Most important books to read before graduating??

[NatureMomma]

There's so many book lists out there I've been having a hard time picking out which ones to choose from. I have a going into 9th grader in the fall, and I'm trying to come up with MUST reads for the high school years. I'm looking mainly for classic literature recommendations. What are the most important books that you absolutely want your child to read before graduating?

No religious books please- got that covered. :)

 

How many books would you choose not including history? I'm thinking maybe 40, or should I do more or less?

 

Tell me what the best of the best- your top, absolutely essential, have to read before leaving your house would be!

Edited March 16, 2016 by NatureMomma

[8filltheheart]

No 2 families' lists are going to look the same. My own children's lists do not even begin to compare.

[leeannpal]

I am an English teacher by trade, and I want my daughter to be exposed to certain authors more than individual books. For example, I think a high school student should read American authors such as Mark Twain,William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe Poe F. Scott Fitzgerald, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Miller and poets Emily Dickinson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost.

 

The above is a sample of how I plan to do my daughter's American literature course. I will give her the choice of books for each author. She may read only Of Mice and Men from Steinbeck, or, if she likes his style, she could also read The Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, The Pearl and The Red Pony.

 

I will do the same for a British literature class and two World literature classes-one focusing on the Western hemisphere (sans Britain), and the other focusing on Eastern literature.

Edited March 16, 2016 by leeannpal

[Bluegoat]

Yes, I think I too would look in terms of giving a broad experience of different authors, and different periods and types, of literature.  Also maybe looking at some specific national literatures.

 

So, I would want to look at something with epic poetry, and maybe since we are English speaking early English literature.  I'd want to look at some examples of drama through its development.  I'd like to look at the early novel, and talk about the Romantic period.  We would need to have a look at some Canadian literature.  And so on.

 

Once you had a bit of an outline like that, you could start looking at specific authors and texts that would be appropriate for your student and also are somewhat important.  There might well be too much when you were done, so you would need to cut it down.  You could go by what is most important, but I might be inclined to go with what you can teach most effectively.

[wintermom]

I agree with a PP that it really depends on the child, their personality, interest and maturity level. There is a lot of dark and depressing literature out there, that the PS system seems to love forcing youth to read. Life is already dark and depressing for a lot of youth that it seems unnecessary to pile on more through their reading. Too many Steinbeck or Dickens books would make ME want to jump off a cliff, and I'm pretty emotionally positive. I personally prefer uplifting literature that going to provide some valuable like lessons. My boys would probably enjoy lots of gore and action, and fall asleep in relationship stuff, like Pride and Prejudice, and I can't really blame them. They'd do better with Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare, and Twain. 

[Liza Q]

These are the books that have showed up on the assigned reading lists of 3 of my kids (one is not able/willing to read so much, so she only read a few of these)....but every family is different. Several are on my list because they were old favorites and discussing them came so easily. Not like "school", but a part of life. Others are books I thought important enough to read and take the time to become comfortable with discussing them. They read lots of other books, of course, but I tailored the list to the child. One read The Brothers Karamazov, one read Mein Kampf, etc.

 

The Iliad and The Odyssey

Mythology - Hamilton

Beowulf

The Prince

Hamlet and Macbeth

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Frankenstein

Ivanhoe

Pride and Prejudice

The Three Musketeers

The Communist Manifesto

Fathers and Sons

Moby Dick

Little Women

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Huckleberry Finn

Up From Slavery

Things Fall Apart

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Chosen

Fahrenheit 451

Life of Pi

 

Again, this is just a list of what I wanted to share personally with my children - essential to me is not the same as essential. Everyone will have a different list!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2016 by Liza Q