Challenged books
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? :)
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? :)
posted by Erinna @ 4:19 PM
11 Comments:
At 4:54 AM,
Anonymous said…
Well, I notice in your list below you haven't read "David Copperfield". It's one of my favorite novels- I really love reading Dickens.
At 5:55 AM,
All Things Jennifer said…
So strange. You missed out, really. (And I know we have had this conversation 100 times before!)
9 of the books you mentioned you read as an adult were required reading for me, and I wasn't AP English.
I do remember the AP class read the Great Gatsby and I didn't. But as an adult, I am glad I didn't. I don't like that one much.
I wonder if it makes a difference WHEN you read them...at least with some of them.
I know that there is no possible way that any High School student could appreciate Ayn Rand as one would as an adult though...
At 5:57 AM,
All Things Jennifer said…
Oh and Ethan Frome is the worse book ever. And Grapes of Wrath, I remember being slooooooooooooow. Although you as an English teacher erally kinda have to read all of these.
Death Be Not Proud had a HUGE impression on me in 9th grade. That is the only one I can think of right now.
At 6:36 AM,
Stephanie said…
I would comment but I hate you now.
:-P
At 7:34 AM,
Rob Wynne said…
I thought "Brave New World" was stunning, and a far more plausable dystopia than 1984 was. (At the time, at least. Recent events make me less sanguine about 1984 being implausable.)
For that matter, Animal Farm is, to my mind, the better of Orwells two great works. It's just a sharper satire.
Have you read Swift? Gullivers Travels is a marvelous bit of work, and most people are only familiar with the first quarter of it, if they've read it at all.
Good grief, you've not read Milne!? I can't imagine not having read Winnie the Pooh.
My senior AP English class focused on World Lit, and that's where I first read authors like Hesse and Dostyevsky. Put Sidhartha and Crime and Punshiment on the list.
When you read all of those, let me know. I've got more. :)
At 8:40 PM,
Anonymous said…
Ethan Frome
I hated that book. :( I read that Freshman year in high school.
I skipped half of a year of junior english so there were many books I never read. The only one I read that year was "The Scarlet Letter."
At 12:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
favorite Required Reading books, which I regularly reread:
The Count of Monte Cristo
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
...there's probably more, but my brain is addled.
least favorite Required Reading books:
Clan of the Cave Bear (and its 9 million sequels, though only the first was required. Oh no! A misunderstanding! And then 700 pages of Not Talking About It! AGAIN!)
At 1:45 PM,
Erinna said…
Thanks for the responses, all! Oh, and I forgot that I read The Scarlet Letter. I had to teach it when I did my student teaching.
Vixy, I just mentioned Clan of the Cave Bear recently. I did a book report on it when I was a freshman, and I liked it then...the sequels were dreadful, though.
Rob, I've started Brave New World a few times, but so far, I haven't been able to get into it. Maybe I'll try again, though...
At 8:45 PM,
Anonymous said…
"The Brothers Karamazov." Which actually wasn't required; I picked that up on my own, thus launching myself on a Dostoevsky kick.
"David Copperfield," I second.
At 11:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Tess of the D'Ubervilles. I still love it and all its tragic darkness. :-)
I really dig this blog of yours.
At 5:36 AM,
jaywalke said…
Moby Dick
anything by Faulkner
Not easy, but well worth it.
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