Persuasive book from a political viewpoint

[Jackie]

I hesitate to ask this question because I really don't want a political debate. My daughter asked me to base her middle school level English class next year on the art of arguing/persuading. We will include some literature that exemplifies persuasion.

We are a very liberal family, and the books that I'm aware of generally lean liberal. Possible examples might include Silent Spring laying out the evidence against pesticide usage, The Hate U Give using relatable characters to show police violence and rioting, The Hunger Games using control (government) and how a social movement is formed to fight that control, often using propaganda on both sides.

I would like to include at least one book that is truly persuasive and leans conservative. The book can be directly about politics or not. It can be fiction or nonfiction. It can include religion, but she identifies as atheist and a book that assumes a religious viewpoint will not come across as persuasive to her. She has a strong reading level but middle school/tween interest level.

Ideas for books that might fit what I am looking for?

Edited May 28, 2021 by Jackie

[HomeAgain]

Tuttle Twins?

[Lori D.]

Not specifically conservative or what you're asking for, but I'll throw in 2 more ideas:

- The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (Hentoff)
Persuasive arguments on all sides by teens on the question of censorship (specifically, should their high school ban the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of the use of the "n" word) -- a wide mix of viewpoints, although not overly "liberal" or "conservative".

- The Gospel According to Larry (Tashjian)
Teen who created a website that has reached cult-proportions, so the power of persuasion on the web and the persuasive power of the "cult of personality" -- and what happens when persuasive speaking goes too far.


Or what about this one -- possibly coming from a bit more of a conservative place?? :
- Story of a Girl (Zarr) 
Young teen girl who is persuaded (talked in) having s*x with an older teen boy, and has to learn how to stand up / argue for her own self-worth and what she wants/doesn't want; by a Christian author but the only overt Christianity happens towards the end when the protagonist's friend, a Christian teen, shares briefly out of her faith.


Okay, I just stumbled across this book; I know nothing about it, but it might be interesting:
- Letters to a Young Conservative (D'Souza)


Side note: I applaud you and DD in your desire to look at persuasive speaking and debate from multiple viewpoints, to see how all sides use persuasion or argumentation. 😄 

I'd also encourage the two of you to consider reading the article and listening to the 2 short-ish segments listed below about argument / persuasion and conversation:

Celeste Headlee
- short article from 2016: "How to Talk About Politics Constructively"
She lists 4 key pieces of advice: 1) don't try to educate anyone, 2) don't pre-judge, 3) show respect, 4) stick it out.

- 10:33 min. TED talk on "10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation"
About regaining the balance between listening and talking, and that having conversational skills would be foundational to persuasion/argument.

- 9:00 min. NPR interview/TED radio hour -- on "How Can We Have Civil Conversations With the Other Side" 
(scroll down on this page to click on her interview)
An element of argument/debate is an *exchange of ideas*, even when the ideas of the other are repugnant. Also, going into conversation with the idea that you're going to persuade/change the mind of the other is NOT in your control -- but listening with the willingness to learn something yourself IS in your control -- and that can be a powerful tool that can ultimately possibly persuade/change someone's mind.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Lori D.

[8filltheheart]

Red Scarf Girl and China Under Communism will definitely highlight the problems of communism without explicitly being political. The other books I can think of are too advanced for the middle school reading target.

[daijobu]

It's more meta than political but Influence by Robert Cialdini is a classic and very interesting.  

[Xahm]

Not exactly what you are looking for, but I remember watching Thank You for Smoking and being impressed with how well they did this. I haven't seen it in nearly 15 years, which was before kids and feels like a lifetime ago, so I don't remember any details regarding appropriateness. I also read some books at about that age that were basically apologetics for slavery/the Confederacy, but I wouldn't recommend them.

[stripe]

There are plenty of weird dystopias like Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Sheila Jackson’s The Lottery, that present society as normal. But the implication is often that they are not, and there is a shock factor.

Marjorie Rawlings won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939 for The Yearling.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an interesting one. It was written as an anti-slavery novel and had a huge impact, yet is also seen as establishing a bunch of stereotyped figures. It is kind of the prototypical political novel in some ways.

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle led to a new government agency. This book is not middle school level, though.

Lord of the Flies shows the effect of groupthink on a bunch of boys. To Kill a Mocking bird? The Grapes of Wrath?

The following suggestions are not novels...

An introductory caveat: sometimes a well articulated argument can convince someone of something rather repugnant!

I read this article last summer in the Washington Post

Thousands of women fought against the right to vote. Their reasons still resonate today. by Samantha Schmidt

which discusses Susan Goodier’s book, “No Votes for Women: The New York State Anti-Suffrage Movement” and links to a pamphlet from the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage:

https://jwa.org/media/pamphlet-distributed-by-national-association-opposed-to-woman-suffrage

Maybe you could pair this with a novel about suffrage.

Another idea: most libraries have vast numbers of books (published for students) that have a bunch of articles with different views on some topic. One series is called “Opposing Viewpoints” pub. by Greenhaven, and includes a variety that are education/school focused, plus abortion, garbage and recycling, the fashion industry, coal, artificial intelligence, and the US census. Another is “Current Controversies” by Greenhaven, which is a subsidiary of Gale Cenage, and includes volumes on topics including the death penalty, college admissions, urban sprawl, bullying, and fair trade.

You could also watch/listen to/read (long) speeches by political figures, for example The Ballet or the Bullet by Malcolm X, or other civil rights speeches, or Pres. Reagan’s or Nixon’s speeches, or George Wallace’s Segregation Now, Segregation Forever. Or books by Christina Hoff Summers or Phyllis Schaffly. I think not being hyper current could be helpful in having perspective.

Edited May 29, 2021 by stripe

[HomeAgain]

There is a strange book called Running Out Of Time, by Caroline B. Cooney.  The kids grow up in a place like Colonial Williamsburg Historical Park, believing it to be Colonial Williamsburg.  They're on display, with cameras and mirrors with the park visitors on the other side, and only the adults that have been there the longest know that it's a historical reenactment.  When people start getting sick, the parents of one of the girls breaks her out and sends her off to tell people what is happening, that they're being used as a social/medical experiment to develop a hereditary immunity to a virus.

It's a good book to explore not only historical medical experiments, but what the balance of the 'greater good' and the 'personal good' should be.