What School Books Have Stuck With You?
Whenever I meet a kid, I can’t resist asking, “Soooo, what’s on your school reading list? Anything good?” Half the time, they just blink at me and mumble, which is fair. But every once in a while, their eyes will light up, and the gushing begins. There’s a particular magic to books like this: The ones you’re assigned to read, expect to slog through, and wind up falling in love with.
It happened to me when my sophomore English class was assigned Wuthering Heights. The paperbacks were handed out, and we left the classroom rolling our eyes, preparing for a long, dry read. The next day, we practically broke down the door to get in and start screaming about Heathcliff and Cathy and, omg, Linton, ugh. We argued over that book so passionately that at one point, a kid actually fell out of his chair. And to this day, if I bring up Wuthering Heights with one of my old high-school friends, we still wind up sitting head-to-head, talking about it for at least 20 minutes. It feels like our book.
I think, in part, it’s the shared experience that makes these school books stick with us. It happens in adulthood, too, of course (raise your hand if you read Yesteryear this summer). But as adults, we’re never required to sit in a room at 9 a.m. and dig into it with a group of our peers. It’s an experience we’ll never have again (not as loud 15-year-olds, at least). But cracking open Wuthering Heights feels a little like visiting it, if only for a chapter or so.
Now, your turn, please! What books have stuck with you for years?
P.S. Tell us three things and we’ll recommend a book you love, and allllll our book recs on one place.
(Photos from Derry Girls, Sister Act II, and Gilmore Girls.)
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139 commentsThe Things They Carried (12th Grade and again in College) Where the Red Fern Grows (5th Grade) The Alchemist (11th Grade)
Siddhartha Death of a Salesman The Crucible Night
A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I’ve read it again and again. I think it captures the intensity of adolescence in a way few things do.
I was in high school in the 1980’s (in a little private school for “weird kids” in Austin), so a lot of the newer books everyone mentioned weren’t written yet! I feel like we weren’t assigned many of the classics mentioned above (I still haven’t read Moby Dick, any Herman Hesse or Hawthorne and I’ll admit that I couldn’t get into the CS Lewis books – they weren’t assigned either). But- we did get books like Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, Rebecca, Tess of the Durbervilles that I remember. We had to memorize the first 17 lines of the Canterbury Tales and I love that I still remember them. In my Spanish class we read novels by Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa and one of the shorter Marquez novels. For my last few years in high school we had an annual Shakespeare Festival where each class would stage a short portion of the play being studied that year (we’d read the whole play, then act out part of it). The week of the festival essentially became full of prepping the stage/costumes and practicing, without many other classes taking place. Everyone had a role and it was awesome. One year Hamlet was done as if in a Latin American country. College had a more feminist reading list- Latin American authors like Maria Restrepo, Carmen Bullosa, so.many. readings of Frankenstein, Toni Morrison. In freshman biology we read The Selfish Gene and Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut which was fantastic. I too would love to go back to a time when I could read and discuss all the time- just don’t make me write papers about it!
The Great Gatsby, Lives of Girls and Women and The Handmade’s Tale were all required reading in high school….set me up for a lifetime love of reading.
Was this the Griffin School? Sounds like a dream!
Toni, my 80s AP English Lit class had to memorize the first 18 lines of the Canterbury Tales! I can still recite the first dozen from memory (with my mangled Middle English pronunciation)
Where the Red Fern Grows was assigned in 6th grade, and is still one of my favorites. Also, A Wrinkle in Time.
I went to a pretty ‘normal’ public school in Austin, TX, but the creativity and dedication of the entire English department was unbelievable — I was so lucky and am so grateful. Freshman year, we turned our English teacher’s room into a jungle to read Lord of the Flies (painted the walls green, put green cellophane over the light, cleared out all the desks and built a fake fire to sit around, hung plants everywhere — we sat on the floor during class for weeks!). He was a very cool teacher (still is!), but it was such a way to get kids who weren’t that “into” reading feeling involved with the book. We did similarly cool things for Animal Farm, The Odyssey, and others. In another grade, we did a Banned Books Project, where we each got to pick a novel that was often or historically banned in schools and then make a case for why it either should or shouldn’t be banned to the whole class (unsurprisingly, or perhaps surprisingly?, almost everyone argued that their book should never be banned because of the debates they inspired). Overall, I think my answer would be The Handmaid’s Tale– one of my all-time top 10 favorite books and one I revisit and reread regularly (I still have my falling-apart, loose at the seams high school copy decades later!)
Carole Scott Bush was my English teacher senior year and she also happened to have most of us freshman year too. Because she knew the students, she gave us each a handpicked summer reading recommendation along with a note about why she picked it specifically for us. (I was given “The World According to Garp”) It was really special to have something chosen just for you. Also, god bless, this woman bought her own window unit AC for her classroom and in our 1920s brick building that became stifling in the heat, her classroom was our favorite for more than one reason.
