Student Reading

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Readicide by Kelly Gallagher. There is a huge discussion about the book on the English Companion Ning - I highly recommend reading through it. There are so many great idea and points to ponder throughout.

At the end of the book is a huge list of books that are of high interest to students who aren't that motivated to read. As mentioned last week, I hit the used bookstore to find as many as I could for the upcoming year. I now has enough books to last me for the rest of the summer if I don't finish painting the living room. Or anything else. On the other hand, they are pretty easy to get into, which is the point, I suppose.

The first one I dove into was How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. The description promised an end of the world theme (which is my favorite), and given our days of sunshine lately I thought it a good start. There's nothing worse that reading a depressing book while it's raining and let's face it, teens do seem to enjoy a good depressing story. Anyhow, although there is war and deprivation, the events are not apocalyptic. There is romance, sort of... although it's somewhat scandalous. However, a former student told me "boy, that seems to happen in a lot of books these days", so maybe it's not? Are cousins who date still considered incestuous?

I can say that it was suprisingly not that depressing, given the whole war, separation and death action going on, nor was there any foul language, weird slang (even though it's set in England) and the sex was pretty much glossed over - if there was any. It was really glossed over. That is also why I have to say "romance... sort of." The main character is female, but she is neither simpering or grandly heroic, which seems to make her all the more realistic.

I probably will be recommending it to students.