Required reading?

[mary_j_59]

YA Highway had an interesting road trip question today. Here it is: if you could change the curriculum, what book or books would you require all high school students to read?

And - I'd probably say: none. I'm averse to assigned reading, because I think it kills the joy of discovery and the very personal connection kids can have with books. That said, I do think that every kid needs to have a basic understanding of the underpinnings of our culture, so I'd be inclined to encourage everyone to read the Greek myths (including the Iliad and the Odyssey), Aesop, the bible, and at least one or two Shakespeare plays. Otherwise, I think they should read what they like! I'd have this stipulation: they would need to read at least two books every trimester, and they would need to be able to see how they fit in the above cultural framework.

But, IF I could assign books without turning kids off reading, I think everybody should read The Lord of the Rings. There is so much in this book about love, loss, responsibility, and the inevitability of change - and also so much about the history of our culture and language. Added to this, precisely because Tolkien was born in the 19th century and was a man of his time, there are issues of racism, sexism etc, that bear discussion. This book formed my moral imagination in many, many ways, and I think the whole world should know it.

While we're on rings, I think kids should know science, too. So I'd assign either Silent Spring or King Solomon's Ring. Also Stephen Jay Gould. And, when I was 11, I absolutely loved Georg Gamow's Mr. Tompkins in Paperback. When reading lists are drawn up, there isn't enough nonfiction, especially for science lovers. There would probably be no harm in assigning Darwin, along with the bible.

Another book that's been forgotten, and shouldn't be, is Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. And I think I'd want to throw in something like Edward Said's Orientalism or Cecil Woodham Smith's The Great Hunger. That last book was illuminating to me when I read it as a young adult. It makes clear that, whatever the natural conditions - however horrible they are - there is always a political component to famine. That's a truth young people in a democracy should know.

I'd better stop now, or I never will! I'm thinking of Ellison's Invisible Man or Richard Wright's Black Boy. Thomas Merton. Dorothy Day. Maya Angelou. William Golding. Ray Bradbury. There are so many humanists who ought to be known!

But I really think The Lord of the Rings is an absolutely seminal book for a lot of people. Everyone should know it, just the way everyone should know To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn. It doesn't mean they'll all love it! But it's a book kids should know. And no, the movies, good as they were, do not compare.

Comments

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

I do think that every kid needs to have a basic understanding of the underpinnings of our culture, so I'd be inclined to encourage everyone to read the Greek myths (including the Iliad and the Odyssey), Aesop, the bible, and at least one or two Shakespeare plays.

Gosh, I've never read any of those, though I have seen a couple Shakespeare film adaptations.

But following the same logic, I would cite Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States as a must read for anyone growing up in this country. I've read many other books that I've found enlightening, or that better explored significant areas which I find important; I've read some other books which may be just better. But I have yet to read a more comprehensive and on-point overview of US history and politics.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes - I think you're right that every American child needs an understanding of American history, and that ought to be a critical understanding. But, well into the 20th century, practically every writer was familiar with the Greek and/or Roman myths and the Bible, if only because almost all of them were forced to take Latin and all of them were made to go to some church or temple or other. You gain enormously in understanding even Louisa May Alcott if you understand where she was coming from.

End of lecture, and thanks for the comment. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you - it's been busy.

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with any of your picks (my first paragraph was more by the way of chagrin at my own severe lack of culture - incidentally, I haven't read Alcott either).

However, I think there's so much misinformation and outright lies in the mainstream about how the United States works (and therefore about its' recent history) that a book which gives a different (and dare I say, truer) perspective on these things is perhaps equally vital to developing young minds as our older cultural foundations.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I love Little Women! I don't mean to minimize Alcott in any way - probably shouldn't have said "even". I meant that children's authors and writers of unconventional backgrounds did have this understanding.