Canadian teens pick must-read books

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Canadian teens pick must-read books

1Cecrow
Bewerkt: okt 19, 2018, 9:06 am

From CBC, https://www.cbc.ca/books/what-s-the-one-book-all-young-canadians-should-read-12-...

This could have gone much, much worse. Canadian teens were asked, what book should everyone in your generation read? I'm impressed by these "12 of the most popular suggestions" results. Although the cynic in me reads "most popular", then looks at a whole 20 LT copies of Caroline Pignat's work and ... no, never mind. Let's just be impressed.

It's a good list:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Shooter by Caroline Pignat
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

2WeeTurtle
okt 25, 2018, 12:46 am

I definitely see some talked about recent material, but does it mean that people are reading what's talked about or is it a resurgence of interest? I've only read 2 books on here, those being Harry Potter and Life of Pi. Life of Pi might have grown on me more if I had been reading it under different circumstances, but I might check it out again.

The Outsiders I half-read back in high school and it's a book I hear a talked about a lot. That I didn't finish it might be why it never grew on me as much as on other people.

Handmaid's Tale I'm not touching with a ten foot pole. I know what it's about, I know the themes, not going there. Although I would agree that everyone should read some Atwood at some point. I read Surfacing and Oryx and Crake in University.

3frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:21 pm

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4Cecrow
Bewerkt: okt 25, 2018, 1:13 pm

If we're going to talk books studied in school, maybe someone can help my curiosity: did anyone in a Canadian school ever get assigned A Separate Peace? I had never heard of this before LT, where it's frequently cited as a school read. Must be an American thing? I'm planning to read it, in case there's a clue there.

We were given The Outsiders to read, seventh grade I think (northern Ontario). I had to discover and read the Atwood, Lee, Lowry, Martel, Montgomery and Rowling on my own. Only the Kaur and Pignat are completely new to me.

>3 frahealee:, Lord of the Flies builds up to murderous violence between children; must have been his reason. Other classes around me might have been assigned it, but I had to seek that one out myself too.

5frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:21 pm

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6rabbitprincess
okt 26, 2018, 6:47 pm

>4 Cecrow: I think we had A Separate Peace as one of several we could choose from at one point in our English course. If my unreliable memory is correct, that would have been Grade 11. I chose Nineteen Eighty-Four instead.

We studied Lord of the Flies in Grade 10 and I didn't like it, but I loved Golding's To the Ends of the Earth trilogy, which I read at least a decade later and of my own volition.

Our Shakespeare plays were A Midsummer Night's Dream (Grade 9), Romeo and Juliet (Grade 10), Macbeth (Grade 11), and Hamlet (Grade 12). I think the teachers of 9 could pick either Dream or Merchant of Venice, and in 12 it was a choice between Hamlet and King Lear.

7WeeTurtle
Bewerkt: okt 27, 2018, 11:48 pm

From primary school and high school I remember being assigned Island of the Blue Dolphins, Bridge to Terabithia, Lord of the Flies (heck no!), King of the Wind (we got to pick between that and The Borrowers), All Quiet on the Western Front (my pick from an approved selection of books my grade 12 teacher put out), The Outsiders, and The Twenty-One Balloons (another teacher set up pick-a-book).

Part of my education was through correspondence and we could pick certain modules so I picked a fantasy one where we read The Third Magic, and in a couple others I remember reading The Snow Goose (don't remember a thing about it beyond the title and a lighthouse) and Stoney Creek Woman. I personally think Stoney Creek Woman needs to be read more. It was my only encounter with Residential Schools and contemporary life for First Nations until University.

I notice that there are a number of typical high school reads that I seem to have missed. On Shakespeare, we studied The Tempest, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and MacBeth. My sister studied Hamlet and I think King Lear. She also read The Chrysalids. We were in the same grade but had different English teachers.

8Yells
Bewerkt: okt 28, 2018, 1:07 pm

I read A Separate Peace in grade ten - it was standard fare at my high school (late 80s in the burbs of Toronto). We also read The Lords of the Flies and The Chrysalids along with Shakespeare. Never did read The Outsiders though!

9Cecrow
Bewerkt: okt 31, 2018, 7:26 am

The elementary school books for study that I remember were White Fang, Shane, The Grey King and Banner in the Sky. In high school it was The Chrysalids, a couple of Ibsen plays, The Catcher in the Rye, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Stone Angel.

Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice in 9, Twelfth Night in 10, Romeo and Juliet in 11, and Macbeth in 13 (revealing my age a bit here). Skipped him in 12, somehow.

10frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:21 pm

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11Cecrow
Bewerkt: okt 29, 2018, 1:27 pm

>10 frahealee:, I liked all of the assigned books up to post-secondary, without exception. Before the end of high school I'd voluntarily read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Melville, some others, so I had nothing against classics. Love prose of all kinds, but I am tone deaf with poetry, unfortunately.