My freshman high school english teacher made each student memorize a group of pages from Fahrenheit 451 to emphasize the point of what would happen if all books were banned or burned. Each student had to recite their pages by memory at the front of the class. It has always stuck with me.
That’s amazing (and such a good idea!). My in-laws and similar older people had to memorize readings and I wish I knew more parts of books, poems etc by memory- a link to the old oral traditions and a way to carry them with me…
The main one that comes to mind for me is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I still have my same high school copy. Two others that stood out as I was on the cusp of adulthood were House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Tara Road by Maeve Binchy.
“Katherine” by Anya Seton. Read it in 10th grade English. It swept me away and began my lifetime love of England.
this is going to sound outdated and perhaps even dumb, but…there are so many older high school classics that seem aimed at young women, and i have a 16-year-old boy. are there any guys on this thread, or mothers of guys, who really really recommend a good coming-of-age or classic book specifically for a young dude? he’s a big reader but i struggle a little fishing out things like wuthering heights and little women…gatsby was a good one. a separate peace was good. not sure he can handle moby dick along with his courseload, just looking for a less ponderous but still engaging read.
I am not a guy and my son is only 7, so we aren’t quite here yet. But some HS books that I remember loving that are not specifically aimed at women include 1984, The Outsiders, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, and The Giver (YA but reread as an adult recently and still so good). Hope your son can find some engaging reading material!
My 12 year old son brought The Giver home from school YESTERDAY and told me at breakfast this morning that he “accidentally” read the whole thing last night because it is so good! I remember loving it as well.
My husband always talks about how he loved The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in high school, and they really got him into reading and had a lot of themes related to independence and coming-of-age. Other great coming-of-age classics with male leads: The Outsiders, The Body (Stephen King) and Catcher in the Rye. My partner also really enjoys Madeline Miller’s books (Circe and Son of Achilles) which I’ve also read and feel could be appropriate for an older teen, and they have some great themes around identity (told form a woman’s perspective, but really well done and loved by all). Same with Andy Weir’s books (The Martian, Project Hail Mary). They’re about adults, but very much read like YA. I also think R.F. Kuang writes contemporary classics, and they seem to be popular with older teen boys.
Ender’s Game The Golden Compass, and subsequent books Catcher in the Rye
It’s definitely important for teens to read what engages them and I think you reinforcing reading at home is really powerful. I’m surprised to hear that many older high school classics are aimed at young women. This wasn’t true of my Australian curriculum, I feel it was very neutral (regarding themes, probably there were more male authors) and we didn’t cover any of the Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights type books. Shakespeare would have been the most romantic or theatrical. For most of our history and still today, publishing has been greatly skewed towards male authors, protagonists, and readers (partly because everyone is considered able to enjoy these but not everyone is considered able to enjoy women’s stories). So I feel confident there must be plenty out there – maybe the curriculum of a few different English-speaking places could be a fun place to start finding variety. Stories that jump out to be from high school include Of Mice and Men, Gatsby,1984, Brave New World, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Macbeth. These helped me think about the world. Then even more subtly, Australian literary fiction and poetry simply ‘held’ the world and what felt true – this is what reinforced my lifelong devotion to literature.
I think that’s just because you’re on a site with mostly women. The majority of assigned readings are still written by male authors and have male protagonist. Lord of the Flies, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1984, Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, Sorrows of Young Wether, Of Mice and Men, and in and on… though I read books by all genders and on all topics, always have. Good exercise in empathy
My “not into reading” 16 year old has been into Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces”, about mythology and the hero’s journey. His brother had some pretty great books assigned in middle school that might also be applicable- that he enjoyed (some of which he went on to read as a series)- Akata Witch (Afro-futurist Scifi), March, a graphic memoir by John Lewis, Cinder by Marissa Mayer. Also, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is great
A Separate Peace The things they Carried Catcher in the Rye Hamlet Great Gatsby Catch 22 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
My son’s just read The Outsiders. I read along and it definitely felt like a tonic for teenage boys.
My favorite books in high school were Lord of The Flies and The Count of Monte Cristo. Both excellent options for boys and girls!!
Animal Farm – George Orwell. I read it in grade 10, and thought it was so ridiculous and my daughter, now in grade 10 just finished it and then did an assignment on how relevant it is today… pretty confronting! Turns out it wasn’t so ridiculous!
The Aeneid, read in Latin, because I am a complete nerd. In my defense, it was assigned!! Also, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek from Annie Dillard became a deep obsession!
Bridge to Terabithia Where the Red Fern Grows The Giver (elementary school) Lord of the Flies Rebecca A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (high school) The Awakening (college) The Giver, Rebecca, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are still three of my absolutely favorite books. Lord of the Flies was basically a nightmare on paper for me but man it really stuck with me.
