I went to the book store to pick up some books from the lil sis’s summer reading list. She is now the (happy?) owner of The Red Pony, Adventures of Tom Saywer, Murder on the Orient Express and White Fang.
Well she didn’t want Tom Sawyer but it was a buck and I am sure she will have to read it at some point.
Can you tell the sis is an animal person? Although Murder on the Orient Express was her first pick on the list. I was good and only picked up two for me cuz they were a dollar *g*. Diana Palmers Love by Proxy and the anthology Jingle Bell Rock.
It is funny because the books I recall reading over the summer for school, I HATED. But I only remember reading Lord of the Flies, The Chosen and Animal Farm.
*I* wanted her to get My Brother Sam is Dead, I think that is the title. It has to do with two brothers, one grey and one blue. Sis is so not into Civil War or history crap. I would give a big ol le sigh here but I hated history at 12.
Does anyone recall reading anything for school they loved?
I had a thing for The Chrysalids but I don’t remember reading to the end. I wasn’t one for reading during my school years. I did manage to finish The Scarlett Letter many years later in university but only because I was waiting for the stupid woman to kick some ass.
As for all the other books, I would take notes in class and then regurge them for exams. For example, I apparently wrote a brilliant essay about Frankenstein having never read the book. All I know for sure now, is that the monster was not named Frankenstein – he never had a name – it was Dr. Frankenstein who created him.
There were two other books – The Stone Angel which made me want to tear my hair out and The Mill and the Floss which was also just as boring.
Yep, I’m a horrible person because the classics bore the pants off of me.
CindyS (at 12 I was reading The Hardy Boys because I thought the TV boys were cute)
To Kill A Mockingbird. The Caine Mutiny which is my favorite book to this day.
hee the summer I was twelve I had started to babysit for the teacher across the street, which means that summer I started to watch Days of Our Lives and developed a lurve for jackie collins…
Hey that was another book I read for school! To Kill A Mockingbird but I don’t recall finishing it. I know I never finished Beowulf.
I’m one of those freakish people how loved everything she read in school. From grade school all the way up until I graduated. My lit teachers loved me. LOL
I honestly can’t think of a book I didn’t like back then…
To Kill a Mockingbird, but it wasn’t over the summer. Ethan Frome, but again, in class.
In general, I hated the summer reading list. OH! The Heart of Darkness–that came up in my seventh going into eighth grade summer list. Liked that one.
Mostly I read Trixie Belden mysteries and Nancy Drews in the summer, all of which I liked.
In high school? Macbeth
In college: TRINITY by Leon Uris (although it’s bloody long!)
And I was never assigned these, rather read them on my own time – but my favorite classics are OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck and FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON by Daniel Keyes.
In college, I loved The Grapes of Wrath and The Awakening. I hated The Great Gatsby (I had to read that in high school and college) and anything by Hemingway.
I loved anything by Mark Twain, which I read in high school.
I rarely read anything for my English classes. I was real big on cliff’s notes and paying attention in class. The actual reading of the books would always put me to sleep. That said though I remember liking TKAM but I don’t remember why I read it.
I enjoyed House on Mango Street and was one of the books I actually read.
Lastly, I really liked Lady Chatterly’s Lover which I read for some critical essay thing we had to write in AP english.
Oooh! A book that wasn’t for high school that I really liked was The Westing Game. HATED Eva (Ava? can’t remember exactly. The one about the monkey girl.) That was way more than a wallbanger – I really wanted to rip out the pages.
I remember reading TKAM but then they showed us the movie which was fab. After the movie, why read the book? Oh sorry, was that Tara Marie falling over? 😉
CindyS
Gatsby! I was thinking I couldn’t remember anything I read in highschool, summer or not. But we read that…