Not to hijack the thread, but I'm a firm believer in that the parents play a much bigger part in all of this (despite the small sample size).
My son who has just turned 4 has for the last year been comfortably asking me where Jupiter and Venus is, and is constantly at me to get the scope out to look at the Moon. Young kids need to have instilled in them from an early age about these things as it will pay off big time in the long run. Sure most nights that the scope is out he is far more happy to run around with a spare finderscope, not surprising as he still can't quite close one eye, but the fact that he can ask these things and questions them is promising.
As Max said, more applicable literature needs to be shared with kids, and just astronomy/science related, but knowledge in general