Ditto Bridge to Terabithia—I can still remember how my body felt at different moments in the book—and the Awakening!
“The Land of the Rising Sun”. Not on the reading list for high school, but every ten years or so I read it again.
I will never forget reading Fahrenheit 451 in 8th grade and learning how to annotate in the margins. I’m wondering if public schools are allowed to teach this book anymore?!?!, I really hope so. Also the Great Gatsby of course! And To Kill a Mockingbird
Fahrenheit 451 was the summer reading assignment for my eldest about 5 years ago in Austin so it was taught back then! But now the school district is going to be taken over by the state education agency so I worry that texts like that will be replaced with more “acceptable” books as the agency “standardizes” the curriculare..
Tale of Two Cities A Fringe of Leaves – Patrick White Rebecca The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (poem)
They barely assign reading anymore, at least not novels, at least not in public school. It’s a shame and everyone who has fond memories should be advocating for how much school and reading lists have been stripped of rigor, as well as anything that might complicate a sanitized view of history.
That is so sad.
High school librarian here. Can confirm.
Unfortunately, literacy overall is on the decline, at least in the United States. I’m a public school employee, and the district where I work has an alarmingly low percentage of students who can read on grade level. So depressing!
THIS!!! Please please please let’s advocate for our children. They are missing pivotal learning experiences, and much of what made learning beautiful or joyful has been removed. You just can’t have the same love affair with the written word when you’re staring at a screen or following an impersonal curriculum.
The Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston The Great Gatsby Tess of the d’urbervilles Hamlet The Red Pony – John Steinbeck Z for Zachariah – Robert C O’Brien
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume was the book that sparked my love of reading. My third-grade teacher read it aloud to our class, bringing each character to life with a different voice and so much enthusiasm. Her passion for the story made reading feel magical. Thank you, Miss Claggett, for inspiring a lifelong love of books and reading. ❤️
Like someone else said above, the ones that came to mind first were the ones that were a SLOG: Moby Dick (ughhh, the chapter on the whiteness of the whale…); Ulysses (my teacher spent 30 minutes talking about the meaning of the dot at the end of one of the chapters…I thought the dot was a speck of dirt); and Wuthering Heights (no offense to Kelsey! I was in my Jane Austen period and this was, decidedly, not that) But thinking more deeply about it – The Scarlet Letter really reframed how I think about judgement, group think, etc. and Night by Elie Wiesel opened my eyes to how cruel and harsh people can be.
‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Any book that talks about courage, faith and strength in the midst of great trial really sits with me. My mom would read books to us during breakfast, standouts are The Diary of Anne Frank and Pilgrim’s Progress. I loved the Betsy and Tacy books too.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Still one of my top 5 favorite books of all time!
The 7th grade teacher read to us every day after lunch. My favorite was the Outsiders.
To Kill A Mockingbird. It impacted me so much, I named my son Atticus!
We read Johnny get your gun in AP lit and it has informed my politics re the cost of war to this day.
My favourite era of school literature was middle grade! Tuck Everlasting, The Outsiders, Gathering Blue, Stargirl, Hoot… so many good ones! High school wasn’t quite as exciting. I was in school during a very conservative era of Canadian politics and several important books were removed from our curriculum including The Handmaid’s Tale, A Tale of Two Cities and several others. Ironically though, we did read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, which we all devoured for obvious reasons! Shoutout to our teachers who probably very intentionally selected those as curriculum replacements. The Beach has also always stayed with me though, and for Shakespeare, I still love Julius Cesar. Our drama department put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the tenth grade and I was Peasblossom the fairy. Since then, it’s always been a beloved play (and opera!).
Not a book, but my middle school self will never forgive Shirley Jackson for her short story The Lottery! I felt so shocked and betrayed by the ending — didn’t see it coming and to say the least it shook me.
Thanks H.G. for the reminder about seeking out great short stories. We raised our kids with very little tv and movies and now as young adults, they have little interest. When we canoe trip together or when they come home for the holidays with their partners [they are in their early 30’s] I find that reading a short story aloud around the fire after dinner is a welcome analog activity, doesn’t take the whole evening and often sparks interesting conversation. I read “The Most Dangerous Game” around the campfire on our last canoe trip and it was gripping!
I studied in a Convent school run by Irish nuns in Pakistan. There was a huge emphasis on reading and we had wonderful libraries. We loved library hour. Granted, there were the odd few who found reading boring and would rather play sports or sit and gossip, but, by and large, most of us loved reading and all those women are, till today, articulate and expressive and always open to lively debate. We read a lot of Shakespeare in Lit class and our assigned reading was mostly classics. We all found Barchester Towers by Trollope a bit dry and cried over The Mayor of Casterbridge. We read and loved Jane Austen and devoured historical fiction by Anya Seton, Jean Plaidy and Philippa Carr. Of course it wasn’t all highbrow stuff. We loved Georgette Heyer’s regency romances and most of us were also guilty of reading silly romance novels and discussing the male leads as if they were real people! Haha, good days.
