This is a thread or rant or discuss books required for school, or just tell us about them and whether you like them or not. In the States, I've found out that the required reading for high school is pretty common.

I'm in the 10th grade, and what we've read so far is Antigone, and currently we're doing Ethan Frome. We also had to read Oedipus Rex during the summer.

I'm just going to go into a list of books I can remember I've read for school.

9th grade-

A Seperate Peace - Yay
The Odyssey - Nay
Frankenstein - Nay
Great Expectations - Nay
The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet - Yay
The Chosen - Yay

8th grade-

Jane Eyre - Yay
Fahrenheit 451 - Yay
The Red Pony - Nay

(I can't remember anything else from 8th grade)

I think I'd enjoy these books much more if they weren't required for a school. I'm a fan of Greek Mythology, but reading The Odyssey was hell. I think it may have been my teachers that sort of affect this. In 9th grade I had an incredibly strict teacher that made us copy incredibly detailed notes. This year I have an amazingly great English teacher that lets us have class debates & discussions instead and I've enjoyed the class and reading so far.

Great topic Sibby.

Hmm...

Grade 9
Merchant of Venice is all I can remember. I really think Midsummer Night's Dream would be a better start with Shakespeare, I don't think Merchant of Venice is useful for a ninth grade English class.

Grade 10
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies

Both good.

Grade 11
Gentlehands NAY
Brave New World YAY great discussions
something by Shakespeare

Grade 12
Great Gatsby (NAY!) then I dropped the course because I was NOT going to memorize the damn thing. I don't care if the quote was "Jim, let's go for a walk" or "James, let's go for a walk." Seriously, I failed a quiz that was entirely that sort of thing.

OAC (grade 13)
King Lear YAY I do like that play

For university I've accumulated some pretty impressive reading lists because I'm Minoring in Great Books. Great stuff.

Hmm...I can't remember what year I read these books in high school, because it's been too long. But I do remember reading them:

Romeo and Juliet - Eh
King Lear - Yay
Merchant of Venice - Yay
Othello - Nay
As You Like It - Nay
Much Ado About Nothing - Yay
Julius Ceasar - Nay (I took a Shakespeare class)
Our Town - Yay
The Scarlett Letter - Nay
The Chosen - Yay
Of Mice and Men - Nay
I know there were so many more in high school, but I can't think of them right now.

In college:
Beloved - YAY!
Brave New World - Eh
The Invisible Man - Nay
More children's books than I could ever possibly list.
The Awakening - Nay
More poetry than, again, I could ever possibly list.

I'll see how many I can remember.

9th grade:
To Kill a Mockingbird - good
The Iliad - good, but we had to read a very long verse version
The Death of Tutenkhamen (I think that was the title) - good
Antigone - good
Oedipus Rex - good
Gilgamesh - good
Beowolf - okay

10th grade:
Catcher in the Rye - bad
The House on Mango street - middling
To Kill a Mockingbird - again!
Things Fall Apart - good, but we'd already read this in 8th grade!
The Glass Menagerie - okay
Of Mice and Men - bad to middling

11th grade:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - okay
The Crucible - good, but for the second time!
The Things They Carried - okay
The Great Gatsby - bad
Beloved - horrible
Things Fall Apart - middling
Much Ado About Nothing - okay
parts of Walden - middling
lots of essays and short stories that were generally pretty good

so far in 12th grade:
Antigone - again
Oedipus Rex - again
Beowulf - again
next up is Dante's Inferno

It's been YEARS since I was in school (going on 9 years since graduating high school) so forgive me if I can't remember too many titles..

6th Grade

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Indian In The Cupboard


7th & 8th Grade

I can't remember what we read--we had big English books but they had a lot of stories in it.

9th Grade

To Kill A Mockingbird
Romeo & Juliet
The Oydessy
Great Expectations
A Separate Peace

10th Grade

Julius Caesar

11th Grade

The Scarlet Letter
Of Mice & Men
Macbeth

12th Grade

Frankenstein
Hamlet
Beowolf
Wuthering Heights

I know there are more--I just can't think what they are right now. My mind is spacing out.

Let's see...

I'm young, so let's start from 6th grade:

The Illiad(like really really easier version, retold by this one guy)-loved it, into Greek mythology and such, wanna read the you know real version one day
The Prince and The Pauper-I didn't really like it. Too much description...
Julius Caesar-I loved it! So so good. Shakespeare is one cool guy.

