The ALA's
most challenged books of 2005.
Reading this list sent me on a couple of tangents...I have a couple of writing friends who may stop speaking to me for this, but I really don't like Catcher in the Rye much. I didn't read it as a teenager...I read it for the first time a few years ago. I found Holden whiny and irritating. (Sorry Eden! Sorry Theryn!)
Of the other books on the list, I've read The Chocolate War, but I don't think it was because I was forced to. It depressed me.
My high school apparently didn't put a lot of value on literature. Most of what I read, I read because I wanted to. The things I remember being "required reading" for me were Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM is my favorite), and The Color Purple. I remember writing book reports as a freshman, but I don't have any memory of reading a novel as a class. We stuck to the lit book mostly. I took AP English as a senior, and our teacher gave us sort of "independent required reading."
I've made it a point to read many of the other "required" novels as an adult...Huck Finn, 1984, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, The Outsiders, That Was Then, This is Now, Night.
Some I have not read...Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Native Son, The Awakening, Ethan Frome, Animal Farm, My Antonia, Moby Dick.
What's your favorite "required reading" book? What should I add to my to-read list? :)