So many! I love books. What immediately comes to mind: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Haveli, Walk Two Moons, The House on Mango Street, Like Water for Chocolate, In Cold Blood, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Anne of Green Gables, & Molly By Any Other Name
My daughter, a new 9th grader, is so sad that she’s not getting this kind of experience. In middle school, most of the other kids didn’t like to read and the teacher had to pace things accordingly. Now at a larger high school, she’s enrolled in Pre-AP English with other students who love to read, and sadly the teacher has said they will not be reading any books. They use a college board online curriculum, accessed via chrome book, and it sounds like it uses mostly excerpts. All she’s ever wanted at school is to have group discussions about challenging books, and it was the aspect of high school she was most looking forward to. Reading these comments makes me so disappointed that she and her fellow students won’t get the same opportunities in English class that so many of us did.
That is really sad. No books in English class ? She could be doing that online college board curriculum anywhere. Ridiculous. Excerpts !??? Sacrilege!
Pre-AP and won’t be reading any books?! This is so sad and shocking to hear!
If there’s anything speaking to the literacy crisis in the United States, it’s truly this scary fact that you’re no longer READING BOOKS in your honors English classes. This is truly disturbing.
this has been well reported on in the ny times, often in the context of falling literacy abilities among American youth. Sad, but know your daughters’ experience is not unique. Perhaps you can suggest her and her fellow students start a (physical) book club – perhaps a teacher may take the hint and join as well. Guaranteed the teacher wishes they could teach actual books instead of excerpts read off a screen.
No books in AP lit is devastating me today. Reading Toni Morrison in my lit classes in high school completely changed how I understood books and the world. And also of course there’s literacy crisis if we aren’t even asking kids that WANT to read books to read books!!
I second the idea to have her start a book club at her school! I bet many other kids share her sentiment and who knows, it could be a tangible way to show the school board that reading does matter and kids should still be reading books as part of curriculum!
This is SO WRONG. Not to put the burden on you, but maybe parents just need ONE leader to say let’s speak up to the school and demand change!!!! I have spoken out at school board meetings and it feels great, actually. Please take a big action on this. This is truly terrible and actually scary.
Just awful!
I am genuinely shocked. This is so depressing to hear! How is this happening??
maybe you could encourage her to start her own book club with other kids that like to read?
I was such a huge reader as a child, I don’t remember which books were for school and which were just books I discovered on my own- BUT this post just brought up such a sweet memory. My childhood best friend and I were obsessed with all the Anne of Green Gables books, and we loved the friendship between Anne and Diana. I had reddish hair and she was brunette, so when I was assigned a living book report for school I dressed up as Anne and I brought my friend with me, also in full Victorian costume. She didn’t even attend my school, my classmates were mystified! Fast forward to now, we’re both in our mid-40s and she’s still one of the few people in real life who I can discuss books with. Lately we’ve read a lot of Elena Ferrante and we both relate to the more positive aspects of the Life-long friendship described in My Brilliant Friend. Mostly she identifies more with Lila and I identify more with Lenu, sometimes it switches. There’s no Nino, thank God!
so amazing that you had a human prop diana for your project!! that must have been shocking — did she not have her own school day? i loooved the anne of green gables series as a child too. :)
LOVE this post, especially as reading in the world is at an all time low and research is showing how important reading fiction is to the development of empathy. It’s the opposite of the quick-take of the internet. Gosh, to have to be in a room of peers talking about a book sounds so glorious compared to much of adulting right now!!!!
Katherine Patterson feels unrepresented in the comments! Bridge to Terabithia, Jacob have I loved…
From school, Of Mice & Men, Beloved, Heart of Darkness, and randomly Ethan Frome stand out. Ethan Frome doesn’t seem to have a very high rating so I’m curious how I’d like it if I read it now. Within the last year, I’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia, Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Giver all for the first time and absolutely loved them! The best review I’ve seen of Picture of Dorian Gray was “RIP Dorian you would have loved Botox” and I laugh every time I think of it
The giver!!! I can’t wait until my kids are big enough to read it
I took one look at Beowulf in high school and refused to read it; for some reason, my English teacher humored me. I hated Ethan Frome so much that I’m amazed I decided to try more Edith Wharton in my 20s. But I did, and then I read many more. If you want an antidote to Ethan Frome, which I STILL HATE, try her short story “Roman Fever,” and then “The Age of Innocence” or “The House of Mirth.”
