katilac Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 I'm working on our reading list for modern times, 10th- and 12th-grades. It seems that a lot of the modern required reading is a tough sell to teens. Madame Bovary, A Doll's House, and other variations of middle-aged adults feeling trapped in their conventional lives - they didn't work for me as a teen! I think teens are often drawn to themes 'larger' than their own lives, rather than 'small' introspective themes. Difficult is not a problem if they are drawn into the story. Mine tend to enjoy sweeping tales of adventure: Greek myths, The Odyssey, Iliad, Aeneid. Dante's Inferno. Paradise Lost, they loved. One of them loved War and Peace (the other hasn't read it). They are lukewarm on Jane Austen and similar. For free reading, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are old favorites, and they like that general style. The outcast hero fighting great odds. The normal person swept into unexpected and dangerous circumstances. I want them to enjoy at least some of their reading this year! I don't mind language or the occasional sex scene. 1900 and onwards; who has great suggestions for me? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 you are describing Tolkien's Lord of the Rings 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 5, 2015 Author Share Posted September 5, 2015 you are describing Tolkien's Lord of the Rings //they didn't like The Hobbit, she whispers// Is LotR as different from The Hobbit as the later Harry Potter volumes are from the first book? Is finishing The Hobbit recommended first? This is the type of suggestion I'm looking for, though, thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 LotR is very different from The Hobbit, it was not written as a children's book. Yes, I would personally recommend finishing The Hobbit first. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 //they didn't like The Hobbit, she whispers// Is LotR as different from The Hobbit as the later Harry Potter volumes are from the first book? Is finishing The Hobbit recommended first? completely different from the Hobbit. Much deeper themes, darker undertones, more mature. The Hobbit is a children's book - LOTR definitely not. I would finish the Hobbit, but if they did not like it, that is not necessary. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 I read LOTR before even hearing of The Hobbit, and I'm really glad, It is far more different from TH than the later HP books are relative to the first one. When you read LOTR you enter a different world, and at a completely different level. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 You might also consider The Once and Future King, a witty and complex modern retelling of the King Arthur stories. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 A couple of lists that might be of interest ~ Big, Engrossing Novels: A List and A Quest by Macy Halford There are nine novels showcased; it's easy to see the first, but you need to look for the rest. Top 50 Best Epic Fantasy Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 LOTR definitely. (I would add the Silmarillion based on your kids' reading interests.) Also Lewis's SpaceTrilogy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AuNaturel Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 The Cronus Chronicles may be of interest. Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 These may not be what you are looking for, but I enjoyed them as a younger person, and they certain have an epic feel to them: (I can't recall how "appropriate" they might be, though. Research that if it matters to you.) Clan of the Cave Bear (by Jean Auel. She has one or two after this one, too, if I recall correctly. All good.) Really interesting. The Thornbirds (love it or hate it, it's an epic. Interesting. Kind of sad and painful.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 6, 2015 Author Share Posted September 6, 2015 Noting all of the suggestions, thank you! Adult themes are fine, they know they can stop reading a certain book if they so choose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 //they didn't like The Hobbit, she whispers// Is LotR as different from The Hobbit as the later Harry Potter volumes are from the first book? Is finishing The Hobbit recommended first? This is the type of suggestion I'm looking for, though, thank you! Yes. I liked Hobbbit. Didn't really like Lord of the Rings (I've read the whole triology twice.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GThomas Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 The Golden Compass Trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicles (although there is some sex scenes in them) Dune For fun that my dd and her older teen friends enjoyed: - Curtsies and Conspiracies series - Divergent Series - Hunger Games 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 Seconding Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It has everything you described, and is a wonderfully complex coming of age story. I realize the protagonist is 11 at the beginning of the series, but it's definitely more of a teen/adult book. And it draws on a rich classic tradition - Paradise Lost, Blake's poetry,etc. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockhopper Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 A Town Like Alice immediately came to mind. It's sweeping, inspiring, classic. Good and evil, romance. It's set in Malayasia in WWII and Australia post-war. I know I read it first as a teen, and don't remember anything particularly objectionable. Difficult, though, with the description of Japanese treatment of POWs. On a related note, Unbroken, although it's more specifically one man's story. What a good question to pose! I'll be gathering notes from this list. My ds recommends Swords for Hire, not as "literature" but as a really fun quest story. (I think the grade range is listed for 5th to 8th, but he says it would be a fun read for any age.