God, I hated The Old Man and the Sea. Ugh.

Jane Austen would qualify as not horribly depressing, I guess.

And Jane Eyre is happy ( and a total telenovela).

I think I might feel like your students when I try to read philosophy or really technical things, Kat. It is just like Charlies Brown's parents and I want to throw it across the room!

Jane Eyre is he first "real" book that spoke to me, but it was the anger Jane felt when she was unfairly locked in the red room, and the boarding school stuff. Not so much the Rochester stuff (I read it really young, like 8 or 9 and I lived in Rochester,so very confusing. Heathcliff(because of the cat comic strip, was also confusing)

ggested (gently) that it was actually OK if the kid just wants to reread her favorite books over and over

Heh. I still remember my dad putting a book on top of the fridge because he was tired of seeing me read it. Had there only been google at the time, he might have found out there was a sequel!

I don't remember much of my high school reading. Lots of Shakespeare, which wasn't all depressing. I found Medea entertaining because it was so ridiculously overblown.

I would never call Jane Eyre happy! I mean, there's hard-won happiness at the end, but there's a hell of a lot of awful crap before that. (That said, I adore it.)

Ben's a junior this year and so far they've read The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter.

BTW, as a natural speed reader I can tell you that reading slowly is not incompatible with loving to read. I've heard reading slowly called "the editor's gift". My single biggest problem in self-editing,especially self-proof reading is rushing through my MS too fast. I don't want to speak universally, since I'm sure there are good editors who are not slow readers, but I've been told that many of the great editors natural reading speed was a slow one. I wonder what modern editors think of calling reading slowly "the editor's gift".

David, which books would you suggest instead? Where are these happy happy joyful books?

Good question. One Hundred Years of Solitude?

Jane Austen? (Not that Emmett would particularly enjoy that.)

Winter's Tale?

My Antonia? (Which I loved in HS.)

Roberto Bolano?

I'm not saying Emmett needs to be spared from sad tales, but there's no variety. They're all very much social issues books which are taught as social issues.

I loved most of the books I read in high school, including Thomas Hardy! But I was a big reader by the time I got to hs and I had great teachers there.

There's so much great non-fiction, including long-form journalism, that I think would appeal to teens and teach all the things Sophia listed. Plus! graphic novels!

The last couple of years we've been doing a periodic cull of our books and passing appropriate books on to our friend who is a Baltimore City hs English teacher for her classroom library. It's so amazing to hear about which ones the kids really respond to. This year they've been loving the Sweettooth series. [link]

We just finished Pygmalion and The Importance of Being Ernest.

Nice. I love The Importance of Being Ernest SO HARD.

I've been told that many of the great editors natural reading speed was a slow one. I wonder what modern editors think of calling reading slowly "the editor's gift".

My natural reading speed is mach 10. But reading is not editing. It's entirely different. When I edit, it's not even remotely close to the speed at which I read. (Roughly, I edit at about 3 pages per hour -- that's 8 1/2 x 11" typeset journal pages, not manuscript pages; it's probably around 750-850 words an hour.)

(Of course if slow reading speed is the mark of a "great editor", well, it would be a bit presumptuous to call myself a great editor. But, you know, I know my way around a parenthetical, and I wield a mighty semicolon.)

Amy, Jane Eyre does have moments of sadness, but overall it's happy. I think the happiness of a book is not that it is conflict/difficulty/ or ____________-free. But it's that the end leaves you with a sense of contentment and satisfaction that the world of the characters is well.

Ironically, we're teaching a unit on happiness right now which is filled with awesome stuff. We're reading a Dickinson poem, articles about International Happiness Day, part of the Declaration of Independence, a quote from John Locke and one from Samuel Johnson, several NYT articles, including one called "In Pursuit of Unhappiness" and some of the work Daniel Kahneman has done. It's fantastically fun and interesting and thought provoking. Students will also conduct individual research as yet undetermined on happiness.

That is, in many ways, the gift of nonfiction. There's so much out there and it's awesome and diverse and deep (in terms of lots of stuff around a topic).

We will also read Stiff which is a favorite of my students and if I have energy we'll read In Cold Blood which is one of the most page turning books I've encountered.

School-wide, we're also teaching Unbroken, Nickel and Dimed, Botany of Desire, Into the Wild. I'm also trying to get copies of League of Denial but it's only hardback so it's spendy. I'd also love to get the Telling Room but it too is hardback only.

The best units I've seen have paired fiction and non-fiction. I just saw one that paired Of Mice and Men and articles and research on euthanasia. Generally it leads to a lot of richness. I'd like to see Winifred Owen plus All Quiet on the Western Front along with articles on the centennial of WWI.