I, too, have carried a hatred for Ethan Frome since seventh grade. And I’m an English professor who generally likes Edith Wharton! I just told a friend last week that it might be time to give the red pickle dish another try.
My senior English class read The Handmaid’s Tale, and it was riveting. The discussions and reactions were so intense, partly I think because it felt like such an adult book to read. And also to teenagers, the idea of people in authority going too far and betraying the people they promised to protect felt so possible. I remember the teacher asking us if it felt unbelievable, and no one said yes. It remained my favorite book for years. It’s wild now to think how few high schools in this country would be able to put a book like that on the reading list.
I had to read Wuthering Heights in college and hand in an essay about it. I HATED every character in the book, and wrote a long diatribe on how they all need therapy, interventions, in some cases, criminal charges. I got on A on the paper :-)
You were not wrong. 😆
My 10th grade English teacher had Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” on our summer reading list the year it came out, along with “Rebecca” by Daphne DuMaurier. That summer in 2003 was the BEST required summer reading experience while I was in school! “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” were also stand-outs growing up.
“Rebecca” is my absolute favorite book of all time!
The Diary of Anne Frank. Non-assigned: My high school English lit teacher lent me Pride and Prejudice to read, saying I’d probably like it (correct; not sure why it was never in the curriculum). Also, he had Metropolitan Life on his classroom bookshelf, that a few of took turns reading, lol. Any Newfoundlanders here have to read Hold Fast (Kevin Major)? It didn’t stick with me, but I was just remembering it, reading all the comments.
The two that blew me away the most were Fahrenheit 451 and Invisible Man (by Ralph Ellison, not H.G. Wells). I also remember feeling so engaged and moved by A Separate Peace. Also, when I read The Catcher in the Rye, it felt like I had never read a book like that before, in an amazing and great way. On the opposite end, I really found Tess of the d’Urbervilles to be a slog.
Ok what else do you like?? Because A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye were my favorites!!!
Ugh! Tess of the d’Ubervilles was the worst! I still can’t understand how that became assigned reading.
A Separate Peace and Catcher in the Rye/Franny & Zooey – definitely! My husband also loves a Separate Peace, and we named our son Phineas! And Jane Eyre. And, they’re not really “school books,” but Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks) and The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barberry) are fabulous.
Jenna, I am just seeing your comment and question. How flattering! There are tons of books I would recommend, but in the narrow category of ones I was assigned to read in high school that just amazed me, the only other one that comes to mind is Crime and Punishment.
So many of my favorites are in the comments, but this one I haven’t seen… my 4th grade teacher read Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater aloud to us. I remember how cool it felt to be trusted with a book so bizarre! I have always been waiting for the day I could read it to my kids, and now I’m not sure the references (Walter Cronkite, the TV going “off air” each night) will hold up. But it’s worth a shot for the memories :)
I loved it as well! Just saw it today on my classroom shelf with fond memories of reading it aloud!
I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. SO. SO. MUCH. man – classic. Time to read it again. He smoked his mom’s lemon flavored cigarettes!?
So happy to see love for Lizard Music! It was a book I found myself (stumbled upon in elementary school at our used bookstore) and read on repeat. I’ve never met anyone else who ever read it and it felt very much like “my” weird little book. It’s nice to know that others appreciated its trippy charm. A few years back I shared it with my son who was the same age as when I read it and he loved it too, for it’s absolute weirdness. Reynold, the Chicken Man and all! In high school, I had the coolest English teacher named Mrs. Gordon. The books that year were all dystopian (1984, Fahrenheit 451) and all by male writers. I objected to that and asked if we could add Margret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale to the list. She agreed, and for my final senior assignment, I, along with two other girls from my class, adapted the story into an abridged play for 3 voices that we performed for the class. It was a very powerful experience to adapt those words and to play those parts. An experience I’ve never forgotten.
I don’t remember ANYTHING about Lizard Music except that it felt like a fever dream and I was the only one in the world who knew about it! Thanks for the reminder 🙂
Oh my goodness, Ms Warner, my high school English teacher, was a *QUEEN* and assigned the best books: The Things They Carried, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Walden, The Awakening, The Writing Life and Cry, the Beloved Country all come to mind immediately. We had reading logs where Ms Warner would make us pick a passage and analyze the writing style, symbolism, imagery, etc and I will never forget how it made me read in a brand new way.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will stick with me forever with disdain. We had a single Black student in our 11th grade class. Their family chose to not subject them to the racism permeating through the book. I remember feeling a deep sense of discomfort with the inequity on display each time the English teacher resumed her lesson on the book and the student stood up to leave the room and go to spend their time in the library. Looking back, I wish I joined them. Even more, I wish the teacher protected the entire class by choosing a different book.