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 These may not be what you are looking for, but I enjoyed them as a younger person, and they certain have an epic feel to them: (I can't recall how "appropriate" they might be, though. Research that if it matters to you.) Clan of the Cave Bear (by Jean Auel. She has one or two after this one, too, if I recall correctly. All good.) Really interesting. The Thornbirds (love it or hate it, it's an epic. Interesting. Kind of sad and painful.) Clan of the Cave Bear is actually pretty cool but just in case you want to know, there is a rape sequence -- a few different times with the same person. The sequels get awfully sexual ... I swear the fourth one should have been called the Plains of Passion ... I read so many times about Schlongdalar's massive ... But if you're ok with that scene I do like Clan of the Cave Bear. I enjoyed reading the others but I wouldn't assign them. The last one (recent) is excepted. That pile of rotten steaming dung ... well, I just pretend it was never written unless I need to warn someone against reading it. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Does it have to be fiction? These are about/by normal people swept up into dangerous circumstances. The Hiding Place (hiding Jews from the Nazis) Red Scarf Girl (China's Cultural Revolution) To Destroy You is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family (trying to escape Pol Pot's regime) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 7, 2015 Author Share Posted September 7, 2015 Does it have to be fiction? These are about/by normal people swept up into dangerous circumstances. The Hiding Place (hiding Jews from the Nazis) Red Scarf Girl (China's Cultural Revolution) To Destroy You is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family (trying to escape Pol Pot's regime) I'll definitely be glad for some non-fic recs as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 I read so many times about Schlongdalar's massive Loving the nickname! The worst part is that those scenes are just. so. boring! Yeah, we get it, they do it a lot. I've had a more interesting time reading a cereal box. If you're going to read LotR, then you really have to read Earthsea as well, which is just as influential. *thinks* Actually, you might do well with Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (darn if I can ever remember which is first) if your kids don't mind dystopias. Seconding Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It has everything you described, and is a wonderfully complex coming of age story. I realize the protagonist is 11 at the beginning of the series, but it's definitely more of a teen/adult book. And it draws on a rich classic tradition - Paradise Lost, Blake's poetry,etc. I'm an atheist, and I still didn't like being beat over the head with Pullman's "The Christian God is evil" message, especially in the final book. But in general, I don't like it when books turn out to be tracts in disguise. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Neil gaiman's "Stardust" is very questy... Actually many of his books are. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 What about Titus Groan? Not exactly modern (1946), not exactly epic, not exactly classifiable. One of the best, vivid, gothic fantasy books ever. Never have I read such feast of language. Ruth in NZ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Raymond E Feist's Daughter of the Empire? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Loving the nickname! The worst part is that those scenes are just. so. boring! Yeah, we get it, they do it a lot. I've had a more interesting time reading a cereal box. If you're going to read LotR, then you really have to read Earthsea as well, which is just as influential. *thinks* Actually, you might do well with Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (darn if I can ever remember which is first) if your kids don't mind dystopias. I'm an atheist, and I still didn't like being beat over the head with Pullman's "The Christian God is evil" message, especially in the final book. But in general, I don't like it when books turn out to be tracts in disguise. See, it's funny, but I don't see His Dark Materials as an atheist tract by any stretch, although Pullman is a vocal atheist himself. It's a book that accepts the existence of gods, angels, ghosts, etc. Definitely not modern/materialist/atheist. It is very critical of organized religion or Authority in any form, but it doesn't make any kind of argument for the nonexistence of a spiritual dimension. On the contrary, in fact. IMHO, of course. But I totally get that it is a book that won't work for a lot of people for a variety of reasons. I just finished re-reading the trilogy and I thought it fit a lot of the criteria in the OP, which was why I mentioned it. :) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 No, it's not. It's anti-theist, with modern gnostic overtones. Which is great! except for the part where you're getting beaten over the head with the message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugs Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Stephen King's The Stand has good versus evil. It's sweeping in that there is a world-wide catastrophe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 James Mitchener's historical fiction? Some of them may feel dated, because they were written in the 1970s - 1980s and therefore don't cover the most recent history of the area being covered. I remember enjoying Centennial, The Source and Hawaii. Gone with the Wind was written around 1930. It actually reminds me of the Odyssey in that the characters are trying to achieve a position of security that is ever just out of reach. The Winds of War by Wouk. War and Remembrance is the sequel. Grapes of Wrath has a traveling questy dimension to it. (Though I'll confess I didn't much enjoy it when it was assigned in college.