"Little Women," Louisa May Alcott
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Mark Twain
"A Wrinkle in Time," Madeleine L'Engle
"The Dark Is Rising," Susan Cooper
"Dragonwings," Laurence Yep
"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," Mildred D. Taylor
"The People Could Fly," Virginia Hamilton
"The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks," Katherine Paterson
"Eleven," Sandra Cisneros
"Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad," Rosemary Sutcliff
Does that list sound as terrible to you as it does to me? Imagine for an 11 year old. I don't think that all of these books are horrible but perhaps (i mean definitely) not the best choices. Why is good ya lit continuing to be written when "the classics" are still the only things allowed in the curriculum. I am s SHSU grad and now teach 5th grade Reading. We started out the school year with The Lightning Thief. My kids devoured it and now any book I start they have faith that it will be great because Rick Riordon's novel captured them from the start. Honestly, is not one of the biggest blessings we can give our students the love of reading? We have ample silent reading time with self selected books in my classroom because not only are the classics generally not relatable to my low SES kids but teaching a student how to read the blurb and self select a book is one of the strongest tools you can equip them with. Let's put some books in the curriculum like Rules, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Esperanza Rising or The Invention of Hugo Cabret... books were historical events and relatable emotions meet to form conversations about books that will linger in students' minds and leave them wanting more.
Stepping off soap box now...
Happy Spring Break!
