If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, to which we respond with our picks!
This week’s list is all about books that we wish were taught in schools. Here we go!
1. Looking for Alaska by John Green. I read this book while I was in high school and it taught me more than most the books that I was required to read. It blows my mind that some schools have it banned from their library. Those shenanigans are ridiculous.
2. Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks. This is one of those books that me and my classmates passed around and read anyway. I realize that it is a dark novel, and most parents would never allow it to be on their child’s required reading list, but I think that there should be more required books that deal first-hand with the consequences of drug addiction.
3. Night by Elie Wiesel. I actually did read this in school, but having thrown this topic around work today it seems it isn’t taught in most schools. I absolutely loved this book, and even better that I got to read it in History and not English. It’s also quite short, which is good for high school attention spans.
4.The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. I didn’t read this book until college, but it would have been much more effective in high school. Books about bullying really do belong in the curriculum.
5. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. Being told from the perspective of a young girl, this book tackles everything from racism, the Great Depression, family values and coming-of-age problems. I read this in the 6th grade on my own and loved it.
6. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. All of his books belong on a required reading list for High School. Seriously.
7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. No explanation required.
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I think this book would be great for school because it has everything in it that a good YA needs, will keep kids attention, and I may be mistaken, but I am pretty sure Katniss never swears. Must be Suzanna Collins Little Bear habits showing. I know if I was to fight to the death in an arena my mouth would be anything but clean. Oh well, keeps the parents happy!
9. The Epic of Giglamesh by someone a very long time ago. To be honest, I didn’t really love this poem. However, I did like it more than reading The Iliad and The Odyssey both of which I had to read multiple times in high school. I think that if we would have been required to read Gilgamesh first I would have gotten use to the style and ‘heroes journey’ and all of that before getting thrown into Iliad & Odyssey.
That’s all that I got! Luckily, I got to read quite a few awesome books in high school thanks to some exceptional teachers and concurrent enrollment, so it was pretty hard for me to come up with even the 9! Cheers to those of you who went with the other topic this week, because that one would have taken me forever!
What books do you wish you were taught in high school?
thebookboozer 
Being the awesome person I am, I was invited to an alternate English class my junior year of high school – instead of reading the “classics”, I got to read wonderful science fiction and fantasy classics! We read JRR Tolkien, Arthur C Clarke, and so many more! It was totally awesome!
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and don’t let “alternate” fool you – it was an advanced class and we did more work than the other classes – but it was pretty advanced for it’s time! Now a days more and more schools have these options, but back then, it was unheard of!
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I didn’t have it at my school, and I graduated in 07! I did go to an extremely small school though, so the class choices were pretty limited. Luckily, I had some great teachers who did a lot with what they had!
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I feel super lucky that I was able to attend that class! It’s one of the few things about HS I still remember and remember fondly! And that love for the sci-fi/fantasy books has stayed with me!
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Whaaat! That makes me super jealous!
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We read Night in high school, and had a Holocaust survivor come speak at our class. I can’t remember exactly what he said, other than he’d lost most/all of his family, and he made me cry, as did the book.
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That would be such a cool experience!
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Our teacher pointed out that it was harder and harder to find someone each year she taught, because the survivors were getting older…
It’s kind of sad to think that someday there won’t be any one who can look you in the eye and say ‘I was there. I survived. Here’s my story.’
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So true. I think about that all the time. I have my BA in History and its always a unique experience when you come to something that no one can give first hand account of anymore, unless they write it down of course. There are whole chunks of history that we don’t even know what happened because no one recorded them. Crazy!
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HP, most definitely!
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Your list is great! They are all titles I could actually see being taught in a school setting. I especially like the ones you included that talk about bullying. Also, you make me want to pick up John Green sooner than I was intending.
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Thank you! John Green is phenomenal, really. I read Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines in high school and fell in love. He really is amazing!
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