S/O: What lit for 7th and 8th grade to prepare for high school level reading

[Lori D.]

...Shannon is walking around saying, "I have nothing to read" while totally ignoring the carefully chosen stack of things I've been strewing/suggesting for the past week!!   

 

As a voracious reader when I was that age, the only thing I can think to suggest is to make a weekly trip to the library and just let her loose to explore the bookshelves and come up with her own solo reading, and then challenge her a bit with assigned school reading.

 

At age 12, I still adored fairy tales, but also discovered some mysteries and science fiction in the adult shelves. I read a lot of historical fiction, both YA and adult. I remember really enjoying the autobiographical account of British POWs and escape attempts in The Colditz Story (Reid). It's a strange age, as you veer wildly in tastes, still enjoying childhood topics, finding your way with some YA books, and also dabbling with adult works, all at the same time.

 

The tricky thing is that now SO many more books have mature, dark, or intense content at the YA level, and flat-out graphic or p*rnographic content at the adult level  :eek:, so you really do have to do a quick advance skim of the books your tween's book stack for check out. Even back in the Dark Ages when I was a tween/teen, there were some of those too-graphic works out there, a few of which I did read. I wish my parents had been aware of what I was reading and vetoed them for my protection at that stage; those trashy books are STILL stuck in my brain.   :(

 

Clearly, your DD is a good reader and loves literature; I really think she'll be fine. :)

 

But, for more ideas for older classics:

"High school literature suggestions that aren't so dark and depressing"

 "Worthwhile contemporary literature"

 

And ideas for DD's solo reading:

"Summer reading for teen girls"

What are your teens reading this summer?

 

For lighter fare, I just thought of the Eyre Affair (Fforde), esp. if DD is familiar with Jane Eyre and Great Expectations -- sort of a mash-up of action, detective, and alternate universe fiction; hard to explain but somehow Fforde makes it all work. :) I think there are 5 books in the series; the first two are really good, and increasingly tail off, although there are good bits in each. Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men series might be of interest. I recently saw this and think I may have to get it: William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Doescher) ;).

 

These were all BOY-oriented, but you might find a few matches here and there:

Contemporary list of books for 9th grade boy

So what are your high school age kids reading this week?

Need suggestions for clean sci-fi books/authors

Book recommendations for 14yo boy who loves Jules Verne and Sherlock Holmes

If my son enjoys Agatha Christie mysteries... (age 13)

Can you recommend some books for my book-loving son.

Reading for 13yo boy; he needs fun and exciting

Great books for teen boys (ages 13 and 16)

What are your 12-14yo boys reading? Mine are in a book slump

What are good books for a 14yo boy who doesn't like to read (many good title suggestions)

Need "clean" teen boy reading suggestions

Books for fun (for middle school/high school boys)

 

So, SAVE going through these lists until you come back from your trip. Go now and have a great Thanksgiving VACATION -- including a vacation from stressing about book lists. ;) Hugs, Lori

[EndOfOrdinary]

[whispering] I have to confess that I found A Separate Peace to be dull and uneventful, reading it as an adult. But there are several other books very similar to it that I also found to be dull... so I think it is just me. ;)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my Kryptonite. I have tried numerous times. But find it so dull and uninspiring. I always feel like I am just missing something.

[Roadrunner]

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my Kryptonite. I have tried numerous times. But find it so dull and uninspiring. I always feel like I am just missing something.

I kept a diagram of the caracters. Couldn't keep them straight, but loved the book.

[madteaparty]

Ah, it's been a while. I was about to hand over the Three Musketeers to my 4th grader. Now I am wondering how explicit is it. I can't remember anything too scandalous, but it's been over 20 years!

The innuendo stuff is not an issue for us bc it will just fly over my DS's head ( but I also come from the perspective that my parents did not censor books at all, besides the censoring our communist government did--if we could read it, we would). My issue with Dumas and Hugo, etc at this age is that they were paid by the page. These books do go on and my DS does not have the patience yet for say, a whole chapter on how the ship made it to port. Your mileage will vary for sure; just adding this bc I started the count of monte cristo as a read aloud and had to put it aside.