Recent article in the NYT on how to teach the book. I’m sorry for your and the other student’s experience….. The book is as anti racist as it gets — it uses certain words to point out how wrong they are. Huck saves Jim because he realizes that they are just the same, two human beings.
I re-read Huckleberry Finn several months ago for the first time as an adult. I was genuinely blown away at the level of satirical mastery Mark Twain employs in that book. It is absolutely not a racist book; the whole point is that there’s no justification to slavery, and it uses stereotypes held by white people at the time to prove its point. When you read it, you can see all the subtle ways the character of Jim is actually influencing Huck to help him get to freedom. This is highlighted really well in a newer book called James, which I read right after and recommend. Though there’s honestly no one who’s really writing with the level of skilled storytelling Mark Twain was, in my opinion.
Little Women, Jane Eyre, and more recently All the Light We Cannot See. Read, re-read, cherished, talked about, watched every screen version. The Secret Garden and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are also important standouts as they were my Grandma Ann’s favorites and books we would talk about together.
Gah, I distinctly remember reading A Handmaid’s Tale through an entire school assembly/pep rally in 9th grade because I was so gripped. It wasn’t required class reading but recommended from my English teacher and it’s never left me!
I had a 5th grade teacher who pushed us all through The Hobbit, way beyond grade level. It was the first “adult” book many of us had read. Kicked off me reading the entire LOTR series before hitting sixth. Other notable grade school mentions include the Giver, A wrinkle in time, and Holes.. Pride and prejudice, Wuthering heights. Jane eyre were all part of my all girls’ Highschool ciriculum. I still also fondly remember Flowers for Algernon, the Crysalids and Gatsby.
I had a middle school teacher who read “The Hobbit” aloud to us. Not only was it a nice break to passively listen with our heads down on our desks or doodling, she did all the voices. Her Gollum voice was most impressive.
The assistant principal of my school gave me The Hobbit to read the summer after 6th grade, and I loved it so much even though it took me forever to read! I think I read the LOTR series the following summer! I also read Little Women in 4th grade for a book report (we had to choose a classic) and it took me every spare moment to get through it in time for the assignment, but I loved it too!
My daughter just started middle school (6th grade!) and the English teacher said they could pick any book they wanted for a report (in addition to the required reading for the year). The freedom to choose is exhilarating as it is paralyzing. I’ve tried to help my daughter choose, but so far we’re stumped. She’s a strong reader (several grades ahead in her reading level), but she’s a sensitive kid so nothing too dark or intense. Any suggestions from my fellow bibliophiles? She loves a good mystery (The Westing Game was her favorite in 5th grade). Thank you!
Little Women? Definitely hard when Beth dies but otherwise might be a good fit.
Maybe she would enjoy one of Liz Acevedo’s middle grade novels?
Oooh, my daughter also just started 6th grade and we loved The Westing Game. We also loved Under the Egg, which is an art caper/ mystery. https://bookstore.centerforfiction.org/item/YbuqOsBAiIrfhepeaa671Q
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King. If she likes it, this is the start of a pretty long series that I love. They can get more adult as the series goes on, but very PG-13. Bonus, Sherlock Holmes spinoff, yes, but main character is Mary Russell.
thank you for these recs!
My kids loved The Calder Game by Blue Balliett. It’s a great puzzle-y mystery with a couple of solid sequels. Or there’s a fictional book about the miniature rooms at the Chicago Institute of Art, and I am pretty sure it’s called Sixty-Six Rooms. Another mystery my kids loved was The Greenglass House, which also has sequels. Oof, so MANY great books for that age group. Enjoy!
Front Desk by Kelly Yang! It’s terrific – my class LOVED it and very timely with issues facing many of the students. ‘Because of Mr. Terupt’ by Rob Buyea has been much enjoyed. Hoot! by Carl Hiassen is a great audiobook for a long trip.
How about Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm? It’s a memoir of her (English) childhood reading. My sister and I went to an event where she read an excerpt, and we were clutching each other delightedly as she brought back childhood memories – the excerpt was about Milly Molly Mandy, for anyone who came across those.
School-assigned books that really stood out to me: To Kill a Mockingbird – I still love the book to this day and still have it on my bookshelf. Reading about the clear injustice of the trial from the perspective of kids was so good. Pride and Prejudice – We had the choice in my English class between Frankenstein and P&P. My friends and I were the only ones who chose P&P in the class. I loved this book from the very first line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The sarcasm dripping from that line made me laugh out loud. Other standouts from younger me: Little House on the Prairie (I love the whole series though I prefer the other books from the series, and I can now view the books with a more critical eye from Ma’s prejudice and Pa’s frankly terrible decisions) and Charlotte’s Web (Charlotte’s sacrifice! Her babies!) Detested books: The Scarlet Letter, Heart of Darkness
I had to read Frankenstein **twice** for school and hated it both times
East of Eden!!! It’s funny this topic came up here because I just finished Onyx Storm last night (my first romantasy series and I am shooketh) and knew half way through the book that my next would be re-reading East of Eden for the first time in 20 years. Witnessing the raw, brutal, and beautiful with Steinbeck will hopefully help ground me after being suspended in lust and adrenaline for the past three weeks devouring Fourth Wing. I remember East of Eden totally changed my perspective on my little world in High School and have a feeling it will do it again second time around.
