Why Should You Read Charles Dickens? is a new TED-Ed lesson released to coincide with Christmas. The lesson provides a bit of background on his life and the influences on his writing and the elements of his stories that made them popular at the time of their publication and continue to make his stories popular today.

I don’t think the lesson will convince reluctant readers to immediately pick up a Dickens novel, but it will give them some understanding of why their teachers asked them to read a Dickens story.