12 Books for young people
Mar. 12th, 2014 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseSlate online magazine has a fascinating segment called "The Vault" where it pulls documents or artifacts from the past. Sometimes, they have a direct bearing on today's politics or ideas. Sometimes, they're just interesting pieces of a vanished world.
Today's article has a list of book recommendations for young people by Samuel Clemens. He was asked to divide them between boys and girls, but the only one he changed was Robinson Crusoe. Apparently, it was okay for boys, but girls ended up reading the poetry of Tennyson. He was cagey about favorite authors.
So.
My list of twelve books/authors every kid should read by the time they graduate from high school. I'm not dividing it by sex, and I'm not including anything aimed directly at the YA market on the theory that they'll find those books for themselves. I wish I'd had space for some Pratchett, though.
1. Little Women by Alcott -- It's a great starting point for finding out more about the US in the 19th century. The grand tour, the transcendentalist movement, the differing social expectations are all there and provide a little foothold for next steps. I read Emerson's essays because I'd read Little Women
2. anything by Mark Twain -- Everyone goes to Huckleberry Finn and it's covered in most high schools. I hate it. The plot's great. It deals with ideas of freedom and loss. And it's written in dialect which drives me bonkers. My personal favorite is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but he's such a lovely and lively writer, that I don't feel prescriptive.
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe -- I only got potted Defoe until I was in my twenties, and even then I read Moll Flanders first. There are problems with how Friday is treated, but it's still one of the great adventure stories. The thing that struck me most forcibly was how incredibly practical Crusoe was. The wreck was unstable, but still available to him at first. So he made decisions. The first thing he got off the ship was every working pulley he could find and carry. Then he went for all the steel or iron implements because he would have no facilities for smelting. I love any book that shows people thinking their ways through the current problems to a better outcome. Plus, it's the first novel written in English.
4. anything by Jules Verne -- There are three fictional characters that I have serious, serious crushes on. I was introduced to two of them when I was about ten and the other one, D'Artagnan, around the age of twelve. One of them was Phileas Fogg from Around the World in 80 Days. *sigh* He's another practical character. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea is another favorite of mine.
5. One comedy, one history, and one tragedy by Shakespeare -- He's so important to the development of the English language that he has to be here. My first Shakespeare was MacBeth which I chose at age 12 because it was the shortest of his plays. These days I'd suggest Othello for the tragedy, even though Coriolanus is my personal favorite. As You Like It is, in my opinion, the funniest and most perfect of his comedies. And either Henry V or Richard III for the history.
6. anything by Jane Austen -- I've always preferred Sense and Sensibility to Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth's tight trousers not withstanding), but any of the six books would work.
7. Middlemarch by George Eliot -- I wish someone had pointed me at this book instead of the Bronte Sisters when I was a teenager. There are similar themes of bad marriages and adults needing to make choices as in Jane Eyre and the theme of forbidden love is handled more sensibly than in Wuthering Heights. Frankly, I gave up on Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff, jr. was hanging puppies in the kitchen. *shudder*
8. any slave narrative -- Seriously, we need to cover this from primary sources.
9. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle -- Sherlock Holmes is my other serious literary crush. I encountered him around the same time as Phileas Fogg. I like The Hound of the Baskervilles best of the books, but a case can be made for any of them.
10. There are several treasuries of World War I poetry. I would want one that included the Americans and Canadians as well as the British.
11. Foundation by Isaac Asimov -- I'd like the whole trilogy included.
12. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin -- I once told a friend that this was the best book ever written in English. I stand by that.
Today's article has a list of book recommendations for young people by Samuel Clemens. He was asked to divide them between boys and girls, but the only one he changed was Robinson Crusoe. Apparently, it was okay for boys, but girls ended up reading the poetry of Tennyson. He was cagey about favorite authors.
So.
My list of twelve books/authors every kid should read by the time they graduate from high school. I'm not dividing it by sex, and I'm not including anything aimed directly at the YA market on the theory that they'll find those books for themselves. I wish I'd had space for some Pratchett, though.
1. Little Women by Alcott -- It's a great starting point for finding out more about the US in the 19th century. The grand tour, the transcendentalist movement, the differing social expectations are all there and provide a little foothold for next steps. I read Emerson's essays because I'd read Little Women
2. anything by Mark Twain -- Everyone goes to Huckleberry Finn and it's covered in most high schools. I hate it. The plot's great. It deals with ideas of freedom and loss. And it's written in dialect which drives me bonkers. My personal favorite is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but he's such a lovely and lively writer, that I don't feel prescriptive.
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe -- I only got potted Defoe until I was in my twenties, and even then I read Moll Flanders first. There are problems with how Friday is treated, but it's still one of the great adventure stories. The thing that struck me most forcibly was how incredibly practical Crusoe was. The wreck was unstable, but still available to him at first. So he made decisions. The first thing he got off the ship was every working pulley he could find and carry. Then he went for all the steel or iron implements because he would have no facilities for smelting. I love any book that shows people thinking their ways through the current problems to a better outcome. Plus, it's the first novel written in English.
