William ,'Conversations with Dead People'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
This one has fantastic art, but doesn't shy away from the violence - [link]
We also have this pop-up book, which is gorgeous [link]
The best book in the WORLD to read to toddlers/preschoolers is Press Here. You press various dots on the pages and then on the next page they've moved. Then you have to blow the background color away, and then you have to clap to see what happens, and it is SO MUCH FUN.
For the record, here is Emmett's Depressing Reading List for 10th Grade:
Black Boy
A Stone for Danny Fisher (his choice. He enjoyed it but it still was sad. [they could choose from a short list of three books for this selection])
1984
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies
Like Water for Chocolate (he ranted about how stupid this one was. "And then she eats candles so she'll feel warm inside and wraps herself in a blanket and dies. It doesn't even make any sense?!!")
Things Fall Apart
Seriously, that's pretty bleak.
I had Existentialism as a high school elective that included Notes from Underground and The Plague.
I had Existentialism as a high school elective that included Notes from Underground and The Plague.
They should have been paying into a Fund for Tom's Therapy.
1. I've got a problem with an incessant Social Realist curriculum as if there are no other genres in high literature.
2. I've got a problem with the middlebrow glomming onto said Social Realism, when there are so many teachable aspects in genre literature. Fuck, you'll learn more about the world reading Hammett's Red Harvest than you will about reading Water for Chocolate.
3. Did you know there's a long tradition in English of something called the Comic Novel? Yes, even in the high literary canon.
I'm now remembering my junior year which included reading The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, Ethan Frome, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I'm surprised our teacher didn't hand out the number to a suicide prevention hotline with our syllabus.
Senior year was kind of fun, as our teacher was going through a bitter divorce and apparently subconsciously planned out the Men Are Scum curriculum: A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, and "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." We had to concede the point on most of those, but rose up as one to argue against Lady Macbeth being a poor victim of her husband's growing callousness.
Thanks for the suggestions everybody! I'll pass them along.
Now I'm wondering if The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie has enough literary heft to qualify as an assigned reading. Probably not, but I sure did love that book...
I don't remember Like Water For Chocolate being depressing or bleak, but I didn't read it for school, so. I mostly remember the funny/sexy parts.
I don't remember Like Water For Chocolate being depressing or bleak
That's what I said. Emmett assures me the guy dies of orgasm, and then she candle-eats herself to death.
I know a few of you in here read Feed (and Deadline) by Mira Grant; she published, for free, an alternate ending to Feed on her Seanan McGuire Facebook page.
It's really interesting!
FYI, here's the review I did of Feed awhile ago (Actually, the first post I ever wrote for my business blog!) [link] and the interview with Mira/Seanan I did last week: [link]
Blackout is out next Tuesday, 5/22!
Jean Craighead George died this week; Julie of the Wolves might be good for 7th grade girls. The NYT obit has some very funny anecdotes about animals in George's suburban house. [link]