Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Today’s topic was Top 10 Contemporary Books That Would Be Great Paired With A Required Reading Book OR Top Ten Books That You Wish Were Taught In Schools. Even though these are both great topics, I struggled with coming up with ten, and decided to focus on the books I wish I had read in school. Some people have read these for school, but every curriculum is different, and these are ones I wish I had been assigned to read (especially in place of some of my least favorites). This week’s list is separated by category.
The Classics That I Still Haven’t Gotten Around to Reading
Brave New World, The Bell Jar, The Screwtape Letters, Fahrenheit 451
Classics are intimidating, which is why they make us read them in school, right? Because otherwise, we might not pick them up. Or are we intimidated by them because they were required reading in school? Hmmm… Regardless, they can’t make us read them all, because there are so many of them! But some I kind of wanted to read, or want to read now, but I might be intimidated for one reason or another, or just haven’t gotten around to it for one reason or another.
(Somewhat) Classic Books I Enjoyed After Graduating
Anthem, Ender’s Game, The Giver
I’m noticing that there was a severe lack of dystopia reading in my school curriculum, which makes me sad. I missed out the poignant The Giver and the interesting Anthem, both which are nice short reads might I add. And while I don’t really consider Ender’s Game dystopia as much as sci-fi, I think it would still be a good school read that can get kids to thinking about the future.
Published After Graduating High School (or College), but Would Have Been Awesome to Read for School!
Cinder, The Book Thief, The Hunger Games
These were published in 2012, 2006, and 2008 respectively, all after I finished high school and Cinder after college, so I never would have really had the chance to read these in the classroom. But how great it would have been! You could read the original story of Cinderella before Cinder and then compare the two! The Book Thief offers a unique perspective on WWII you’re not going to find in history books, plus the prose is lovely. And then The Hunger Games is a true dystopia (much more so than many other YA “dystopias” that have emerged since), but is more interesting and friendly to read than, say, 1984. I think these more contemporary books would be great required reads.
What do you think? What books do you wish you had read for school?
Cinna is an incredible secondary character, who shows great strength and great restraint, quietly rebelling against the Capitol in his own way and loving Katniss the way she needed someone to love her.
And then the two-part finale… with the second part seemingly wrapping things up well then BAM! I can’t elaborate any further, but it’s intense.
The theme of family is the other big reason why I think this film is great. We get Willy Wonka’s back story of his childhood and with his dad, and Charlie is actually able to help the Wonkas restore their relationship. Tim Burton said of his version of Wonka: “You want a little bit of the flavor of why Wonka is the way he is. Otherwise, what is he? He’s just a weird guy.” I can understand the appeal of the mystery of Willy Wonka, but I like this take too.
And he does have a nice character arc, which I always appreciate in a story.
And for my last argument, apparently Ronald Dahl actually disapproved of the original film. And when there was discussion of rebooting the movie before 2005, it stalled out due to producers/directors and the Dahl estate not seeing eye-to-eye on the vision of the film, wanting a movie that better reflected the author’s true intentions for the story. When Burton came around and talked to Dahl’s widow and daughter, he entered Dahl’s writing shack and exclaimed it was the Bucket home, to which Lucy thought, “Thank God, somebody gets it.”