[Roadrunner]

I have all ten volumes of Junior Classics. The early volumes have lots of tales and fable, and we have used them extensively for reading practice. I always found the last couple of volumes a bit odd since they are just excerpts from different classics. This thread got me wondering if using those excerpts could be a bridge to later reading entire books. I am not a fan of extracting chapters out of books, but there could be something to it. Just a thought. 

[MamaSprout]

As a voracious reader when I was that age, the only thing I can think to suggest is to make a weekly trip to the library and just let her loose to explore the bookshelves and come up with her own solo reading, and then challenge her a bit with assigned school reading.

 

At age 12, I still adored fairy tales, but also discovered some mysteries and science fiction in the adult shelves. I read a lot of historical fiction, both YA and adult. I remember really enjoying the autobiographical account of British POWs and escape attempts in The Colditz Story (Reid). It's a strange age, as you veer wildly in tastes, still enjoying childhood topics, finding your way with some YA books, and also dabbling with adult works, all at the same time.

 

The tricky thing is that now SO many more books have mature, dark, or intense content at the YA level, and flat-out graphic or p*rnographic content at the adult level  :eek:, so you really do have to do a quick advance skim of the books your tween's book stack for check out. Even back in the Dark Ages when I was a tween/teen, there were some of those too-graphic works out there, a few of which I did read. I wish my parents had been aware of what I was reading and vetoed them for my protection at that stage; those trashy books are STILL stuck in my brain.   :(

 

 

Our library "quarantines" the darkest of these in the Teen section, making YA relatively safe. :o)

 

I was wholly uncensored as a young reader, and wish I had been guided a little, too. VC Andrews for middle grades, anyone?

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

I have all ten volumes of Junior Classics. The early volumes have lots of tales and fable, and we have used them extensively for reading practice. I always found the last couple of volumes a bit odd since they are just excerpts from different classics. This thread got me wondering if using those excerpts could be a bridge to later reading entire books. I am not a fan of extracting chapters out of books, but there could be something to it. Just a thought.

 

I have changed my view on abridged or summarized versions a bit as well. I used to think they were a bit of an out for those who just wanted to seem academic, but did not really want to put in the work or joy to the reading. When I was younger, we read the full version starting in tenth grade and just crammed in as many as possible, then kept reading through college. Biblical stuff started very young, but no one considered it a Classic. It was the Word of God and all that.

 

However, we use abridged and summarized books so much and they have greatly helped my son enjoy Classics. He will enjoy the abridged, love looking at the pictures, and then ask for the original. It has made them so much more approachable, and he has begun reading them much younger with great zest. I could see excerpts working in a similar way, though I have the same initial distaste for using a snippet of the original.

[Critterfixer]

I hope it isn't too much off topic, and I don't think it is, because we are talking about preparation for high-school reading, but can we talk a little bit about what constitutes guidance? I know what I think it should be like, but I'd like to see what ya'll think.

 

ETA: Beyond book lists, pre-reading and looking at reviews.

[madteaparty]

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my Kryptonite. I have tried numerous times. But find it so dull and uninspiring. I always feel like I am just missing something.

I've tried this book numerous times as well, in a couple of different languages, including an edition with a chart of characters. Just cannot.

Love in the time of cholera on the other hand, is my all time favorite. I read that first when I was far too young for it, and then many times since.

If I like an author, it's not because of his best known work. I don't think All Quiet on the Western Front is Remarque's best (I like all the others better), and I don't think Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky's best (the Idiot is) and...I could go on.

[Pen]

I hope it isn't too much off topic, and I don't think it is, because we are talking about preparation for high-school reading, but can we talk a little bit about what constitutes guidance? I know what I think it should be like, but I'd like to see what ya'll think.

 

ETA: Beyond book lists, pre-reading and looking at reviews.

