I am older now; I have more than what I wanted, but I wish that I had started long before I did

[primroseburrows]

When I was in high school, we had to read things like Flowers for Algernon and other depressing fare.


Kids have it better in today's English classes.

What books did you have to read in school? Did you find books you'd read forever? What books did you hate? What about books from the outside? Is there one book that forever defines your youth? Is there one book you WISH your English teacher had used in his/her curriculum?

I really, really wish there'd have been more SF and Fantasy, but. Books like I Never Promised You a Rose Garden still haunt me. I don't know how many times I read it as a teenager, and I first discovered it (along with Go Ask Alice and Lisa, Bright and Dark) in my school's Resource Room (where I used to hang out, geekily, because d00d, teh Books).

Geez, it's no wonder I'm a psych nurse, with what I read as a kid. Of course, I also read Helter Skelter so many times that at one point I had memorised the first few paragraphs. *ponders*

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--I read all those books too, the ones that were dark depressing teens with mental problems one.

In class off the top of my head I remember having to read The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Thread That Runs So True, The Yearling, Red Badge of Courage, Daisy Miller, Sound and the Fury, The Scarlet Letter, Johnny Tremaine, Heart of Darkness.

We also had a list of summer reading. We had to do three books off the regular list and one book off the special "honors" list. But since my summer job allowed for lots of reading I went down the honors list reading a lot of them. Found a lot of really good books that way--but I remember being just completely confuzzled by Jude the Obscure.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Found a lot of really good books that way--but I remember being just completely confuzzled by Jude the Obscure.

A friend of mine loves that book. I know nothing about it except that it was considered Controversial in its day.