General Discussion

*takes The Outsiders and Touching Spirit Bear and shoves them down your throat*

read them they are very good and the projects my class did for them were fun as well. cant remember what we did for The Outsiders since it was a long time ago but for TSB we built cabins, wrote journal prompts, and, i kid you not, basically wrote fanfiction for the book.

that was a fun unit.

Def not in school anymore but I really enjoyed The Outsiders when I first read it!

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
takes place near where I grew up and I really enjoyed the story. It has an interesting take on the different sorts of tragedies and events a person can overcome, and what that meant in the context of my own home in another time, and I thought that was really interesting to experience.

Things Fall Apart by Chenua Achebe
This one was really thought provoking and because of it I am constantly challenging how I'm viewing the world in front of me, and our ideas of right and wrong and how easily things can change when challenged by another because of this book. I really loved it.

Into the Heart of Darkness
I thought the criticism of colonialism in the congo juxtaposed really interestingly with reading Things Fall Apart 2 years prior. In Things Fall Apart, you have the pov of life at the beginning of the arrival. In this, you have a criticism of the ongoing acts from a different point of view.

@End0scrypt
I was just thinking about this story this morning while I was working, that's another good one.

Tbh my favorite reading for school has to have been the history books for college, and independent research. I love history, and information regarding the world around me and how events have led us to where we are.

Varjak Paw by S. F. Said !! i read it in elementary school for my reading group and it always stuck with me

Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle was a book I remember enjoying although it is written for kids

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. another book from elementary school

The Giver by Lois Lowry is of course a classic and so is 1984 by George Orwell

Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes. 6th grade me really really liked it

I recommend Lord of the Flies and The Outsiders to every single person who asks. To this day, the movie for The Outsiders is one of my top three comfort movies. Nothing like 60s found-family greasers. It's arguably queer-coded, if only at least to irritate the author.

Edit: PLEASE READ THE GREAT GATSBY I CAN'T STRESS THAT ENOUGH

i actually enjoyed the great gatsby and the tempest


oooh the outsiders was real good and so was the giver

I had to read Pride and Prejudice in my junior year of high school and actually enjoyed it.

It's one of those books that I've gotten to like more as I get older and understand more of the nuance.

Since this got some traction again, I'd like to update to say that I'll be reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck starting tomorrow! I think someone recommended that somewhere in this thread...

I read "Life of Pi" for my English list and really enjoyed it, it became one of my favorite reading list books. not much to say, it's just a really fun book to read.
"The Picture of Dorian Grey" was also fun, once I got used to the writing style (the pacing is bad, the story is good). I re-read this one fairly recently, and while getting through it was a slog, I don't regret it.
and while I didn't get to read them for my list specifically, I was allowed to write an essay about "The Lost World and Other Stories" (also known as the Professor Challenger series) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. if you're familiar with Sherlock Holmes and enjoy the writing style, PLEASE give Professor Challenger a chance, the books are really interesting and enjoyable to read.

for my Dutch list, I read "De Engelenmaker" (English: "The Angel Maker") which, despite being very upsetting and potentially triggering because of its themes, became one of my favorite books and is still a book I highly recommend.
again, not for my list but for an essay, I really enjoyed "Gevangenis met een Open Deur" which I don't think is available in English which is a shame. it has a slightly upsetting theme but handles it very respectfully. from the same author, and again tackling upsetting themes in a very respectful and to-the-point way, is "Koning van Katoren" which might be available in English and is one of my favorite books of all time, so if you can find it, please read it.

and for my studies, I read the "Mabinogion" by Sioned Davies. this is a translation of medieval Welsh stories and is incredibly fun to read, it has some old King Arthur mythos but also other stories and I think the Arthur stories are the least interesting ones of the bunch. be warned, these stories get weird, they're not suitable for kids, and in some cases viewer discretion is advised.
(and of course I have to give a mini-shoutout to all the King Arthur mythos inspired fiction I've read, those are always just really enjoyable, especially if you're into so-bad-it's-good things)