7th grade:

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-it was OK...
The Call of The Wild-boring...
Cyrano de Bergerac-pretty interesting
The Diary of Anne Frank-sad...interesting, but boring at the same time...

And I'm in the 8th grade and we are gonna read The Good Earth, Animal Farm, and Twelfth Night.

And for Summer Reading(ugh...)...

To Kill A Mockingbird-so so good! I loved it!
The Red Badge of Courage-OK, very boring at first, got better...
White Fang-Actually liked it

All I can remember from those...

8th Grade:
- Summer of My German Soldier - So-so.
- Diary of Anne Frank - Good.

9th Grade:
- Tale of Two Cities - So-so.
- Ordinary People - Very good.
- Romeo and Juliet - Very good.
- The Pigman - So-so.
- To Kill A Mockingbird - Good.
- Great Expectations - So-so.
- Antigone - Very good.
- Hamlet - Very good.

10th Grade:
- Les Miserables - Good.
- The Good Earth - Very good.
- Cold Sassy Tree - Very good.
- Animal Farm - Very good.
- Julius Caesar - Good.
- My Family and Other Animals - Good.
- Jane Eyre - Very good.
- How Green Was My Valley - So-so.
- Cyrano de Bergarac - So-so.
- A Separate Peace - So-so.
- Farenheit 451 - Very good.

11th Grade [so far]:
- The Fountainhead - Good, but incredibly looooooong.
- The Crucible - Very good.
- The Scarlet Letter - Good, so far.
- Devil in Massachusetts - Haven't started yet.

I'm gonna put more commentaries later on. Heh. I didn't realize my class read so many books in 10th grade..

I don't even remember which books I read in which grade, but I know I read the following:

Antigone
Gilgamesh
The House on Mango Street
Things Fall Apart
The Glass Menagerie
Of Mice and Men
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Crucible
Beloved
Othello
Hamlet
Macbeth

I can't remember the rest. Bah. High school was geez..almost 9 years ago! That's friggin' scary.

Gosh. So long ago, and I was a lousy student. The ones that stand out are ...

9th grade:
Only short stories and poems, no novels.

10th grade: American Lit
Huckleberry Finn. Guess I liked it.
The Scarlet Letter. Yay.
The Fall of the House of Usher. Snore.

11th grade: British Lit
Beowulf - Yay - No, I didn't really read that, actually, I faked it. Never mind.
The Canterbury Tales. Faked that too.
Macbeth - Yay - Oh, wait, I didn't read that either. Um ...
The Hobbit - Yay. I think. Did I read that or did I just write my essays based on what I remembered from my mom reading it to me when I was 8?
Got A's just from listening to the class discussion. Didn't even participate.

12th grade:
Totally faked 12th grade. Read absolutely nothing. Got straight A's. I say reading the homework really just clouds your mind.

College:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mantenance. BOOO! HISSSS!
Waterlilly. OK.
Things fall apart. Don't remember it.

I had summer reading assignments the last 2 years. I had to read The Grapes of Wrath, Metamorphisis, The Sword in the Stone, and Grendel. I HATED Grendel and The Sword in the Stone. The Grapes of Wrath I only read the Cliff's Notes. I did see the movie and liked it so I'm going to read the book someday. Metamorphisis was ok.

9th Grade
Romeo & Juliet
Things Fall Apart
A Raisin in the Sun
Catcher in the Rye
Julius Caesar

10th Grade
A Midsummer's Night Dream
Old Man and the Sea - worst book ever written. what a waste of my time.
There was another book I read but I can't remember its name. It was about a guy who taught evolution and he went to trial for it.

11th Grade
A Streetcar Named Desire - one of my favorite plays
The Crucible
The Great Gatsby - boring
The Glass Menagerie
All My Sons - I think that was the name. It was about a son who died in a war. And then the other son fell inlove with the girlfriend and wanted to marry her.
The Bell Jar - boring
House on Mango Street - I liked how it was short
She's Come Undone - had to read for a project & I loved it.

12th
Rebecca - the first chapter & half of the 2nd is boring but once you get to the end of the 2nd chapter it gets good
MacBeth - still have to read
Hamlet - still have to read

my favorite books that I had to read for school were Rebecca, She's Come Undone, Tuck Everlasting (the only one I remember from 8th grade), and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Well last year was quite atrocious because we had to read tons of books, french books because I'm french...