 

Does not seem off topic.

 

Do you mean guidance of selection? Or guidance of the reading?

[MamaSprout]

I hope it isn't too much off topic, and I don't think it is, because we are talking about preparation for high-school reading, but can we talk a little bit about what constitutes guidance? I know what I think it should be like, but I'd like to see what ya'll think.

 

ETA: Beyond book lists, pre-reading and looking at reviews.

 

I spotted this this morning. A number of the titles are published by Royal Fireworks Press, but 20 or so are classics. The book is set up a little like "Jacobs Ladder", but with more books. New Wolf Were an Octopus

[Critterfixer]

I refer to guiding the reading. I know as a child that I certainly was enamored of my own Forbidden Section of the library, books that I wasn't supposed to be reading yet (if ever), books that I knew better than to 1) take home or 2) ask questions about. I'm quite sure I'm not alone in that. I think it's pretty normal to go exploring particularly when you have a comfortable existence without much drama or chance of adventure--you go off and find some or make your own. 

I'm hoping to prepare my guys for their own exploring in literature, sort of trying to give them road maps, work on their compasses, show them how to get their sense of direction, etc, and hoping to goodness they will be comfortable enough to set of a signal flare when they need a hand with the material. How do you walk the tightrope between wanting to give the child the freedom to go and find out, and hoping that they don't get lost out there?

 

I'm not there yet. I've got fifth graders, but already I'm sort of censoring when I go to the library, scan the usual suspects and can them based on content. In our local library, I've yet to find books that I really was uncomfortable with the boys reading, but at the larger library I am finding them. Granted, most of my objections have to do with body function jokes that I already get my fill of on a daily basis.. :laugh: I'm developing ideas of how I want my guys to go about picking their own fun reading from the shelves, and I'm working on beginning fiction analysis this year with our writing, I've got the set of plots I want to cover per year for the next four years broken down by how certain themes tend to show up in those plots, I'm starting with the most straightforward ones I can find, but what I'm really hoping doesn't happen is the loss of communication over fiction (non-fiction too, and other things like history and science.) I do NOT want them to end up in a situation where they don't feel comfortable talking about what they find when they are out exploring literature. Maybe I'm being too cautious? Too concerned? I'm not in the trenches like those of you with older kids who are getting into the deeper waters. So I thought it would be nice to get some ideas of how you would see guidance in reading.

 

ETA: My current guidance plan is discussion of everything we read together, plenty of fiction writing work using fiction elements, we've been learning how a writer can go about crafting a character, we are covering adventure plots currently, and will move on to quest plots, rescue plots and probably escape plots this year using children's fiction (both classic stuff and stuff I grab off the shelf to illustrate points) I listen to what they write, I encourage them to read to me and we talk, things like that. 

[Pen]

I spotted this this morning. A number of the titles are published by Royal Fireworks Press, but 20 or so are classics. The book is set up a little like "Jacobs Ladder", but with more books. New Wolf Were an Octopus

 

 

Do you or does anyone reading this know if the RFWP lit books are any good? Nadia of the Nightriders, for example, sounds like it could be an interesting historical fiction book that I've never before heard of. The basic idea of a girl WW2 pilot is appealing to me. But is it any good?

[Critterfixer]

I like the look of those guides for questioning, elladarcy. Might give me some good ideas as to some other things I can work through with some of our writing exercises at a much, much lower level. At any rate, it gives me an idea of what I need to teach in order to answer some of those questions! I think I am on the right track.

[Pen]

 

ETA: My current guidance plan is discussion of everything we read together, plenty of fiction writing work using fiction elements, we've been learning how a writer can go about crafting a character, we are covering adventure plots currently, and will move on to quest plots, rescue plots and probably escape plots this year using children's fiction (both classic stuff and stuff I grab off the shelf to illustrate points) I listen to what they write, I encourage them to read to me and we talk, things like that. 

 

 

I think  discussing things in terms of types of plots, character crafting etc., sounds great!