But when I met Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence in university, together they conspired to make me second guess my English major. In retrospect I just didn't have the knowledge to appreciate them. Note that I don't go so far as to say "like them", which isn't a matter of knowledge. Still not a fan, but I expect to keep stubbornly trying them again.

Not many adults like Catcher, it seems to me (haven't gone back myself), but it's perfect for teens. I still remember him dancing with a gal he compared to "dragging around the Statue of Liberty" or something like that, lol

I'd recommend White Fang should be read after The Call of the Wild, since their plots are mirror images.

I'm a late arrival to many fantastic authors I've only found in middle age: John Steinbeck, Joseph Conrad and E.M. Forster especially stand out.

12Yells
Bewerkt: okt 29, 2018, 3:59 pm

I remember hating The Chrysalids when I read it in grade 9 but now Wyndham is one of my favourite authors and I love this one. I didn't really understand it back then. I have tried to revisit everything I read before and I have found that they all mean something different now. My teenaged angsty self thought Catcher in the Rye was the most profound thing ever but now I see Holden as a whiny little fart. I agree that it is great writing though!

I took grade 9 English in summer school (I was a giant nerd who couldn't wait to start high school) so we didn't read Shakespeare. We only read Chrysalids and Helen Keller. The regular class did Merchant of Venice. Grade 10 was Romeo and Juliet, grade 11 Taming of the Shrew, grade 12 Macbeth, grade 13/Oac King Lear

13rabbitprincess
okt 29, 2018, 6:45 pm

I hated Catcher in the Rye when I read it in Grade 11, but I was never particularly thrilled with being a teenager to begin with, let alone reading about one :)

14frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:21 pm

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15WeeTurtle
okt 30, 2018, 8:20 pm

Oh gee, if I factor in college and Uni reading, the list gets bigger.

Catcher in the Rye
Neuromancer
Frankenstein
Oryx and Crake
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Hobbit
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Dark is Rising
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Magician's Nephew
Surfacing
Brave New World
We
Mrs. Dalloway
I Am Legend
The Sun Also Rises
Small Island
Remembering Babylon
The Arrival
The Forest (took a bit to find this in the touchstone list)

Stuff I never actually read because I had too much else to read:

The Road
The Book of Dave
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Stone Diaries
Living, Loving, Party Going
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

and I'm sure I've missed a few. Some I've only read bits of.

Most of these books I wasn't really aware of until I read them for school, minus The Hobbit (which I was happy for the excuse to read) and Harry Potter 3, which I had already read. ;). The ones that I would suggest reading and still read myself would be Neuromancer, Oryx and Crake, The Magician's Nephew, All Quiet on the Western Front, and We.

The Dark is Rising book 2 I read in my fantasy kid lit class, and I remembered reading The Gray King (book 4) in elementary school and not liking it much. I think that is a book that would have benefited from me reading it later, as I didn't yet have the appreciation for older myth that I do now. I did go on to read more of David Malouf and Shaun Tan after what I bumped into.

I still have my copies of the books I haven't read, because I keep intending to. I did find that I preferred books from college more than elementary school, though that's likely because I could choose my preferred set, to a point. The lot up there is mostly from Distypian Lit, Fantasy Children's Lit, Pop Culture and Lit, Canadian Lit, and Colonial lit. I'm also pretty I've missed some.

As with Catcher, yeah, I'm pretty sure I would have liked it more if I was younger. Good writing, but I wanted to slap Holden.

16Cecrow
okt 31, 2018, 7:31 am

>15 WeeTurtle:, whoops, this reminded me of studying The Grey King in 7th or 8th grade, forgot that one. I'd already read it by that point, so I got through it twice. Not sure why it was considered the standout entry in that series, guess it would take a third time to know. I remember liking all five, although the last one got confusing for the age I was then.

17frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:20 pm

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18Cecrow
Bewerkt: okt 31, 2018, 8:52 am

After being assigned The Stone Angel, I tried The Diviners on my own but I think I was too young.

I'm currently reading Carol Shields' Unless, it's very very good.

19WeeTurtle
nov 1, 2018, 5:06 am

Looking at my shelf at home I can see I missed an entire course! But this is getting away from teen reading. ;)

As far as stuff I want to read again, Bridge to Terabithia is the only one that is really sticking in my brain, perhaps because I don't recall as much of it. I was also surprised a little at my preference of The Magician's Nephew over The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I found I liked the main character more. He seemed to be actively guiding the story, and determined to do right by things as the events unfold.

I read The Horse and His Boy in hospital a few years back, since I happened up on it. Not my favourite, but cute.

20frahealee
Bewerkt: jul 10, 2022, 8:20 pm

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