11th grade (what corresponds to 11th grade anyway...)

Candide (Voltaire)
Lettres Persannes (Montesquieu)
La Nouvelle Heloise (Rousseau)
Paradoxe sur le comedien (Diderot)
Ruy Blas (Hugo)
Phedre (Racine)
Tartuffe (Molière)
Dom Juan (Molière)
L'ile des esclaves (Marivaux)
Le Mariage de Figaro (Beaumarchais)
Les Contemplations (Hugo)
Enfance (Sarraute)
Les Mots (Sartre)
Les Confessions (Rousseau)
Les Fleurs du Mal (Baudelaire)
Les Miserables (Hugo)
La Chartreuse de Parme (Stendhal)
Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
and other poems and plays

and we read Ethan Frome in english
I have a soft spot for Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire and Molière so I really loved reading some of these books... I can't stand Rousseau's style of writting though.

This year we had to read 4 books in french during the holidays:
Perceval (Chretien de Troyes) --> nice book but just for one reading
Nadja (Breton)--> didn't understand a damn thing
Supplement du voyage de Bougainville (Diderot)--> liked that one
Un roi sans divertissement (Giono)--> didn't finish it, it's quite uninteresting

And we're gonna study Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M Coetzee, I loved the book.

If I remember correctly I ended up reading Macbeth three time I think. Staring in grade ten.

I think that I only read one story out the the book of short stories that I was suppose to read. abd it was a Ray Bradbury story from his Martian Chronicles. It was also the only sci-fi story in the entire list of stories. I also think that I sleeped through English class in that year.

Cant remember when we read these, but here's the list: (from yr 7 to 11)

Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH
The Silver Sword
Midsummer's night dream
Taming of the Shrew
Twelfth Night
Romeo and Julia
Merchant of Venice (all - I'm not a great fan of Shakespeare)
Rebecca
Poems of Innoence and Experience, Willaim Blake /
Hobson's Choice
To Kill a Mocking Bird

I'm sure there's alot more I just cant think of them at the moment...

In English class:

A Streetcar Named Desire
Lord Of The Flies
Macbeth
1984


In German class:

Antigone
Hamlet
Faust I + II (Goethe)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe)
Wilhelm Tell (Schiller)
Intrigue and love (Schiller)
Nathan The Wise (Lessing)

I can't remember more right now...

I quite liked Shakespeare

Meh I hate our required reading...here is what I remember:

To Kill A Mockingbird - I loved it
The Scarlet Letter - Alright
The Crucible - Better than the Scarlet Letter
The Odyssey - I never really read this...bad Jordan
Les Miserables - Beautiful
The Great Gatsby - Okay...
Farenheit 451 - Didn't really read this either...
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - SUCKED
The Once and Future King - Stupid
1984- AWESOME
The Picture of Dorian Gray - So far so good...

Peace~Jordan

I've only had to read Jan Guillou's Ondskan.


It sucked.

I've never even heard of that book.

Peace~Jordan

I really don't think I like it how schools make kids read very mature adult books. I mean, Wuthering Heights in high school? Why? It seems like it would be more appropriate to read that at 30 or 40, with more age and experience under one's belt, and not at the ripe age of 17. Sheesh. No wonder kids end up not reading when they get older, having been turned off to it in school. When I get kids, I'm not going to have them read stuffy things they won't like, but make them read things they will really be into, and love!!!

I like this topic and Girlfriend_in_coma I agree with the types of books they have you read in school being a little over kids' heads. I had to read Wurthering Heights when I was 15 and I just didn't get it at all. I think that if I went back now and re-read it I might enjoy it a little more. Anyway here is a list of some of the ones I remember reading


Fifth Grade
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (loved!!!)
The Bridge to Terebithia (loved!!)

6th Grade

I Am the Cheese by Robert Comier (didn't like it)
The Pearl by John Steinbeck (eh)

7th Grade
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck (ugh)

8th Grade
The Pigman by Paul Zindel (eh)
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (ok)
Flowers for Algernon (ok)
Call of the Wild (ugh)


10th Grade
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (eh)
A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (loved it)

11th Grade
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (eh)
Night by Elie Wiesel (great)

12th Grade
Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (loved it!)
Macbeth (ok)
The Canterbury Tales (ok)
Beowulf (hated it!)

Hmm in college I didn't have too much required novel reading since I was a business major and I test out of English. Oh wait I did read The Joy Luck Club in my English 201 class, it was okay.