I remember a couple of months ago there was some online discussion about what is the quintessential “American novel.” And while I have so much love for Toni Morrison (and so little love for Moby Dick lol), for me, it’s undeniably East of Eden.
Yes! This was my experience. It was on the summer reading list. I started it and thought it was boring. Within the first twenty pages, I was absorbed into the landscape descriptions. Stunning book. I need to reread it too!
Tuck Everlasting! That was late elementary school and really blew my mind.
I can’t exactly remember what was assigned vs what was on the reading shelf in my classrooms but I remember loving Absolutely Normal Chaos, Holes, Tuck Everlasting, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Things They Carried, Bridge to Terabithia, Number the Stars, and The Count of Monte Cristo. I did read The English Patient in Sophomore year as an own-choice book and I think that book was a big part of my sexual awakening. I’ve come to learn that a lot of grown ups think that book/movie is a bit of a joke, but I was captivated.
I haven’t read The English Patient, but the movie certainly has stuck with me. Such beautiful images! And Naveen Andrews–yes please.
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (3rd Grade) Number the Stars (5th Grade) And Then There Were None (7th Grade) Little Women (8th Grade) Ordinary People (10th Grade) Lord of the Flies (11th Grade) The Bluest Eye (12th Grade) Everything is Illuminated (Freshman year of college) All of these books are truly mile posts for me of these times. My daughter is dyslexic and we just read The Witches by Ronald Dahl together – she and I loved it… I hope she will carry books with her the same way I do.
I just re-read Number the Stars, this time with my daughter. Lois Lowry’s writing is nearly perfect.
funny. i dont remember a single book. we didnt have a required reading list and read things like silas marner in class.
The Giver, I was in fourth grade and I specifically remember our teacher reading it to us around when 9-11 happened but somehow the book was a balm during a chaotic time. To this day, it is one of my favourite childhood books, it is brilliant! Other’s that I adored included To Kill a Mockingbird – though I admit I fell harder for the book the second time I read it after high school. And a book by Tobias Woolf called Old School…. re-read it last year and the story still held up! There are also books that I read for school that I remember simply because how much I loathed them… All the Kings Men, I am looking at you! Our very old white male head of the English department did not choose books that students would enjoy but often ones that fit his worldview. It might be an important story but I loathed it and to this day, I refuse to revisit the novel. I had a fabulous, stylish English teacher in 10th-11th grade AP prep classes and she is the one who gave us books like Old School, The Plague, etc and she got everyone to hate Ayn Rand (she flat out told us the department head was requiring we read something of Rands whom she disliked, so she found the shortest essay she could for us… what a champ!). A good English, a good teacher in general, just makes a world of difference when it comes to enjoying a book. Since I’ve left school I’ve found a few people whose book recommendations I trust, some friends and my own intuition. But if anyone is looking for an excellent books (and culture) substack to subscribe to I’d recommend Pandora Sykes Books + Bits – its my favourite newsletter to read. I trust her taste in books and pop culture recommendations completely.
The Giver The Hatchet A Separate Peace Man, what I would pay to go back to 9th grade Honors English!!! LOL! But sersilusly, each of these books was transformative to me for different reasons. When I was reading The Hatchet at school, I had also just found my mom having an affair and I was keeping it a secret from my dad (and my mom). Trauma abounds but in The Hatchet I found solace knowing I wasn’t alone with this experience.
OMG EMME – I also read The Hatchet at school, in the 8th or 9th grade. And around that time I also found out at school that my dad was having an affair, and kept this knowledge a secret from both my parents. I’m sure we could do some great trauma bonding. :/
Have complicated feelings about my lit teacher in h.s. (It was the 90s so the flirtatiousness was just … accepted/ignored) but he did expose us to some great books and discussions that I still think about: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Invisible Man, and my beloved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (have re-read multiple times)
Beloved and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Life altering!
Yes! Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, senior year, gave me hope in reading for enjoyment. Otherwise, much of our assigned reading was written by ancient white males and felt so unrelatable. This was 30 years ago, and I believe they’re still using the same syllabus.