4. anything by Jules Verne -- There are three fictional characters that I have serious, serious crushes on. I was introduced to two of them when I was about ten and the other one, D'Artagnan, around the age of twelve. One of them was Phileas Fogg from Around the World in 80 Days. *sigh* He's another practical character. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea is another favorite of mine.
5. One comedy, one history, and one tragedy by Shakespeare -- He's so important to the development of the English language that he has to be here. My first Shakespeare was MacBeth which I chose at age 12 because it was the shortest of his plays. These days I'd suggest Othello for the tragedy, even though Coriolanus is my personal favorite. As You Like It is, in my opinion, the funniest and most perfect of his comedies. And either Henry V or Richard III for the history.
6. anything by Jane Austen -- I've always preferred Sense and Sensibility to Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth's tight trousers not withstanding), but any of the six books would work.
7. Middlemarch by George Eliot -- I wish someone had pointed me at this book instead of the Bronte Sisters when I was a teenager. There are similar themes of bad marriages and adults needing to make choices as in Jane Eyre and the theme of forbidden love is handled more sensibly than in Wuthering Heights. Frankly, I gave up on Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff, jr. was hanging puppies in the kitchen. *shudder*
8. any slave narrative -- Seriously, we need to cover this from primary sources.
9. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle -- Sherlock Holmes is my other serious literary crush. I encountered him around the same time as Phileas Fogg. I like The Hound of the Baskervilles best of the books, but a case can be made for any of them.
10. There are several treasuries of World War I poetry. I would want one that included the Americans and Canadians as well as the British.
11. Foundation by Isaac Asimov -- I'd like the whole trilogy included.
12. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin -- I once told a friend that this was the best book ever written in English. I stand by that.
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Date: 2014-03-12 06:31 pm (UTC)Re Winter's Tale- I keep picking that up every few years, reading just a bit more, and then putting it back down because I keep going I will have finished it and I don't want to not be able to not look forward to reading it. (This does mean I will need to be careful to avoid any spoilers now that it's been made into a movie, but I wasn't much planning on seeing the movie anyway.) This is not a common reaction with me- I've been doing it with the very last Diana Wynne Jones book, and the very last unwatched episode of Sarah Jane Adventures. I suppose Helprin could go back and write something else still, but I it seems pretty unlikely from the limited amount I know about him.
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Date: 2014-03-12 06:41 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about certain experiences you just want to continue to be in the present tense rather than the past.
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Date: 2014-03-12 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-13 12:45 am (UTC)Maybe Twain liked girls better?
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Date: 2014-03-13 01:00 am (UTC)Boys need adventure? Girls should stick to romance?
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Date: 2014-03-13 01:29 am (UTC)Absolutely. For the right definition of romance.
Are you unfamiliar with Tennyson? ETA: I mean, I can understand objecting that Tennyson is too grimdark, too concerned with angst and death and blood-guts-glory, too cynical about love. But not that he's too girly.
ETA: Now with more vowels!
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Date: 2014-03-13 11:43 pm (UTC)I've read the Idylls and Maude, but, frankly, Tennyson just bored me. And Charge of the Light Brigade angers me. He made heroes of the officers that sent those men into a battle that should never have been fought. It was Kipling who wrote the Last of the Light Brigade to call attention to the poverty of Crimean veterans.
Later Kipling, most Browning (Robert or Elizabeth), are not bad. Love Keats and Wordsworth and Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyatt, but I'm generally not much for 19th century poetry.
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Date: 2014-03-13 06:26 am (UTC)I'd want to include at least one "How-To" book, appropriate to tech level and materials availability for the generation. (1940s Boy Scout Handbooks weren't bad for their day, but these days I'd lean towards The Dangerous Book For Boys or somesuch.) And actually *do* some of the projects; don't just read about them. Hands-on experience is good for dispelling learned helplessness.
If you're going for English stuff, toss in a good Kipling collection. His stuff is snappy, snarky, and not too mawkish for teenagers.
I want to suggest a good translation of Journey to the West - and quite possibly well before high school level. (I brought my well-loved copy to show and tell in grade school one year. Though I may be an outlier - the other kids laughed at me.)
Lord Of Light by Zelazny. Zelazny was one of the best word-crafters of the 20th century, and Lord of Light was one of his best novels. It asks useful questions about authority and power and religion and progress and human dignity and virtue.
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter. Because mathematics and art and philosophy are rightfully delightful.
...it's a bit tricky just at this moment because I'm packing to move and all my own books are boxed up. And I haven't read everything anyway, so there's always going to be some better choice that accomplishes my goals even better, but I'm just not familiar with it.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-13 11:56 pm (UTC)Now I think I may do a post on what non-fiction books everyone should be exposed to by age 20. I certainly like your suggestions.
Possibly, there should be a separate world literature one as well.