[Pen]

deleted b/c what I wrote did not seem useful when I reread it

[Pen]

I have changed my view on abridged or summarized versions a bit as well. ...

 

Me too. 

 

I had loved Swiss Family Robinson when I was a kid. I got an unabridged probably older translation for ds and came to realize that what I had read must have been an abridged version with reasonably modern sounding language. Shortened, and at a youngish age, it was a fun book that led to lot of imitative play. Unabridged it seemed tedious and dull, and too hard for a very young child and too boring for an older one.

 

Contrariwise, in school in 7th we had to read fairly long difficult translations of Iliad and Odyssey and I do not recall enjoying them at all. My ds got shorter easier versions (Mary Pope Osborne and Sutcliffe versions) at a younger age when they fit in with Percy Jackson, and loved them.

 

There are stories that are wonderful, but are still in language that would have been easy/normal for their original audience, but now are in practically a foreign language. Canterbury Tales and Beowulf, for example.

[Pen]

...

 

For lighter fare, I just thought of the Eyre Affair (Fforde), esp. if DD is familiar with Jane Eyre and Great Expectations -- sort of a mash-up of action, detective, and alternate universe fiction; hard to explain but somehow Fforde makes it all work. :) I think there are 5 books in the series; the first two are really good, and increasingly tail off, although there are good bits in each. Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men series might be of interest. I recently saw this and think I may have to get it: William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Doescher) ;).

 

 

 

 

This reminds me of a book that may or may not be suited to kids. All I know of it is that it is a remake of Anna Karenina into a sci fi type world or something like that, and starts something along the lines of: All properly functioning robots are the same, all malfunctioning robots malfunction uniquely.

 

Does anyone recognize what this would be? If it were suited to tweens/teens, I think it is something that DS might like.  Or if not, maybe I would.

 

Also, btw, the more I am hearing of the Divergent series that my ds is now on the 3rd book of, the more I am liking it. That might be the sort of thing that would appeal to Shannon also.

[Pen]

I found the book I asked about above. It is called Android Karenina.

 

One of the customer reviewers thinks it would be okay for age 13+ (I've never read is, so no personal idea on that) here is a quote from the review, I hope that is okay by current rules.  ???

 

"... the very first line of the book, which for the Tolstoy only version is so famous I knew it without knowing it came from Tolstoy: "Functioning robots are all alike; every malfunctioning robot malfunctions in its own way." If you find that brings a slight smile to your lips, you are ready for Android Karenina. There is a familiarity in almost all of the sci-fi elements, feeling almost borrowed from popular movies and placed in a really unexpected setting, that I think will serve well if you are trying to get younger male minds (not too young, this book has some grim moments - say 13+) to read literature without thinking they are reading literature."

 

http://www.amazon.com/Android-Karenina-Quirk-Classic-Tolstoy/dp/1594744602/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417641875&sr=8-1&keywords=Android+Karenina

[EndOfOrdinary]

I read Anna Karenina when I was in 10th grade and enjoyed it.  When I reread it as an adult I had a completely different reading experience.  Wow!  I missed SO much sexual content. It was still an enjoyable book, but quite a different one that I remember. I mean, it is Russian lit and so it is all innuendo and implied and such.  More than likely that is why I was allowed to read it at 15.  I do not know if a modern remake would keep as much underwraps.  Perhaps that is why it is for older kids?  I am intrigued to read it though.

[MamaSprout]

Do you or does anyone reading this know if the RFWP lit books are any good? Nadia of the Nightriders, for example, sounds like it could be an interesting historical fiction book that I've never before heard of. The basic idea of a girl WW2 pilot is appealing to me. But is it any good?

I haven't read any. My kiddo isn't a huge historical fiction fan.

[Pen]

Thanks for the link from the dystopia thread.

 

 

Ten Miles Past Normal is good, might also possibly fit into something someone who liked the Outsiders would like. There is a good bit to do with in crowd and out crowd teens, but very different, and not violent.