Oh my gosh I just remembered The Moffats books by Eleanor Estes !! I did not find these until my daughter’s childhood, not mine. But absolutely loved them !! They were written in the 1940s. Many were out of print and my friend would find them on eBay for me, back when I did no online shopping. I’d get a money order from post office ( sellers required it ) and he would purchase the books. So I now have these neat used old books from all over the country and one from Canada. They are still on my shelves. This was about 30 years ago. But anyway, love the Moffats !!!
We found the Moffats with our daughter too. So wonderful. We also loved the Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright. Our family of 3 had such good times reading these and other books out loud. Our daughter is now in college and loves to read, I’m so glad she finds the joy in it that my husband and I do too.
Aw yes ! I have the Melendy series on my bookshelf to this day!
Oh, yes, The Melendy series is well worth rereading now! You can find paperbacks. Also: Irene Hunt’s “Up a Road Slowly.” It’s set in the 1930s and I was too young when I read it to fully understand it, but I read it last month and it kept making me cry. It made a huge impression on me as a child and it moved me then, too.
Wow Kelsey, your sentences on how we never experience certain things in life again really touched me. Probably because there’s so much happening without us appreciating it in those moments and then at some point we look back on it (or don’t lol) thinking „wasn‘t that magical?“
East of Eden was summer reading for my freshman year at a new, tougher high school. I spent so much time that summer reading it and taking notes to make sure I was prepared and didn’t fall on my face at a new school. When I arrived I realized everyone had done the same thing. It was so amazing to be at a school where everyone took the work so seriously and engaged deeply with the material. I’m re-reading it now ahead of the Netflix series coming out!
The Giver!! We read this in grade 5 and it has stuck with me my entire life. I re-read it a few years ago and it’s definitely held up
I grew up in the Bay Area of California and we never read, in jurisdictions high and high school, a single book by a BIPOC person. We also didn’t read books by women. Really stunning. A few books that had huge impacts on me: A bell for Adano Red badge of courage (this was junior year English – we had two teachers and this book was assigned by the man teacher. The woman teacher came up to me after we had turned in our papers and told me that man teacher was very impressed by my paper. I was not seen as an underachiever in high school by most – I was seen as someone not really capable, despite being in the college prep program. So, I think they were both stunned I did something well?)(I have a PhD now and am a professor. I think it is pretty sad in hindsight that no one – except my foreign language teachers – bc I took French, Spanish, and German at the same time – thought I had any potential). My Antonia (senior year humanities when we were allowed to choose a book from a list and discuss with another teacher – and I chose the only one by/about women). The heart of darkness (for a bad reason – I tried to read it and immediately felt I couldn’t and I didn’t ever read it and didn’t do the assigned paper and I still feel the shame/sadness of that now). Not assigned for a class, but The Rainbow by DH Lawrence was super impactful for my little budding queer self. College I took humanities from one of my theatre professors, which was amazing. His reading list was incredible – we read Their Eyes were Watching God, The Handmaid’s Tale, The French Lieutenant’s woman, The White Hotel, and other books I wish I could remember).
A Bell for Adano made me think of Flowers for Algernon (only in similar title structure). That really got me. For your comment on author diversity, it is fantastic to see how much that has changed for my son. While it means I’m unfamiliar with many of the titles being assigned, I’m enjoying reading alongside him to broaden my own experiences, too.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter… With a title like that, I practically didn’t need to read the book to know it would imprint on me forever.
My heart is soaring! I’m an English teacher in Seattle and still absolutely love to read. Even with classes of 40 and a strike on the horizon likely starting tomorrow, I can’t wait to read with my class and find the one book that shifts their perspective even a little bit.
Oh, and short story wise: ‘The Lottery’, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’, and ‘A&P’ (the latter in a negative way)
Oh, also, ‘Picture of Dorian Grey’, ‘The Outsiders’, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest, and ‘Great Expectations’
So so many but, if you are speaking about school assigned books, ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ in middle school.
1984 and of mice and men !
Of Mice and Men! That book has stuck with me for decades. My 17 year old daughter finished it on a family trip this summer and we had a great conversation that started with her teary face and “OH mom, Lenny!”
I loved The Scarlet Letter and our teacher explaining all the motifs throughout the book. Many of my classmates felt differently about it, but oh well. We also read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri which felt like such a unique pick to me and I loved it. I’ve read all of her books now. One thing I didn’t like was that our teacher made us thoroughly annotate in the margins of our books and then used a sharpie to write our grade right on the front cover. Kinda ruined the books!
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was a 9th grade summer reading book for me and it blew me away. Later in high school, we had a choice of novels to read to prep for the AP English exam, and I read Room with a View by E.M. Forster and To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I think about those books, certain images from them or lines, all the time. Another one was Great Expectations. I didn’t really fall in love with the BOOK, but I loved the opening passage explaining Pip’s background and the description of him in the graveyard, looking out into the world. So striking. I’m so glad I read all of these as a teenager.