particularly good voices (they need all the amplification they can get, and will never be good enough to sing as proper artists, as their technique is just so poor). However: if a member of the public likes the crossover classical stuff they do, then they might become more encouraged to look further into classical music and opera, and eventually become a fan of true classical music and musicians. Chick-lit is like crossover artists: not to everyone's taste, but a potential stepping-stone on to bigger and better things.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 22 Aug 2008, 17:20, Reply)