From YA Highway:
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question to write about on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.This week’s topic: Back to school time! What’s your favorite book that you had to read for a class?
I went to my high school reunion last weekend and we were remarking on how our school didn’t require us to read traditional “classics.” We were required to read, yes, but the books we read were more often newer ones. My teachers were very eager to get us to read minority authors, which was great, but I don’t remember much about them (so long ago). Because of that I didn’t read the classics until much later. I went through a classics phase in my twenties.
Did I just wander off topic there?
Sorry, back to the question of the favorite book that I had to read for a class. I was required to read Lord of the Flies my junior year. That is one I do remember. I loved it! I know it was about younger kids, but it was so appropriate to my experiences in high school. Kids forming alliances and creating rules. Kids living off each other’s suffering. Kids going crazy with it all.
Lord of the Flies really is a disturbingly true story (no, it’s not a true story, but true in the sense that it could’ve happen). I have to read it again sometime.
What about you? What was your favorite required reading?
And here’s another post on this RTW where I find myself saying “how have I gotten this far in my life without reading this book?” Same with 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. One of these days…
I know I’ve read 1984 (during my classics phase) but I don’t remember it much. Fahrenheit 451 (more recently) was really memorable. A book about book burning? Pretty crazy!
I’m torn between “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Johnny Got His Gun,” about a war vet who was literally a stump, trapped in a limbless body–blind, deaf, and mute. Both books stayed with me for a long, long time. But I really liked “Lord of the Flies,” too. Probably my least favorite was “Animal Farm.”
I loved A Tale of Two Cities. I haven’t read Johnny Got His Gun. Maybe I will get to it in my next classics phase. Animal Farm scared me. Like I didn’t already have enough reasons to dislike pigs.
Yes, I prefer my books with humans. Especially if the characters speak…
I’ve seen these posts all over and I keep wracking my brain for a book I was required to read and loved. DEAD MAN WALKING always comes to mind, but I read it in college. Does that count? Sadly, I can only remember reading THE ODYSSEY and WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS in school. Not favorites of mine.
I think college assigned reading counts. I never got to read that one. I was also forced to read the Odyssey, I didn’t really like it either.
But it’s always way easier to enjoy any book you weren’t forced to read. There is nothing like “you gotta” to make something unfun.
I loved The Lord of The Flies too. We read parts of it aloud with the class and it sucked me in. Great book!
Truly! I can’t wait to reread it!
I had to read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood my first year of college and loved it… not many of my friends did though…
Oh that was a great one! I loved it. I read that one on my own though so it wouldn’t count for me. I think my mom tossed me that one.
Great book!