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 8, 2015 Author Share Posted September 8, 2015 Grapes of Wrath has a traveling questy dimension to it. (Though I'll confess I didn't much enjoy it when it was assigned in college.) I read it in high school and didn't love it either, but we'll probably read it this year bc it hits a lot of marks - time period, labor movement, iconic work - and it's not a difficult read. Because we are a bit eclectic in the history & literature department to begin with, I do think we need to have some easily recognizable, 'classic' works on the list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybear Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but what about the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon? Definitely epic and adventure, lots of history. Some adult content. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Til We Have Faces by C S Lewis The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Modern, like from the last hundred years or so, I take it? Some of the suggestions in this thread strike me as too young or too pop culture to be part of a serious senior year English reading list unless you've got a struggling reader or a student who is strongly on a STEM track and needs lighter lit coursework. I don't think that most stuff from the last century or so that are the "great books" are all middle aged people trapped in their lives. I mean, sure, there's some of that. But there's also plenty of big, sweeping themes and good and evil. I think it just looks different from the traditional hero's quest sometimes. And the good and evil stuff can be just different now. I mean, this is the age of Vonnegut and so forth. The reading tastes change. I'm not a huge LOTR fan. It's okay. Meh. I see people so gaga for it in the homeschool world. Not a must IMO. But you could do other fantasy and science fiction - Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Slaughterhouse Five, The Handmaid's Tale, Clockwork Orange... and I second Mervyn Peake's crazy awesome Gormenghast series or The Once and Future King, which is an incredible read - both of those, by the way, are sometimes coupled with LOTR as the big predecessors of contemporary fantasy (also CS Lewis's Narnia). In a different direction, what about the big, sweeping sort of novels like Midnight's Children, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ragime, Howard's End... Not epic quest type stuff, but not closed in Doll's House type things either. Another direction... what about books that are about young people in the modern world instead of middle aged people like Catcher in the Rye, O Pioneers, The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 - Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Slaughterhouse Five, The Handmaid's Tale, Clockwork Orange... In this vein, what about Jack London's Iron Heal. Not at all his typical style, but seriously riveting. It is a grand, sweeping story but in a dystopian, class-warfare sort of way. DS also read Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy; Wolf Hall; and the Luminaries during his modern sweep. None are depressing, inward-focused books, but all are seriously high quality literature. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybear Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Sorry. I don't know how I missed the fact that you were looking for modern history. I'll just go back quietly to drinking my coffee now.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GThomas Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Since you said you would be interested in non-fiction as well: My dd and I are currently reading Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft for her homeschool book club. First chapter ho-hum but it's certainly picked up as we've gone along (about 13% of the way in). Quite the undertaking this true adventure story is! And there's a movie afterwards to watch. I'm currently reading (ha, ha, ha...like I have time to read on my own) The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama. The author's writing style is lovely. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 8, 2015 Author Share Posted September 8, 2015 Since you said you would be interested in non-fiction as well: My dd and I are currently reading Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft for her homeschool book club. First chapter ho-hum but it's certainly picked up as we've gone along (about 13% of the way in). Quite the undertaking this true adventure story is! And there's a movie afterwards to watch. I'm currently reading (ha, ha, ha...like I have time to read on my own) The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama. The author's writing style is lovely. We've already watched the Kon-Tiki movie and original documentary! Ragnarok was recommended to us because we liked Troll Hunter, and then we watched Kon-Tiki based on Ragnarok, and the credits for the movie listed the documentary, lol. We watched it right after the movie. I actually got the book from our library, but didn't have time to do much more than scan it. Do not recommend interesting books from the wrong time period! I will wind up reading that instead. Edited to add: but do feel free to recommend weird Norwegian/Scandinavian movies from any time period. We always have time for those . . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I've got it! What about The Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy by Nordhoff and Hall (1932). It is hugely epic - longest sea crossing in an open boat EVER. It definitely has good vs evil AND adventure. And it is beautifully written with a very engaging style. I loved it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted September 8, 2015 Author Share Posted September 8, 2015 I've got it! What about The Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy by Nordhoff and Hall (1932). It is hugy epic - longest sea crossing in an open boot EVER. It definitely has good vs evil AND adventure. And it is beautifully written with a very engaging style. I loved it! now that is a definite possibility!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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