Hello! First post ever, so forgive me if it lacks the flair you’re used to.
I was held in remedial classes (for behavioral issues) in middle and high school so I never got the opportunity to read the required books of years 6-12 (ages 11-18)
The only title my teacher ever forced on us was Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. I hope to reread, but it made me wonder what experiences I had missed in other novels.
Please suggest a required reading book from school that had an impact on you.
by Aggressive_Wall_2260
10 Comments
I still find myself going back to the Giver by Lois Lowry, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Outsiders by SE Hinton.
Some of the ones I remember enjoying the most from school were The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Slaughterhouse-Five, and The Things They Carried
I had to read Refugee by Alan Gratz and really enjoyed it (7th grade for context) it was really eye opening about the experiences of three different refugee children and their families across three respective time periods.
Bridge to Terabithia, Lord of the Flies, Tuck Everlasting, Maniac Magee, Narnia
A Tale of Two Cities, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Yellow Wallpaper, Great Gatsby, Night and Jane Eyre are all the ones I read from 9th to 12th grade! Out of all of these, To Kill a Mockingbird and Night were definitely the most memorable and eye opening ones.
I know many people hate it but I really enjoyed catcher in the rye, and one of my favorite novels is grapes of wrath, which I read as an adult but is often taught in high school.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
October Sky by Homer Hickam
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Diary of Anne Frank
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
April Morning by Howard Fast
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zoya Neale Hurston
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I’ll try to think of others. Most of these were read in high school.
For Shakespeare plays, I recommend listening to radio drama productions or watch theater productions of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and A Comedy of Errors. Reading them was not enjoyable, but listening and watching is.
Some books I read for high school classes that I enjoyed was the Lightning Thief, the Great Gatsby, and Things Fall Apart.
Noughts and crosses, and I Am Malala. To kill a mockingbird and The Hunger Games. A bunch of Shakespeare and dickens too
Edit: an inspector calls, Anne Frank, Stormbreaker (I ended up going on to read the rest of the series)
Great question! I think a lot of these are worth revisiting as an adult even if you read in high school.
A few additions –
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury – very relevant to today
For Whom the Bell Tolls/Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe