I was just thinking a bit ago. It annoys me how schools have us read "the classics." Granted, some of them are good reading, but the others seem to serve no other purpose but to kill any enthusiam a student may have to read.

So I'm looking for suggestions - what would be good reading that high school students would both enjoy and furthermore have them -think-?

Classics I would approve of -

Fahrenheit 451
A Tale of Two Cities
Of Mice and Men

Those were the three books that were assigned that I liked even a little bit. The rest... gah.

A book I would recommend (and one a teacher of mine actually implemented... -after- I had her class, typically): Ender's Game.

Well, I'll say it before someone says it shouldn't be: The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy (I stress the modern here), and the genre is horribly underrepresented in American curriculums below the college level.

Also to be included, the works of Jules Verne, the plays of Shakespeare, and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Required reading should consist mostly of books that were the inspirations of future authors and the basis of modern literature movements, not just "a bunch of old books we had to read so now you do too", which is what it seems to be.

Well, I s'pose it depends on what exactly you want to teach children with your books. Still, a couple of good ones:

Minimum of Two - Tim Winton
Australian Author, the book is a collection of good short stories. I honestly think that if you're intending to do any reading in schools, you should have at least part of that be short stories. Even if the short stories aren't to your taste, you've got a lot less to get through, and short stories are often a lot more blatant in their use of narrative devices - two very useful things when teaching literature to kids who are probably not trying very hard to learn.

As for why Minimum of Two? There's a lot of good stuff there. Also, Tim Winton has a nice, down-to-earth style and subject matter which tend to make him a tad more relevant than he otherwise would. Winton isn't actually a classic, he's actually perfectly contemporary, but still, decent set, good for literary demonstration. Substitute this with a good American Anthology if you want kids to appreciate their own contemporary culture.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hide - Robert Louis Stevenson
This should be done in multiple sets - The original story first, then a collection of the various movie adaptations. Jekyll and Hyde is a very good example of a story that's been mercilessly adapted throughout the past century to show the same basic story through different devices (In particular, Mr Hyde has changed considerably from the first story to, say, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

Also has the added benefit that there are some decent Jekyll & Hyde movies from various fields.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
A nice example of a really blatantly obvious social commentary that's still pretty relevant these days. It is a bit of a hard slog at times, but would be useful for getting class debate going, with some guidance. Would give students a good idea of the basics of political writing, with a story that's a reasonably easy read.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Umm... No. Just No. It's good to get an appreciation of the Modern Fantasy genre, but Tolkien's writing style is seriously sleep-inducing, and if I was reading it for school, I'd've given up after Book 1. It's a good story, but surely there is a better representation of fantasy than Tolkien!

Well, I was assigned everybook in Ruan's post over my 4 years in high school. I really enjoyed The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin as well. I read Animal Farm, but not 1984. I want to read that.

Aye, definitely those.

Perhaps Edgar Allan Poe... that was a teaching I enjoyed, when we did our Poe unit. Read "The Raven" and other stories.

Animal Farm was good, though for some reason my friends didn't like it. Haven't read 1984.

Fritz Leiber, who did Sword and Sorcery before Conan.

However, Tolkien's writing style isn't necessarily sleep-inducing. It's different from much of contemporary literature, because it spends a lot of time on detail and visual description and less time on action and dialogue. A study of Tolkien's writing not only gives a base for modern fantasy, it's also a study in world building, myth creation and narrative style. If nothing else, it can serve as an example of how much our expectations of literature have changed in the past century, as television provided us with a visual heritage that earlier authors could not draw upon, lessening the need for authors to invoke imagery in readers' heads.

But, like I said, I put it in before someone could say it shouldn't be included.

A teacher assigned Ender's Game? Where? Where? I wanna go there!

The thing I didn't like about tolkien is that when reading it it felt like tolkien didn't trust the reader. I hate overly describing something because it takes the fun out of visualising it in your head. I tried to read the first book and it was the only book I ever gave up on reading. I can't stand being told how to see something.

I agree, Tolkien is a bit too stodgy to use as a required reading, especially for people who don't enjoy fantasy. The Hobbit is as far as I'd go with his works. I'd suggest C.S Lewis's Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

I've had teachers assign 1984, Farenheit 451, Brave New World and Huckleberry Finn. Personally I'm glad that they decided to teach them despite the call for censorship on some of those books, especially Huckleberry Finn.

Catch 22 would also a great book to discuss in class.

If Tolkien's too stodgy, what do you call every book I've EVER been assigned to read for school?

Well, except The Power of One. I did like that one.

I actually like a lot of classics, but then again, I'm a nerd, so it's my job.

Classic books I really enjoyed either in high school or more recently include:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (I know most people think this book lives up to its title, but... nerd, remember?)
1984 by George Orwell
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (I doubt this would be approved for high school reading though)

And I'll second Brave New World, although as dystopic-view-of-the-future books go, I personally prefer 1984. Actually, it might not be a bad idea to do both in a class setting, and then the teacher could predictably assign one of those compare-and-contrast essays afterwards.

Oh! I also really enjoyed a lot of the Greek and Roman mythology stuff. However, I probably wouldn't assign high school students to read all of The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, because substantial portions of those books are really dry. Perhaps just a few choice chapters from each.

Bah, I'll take Brave New World over 1984 any day. I enjoy the detail and creativity Huxley put into the novel. I thought about making an RPG version of it, but all the characters would be soma-junkies ;)

The only book I have for assigned reading this term is The Fifth Child. Anyone heard of this before? I haven't. All my English Comp teacher is telling me is that it'd make a good horror movie.

As far as the future-warning books go, I actually prefer Fahrenheit 451.

Also, because it hasn't been said yet, one book I had to read that I enjoyed was The Joy-Luck Club. Although teachers may want to shy away from that because the movie was actually quite faithful to the book.