Thank you for this! You prompted my own list. I didn't start reading for pleasure anything that was considered "great literature" at the time until I was in college.
What fun this is! And tough to choose for this fellow book lover but I’m going with the books I re-read often.
Pokey Little Puppy (according to my mom, I picked the book over all others when I wanted someone to read to me)
Encyclopedia Brown (yes!)
The Secret Garden (still have my copy)
Any Judy Blume
The Outsiders
Last year of high school, Anna Karenina (I loved my world literature class and my teacher; still love Russian literature and re-read Anna about every ten years or so)
While it wouldn't make my list, "The Outsiders" reminds me that "That Was Then, This is Now" was a huge favorite. And yes on Judy Blume and Encyclopedia Brown too!
Just realizing now how much this book makes me look like I'm approximately 80 years older than I actually am!
But this also brings up the thought I've been having lately, in trying to get books my daughter will enjoy: she has an incredibly hard time with anything that takes place before about 2010. Our culture and way of navigating the world has changed so much with cell phones that I have to explain too many things, and her interest flags quickly; we tried reading Henry Huggins, and a world where a boy is independently taking the bus to/from the YMCA and he has to find a dime to call home was just incomprehensible to her.
The world of Anne of Green Gables and her puffed sleeves was more familiar to me than the world of Beverly Cleary is to my daughter.
That link sent me to an instant flashback. That's amazing.
And your point about the changing world and potential disconnects is interesting. I was a fan of the Great Brain series of books which were set in the early 20th century (as I recall) and none of it felt too out of touch with the 1970s. This is something really worth thinking about.
My loving memories of reading in middle school revolve around the Nancy Drew series and Black Beauty. Then, drudgery of reading took hold. However, my junior English teacher assigned Rebecca. Between Mrs. Danvers’ cruelty and Maxim’s avoidance, I returned to reading for pleasure. I became a high school English teacher because of this experience and worked to help students find a book(or two :D) that were a good fit.
I'm curious how old you were when you read The Women's Room. I read it for the first time in 9th grade, and re-read it many times after. It shaped a lot of my thinking for a long time.
What a great bit of analysis at the top. I would love to see you write a piece on the genre “You Elites Are Screwing Things Up, Signed, We Elites" and pitch it to The Atlantic.
Your progression of favorite books brought back to me how foundational "Starship Troopers" was for me at 11. When I read "Enders Game" a few years later, I began to understand how genre works to give readers and writers a structure of shared meanings that grows over time.
"Enders Game" and its sequel did more to shape my politics than any political history or any other non-fiction I have read with the possible exception of "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" by William James, which has the same themes as "Speaker for the Dead" without the aliens.
It's interesting to consider how genre exposure may shape one's perceptions. I was not a big science fiction reader as a kid, though I did read some Heinlein and Asimov. I don't think I read Ender's Game until I was an adult. I think those spy novels helped stoke my interest in politics that developed when I was pretty young.
My own engagement with genre flipped the order. I came to spy novels late, through reading John le Carré's Smiley books well after college and finding in them a reflection of the academic bureaucracies where I made my living, just with much lower stakes. This has left me with a bias where I see a novel like Creation Lake as more literary and adult compared to something like Oryx and Crake or The Road, which feel more juvenile.
Pat Conroy was another adult author I would've been reading in early high school. Both Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline were great. I think I even read Prince of Tides when it came out.
I mention it more fully in a comment above, but I was a huge Conroy fan and Lords of Discipline was probably my favorite book for a long period.
And coincidentally, I recently read Conroy's "My Reading Life", which is quite wonderful (and totally in the spirit of this post; it's really a book length version with lots of biography as well).
I graduated high school in the late 1970s. My favorite books were Garp and East of Eden. As I realize now they were both large scale messy fascinating family tales. My other favorites were MASH which I read after loving the movie and TV show and All the Presidents Men because I thought I wanted to go into journalism. None of these were assigned school reading.
I wasn’t much of a reader back then, but I would say The Great Gatsby was my favorite. It struck a chord with me because I was not a “cool kid” in high school. In high school I mostly read sports books and to this day John Tunis remains one of my favorite authors. I have a collection of his books and within the past year or so finally got around to reading a few that I had not read as a youth. College is where I really became a reader!
So much to think about! I let my Atlantic subscription expire, so I had not read the article, but had seen the headline-which is a bit apocalyptic. I’m glad to read both your breakdown of the flaws in the argument, and that of Carrie M. Santo-Thomas. As for your favorite books, we share two in common! My go to gift for babies and young children is Richard Scary. I spent hours as a young child pouring over those books. Sadly, I no longer have my original copies. And Bridge to Terabithia was a deeply impactful book for me.
I allegedly lugged around and recited Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever from age 2-4.
The next thing I remember being in love with was the Anne of Green Gables series around age 14. I wasn't an obsessive reader until the 1990s BBC Pride and Prejudice series got me to read the actual book. I couldn't believe how funny it was! I subsequently read more Austen (which sent me down a long rabbit hole of 19th century British literature) but P&P remained my high school favorite. And I think I probably loved the fact that really none of my contemporaries were the least interested in her. It was a secret knowledge that made me feel special!
My experience with assigned reading was different from yours, it seems. I had an amazing HS English teacher and I don't remember having to write any boring papers. We simply read and discussed. Cold Sassy Tree and My Antonia are the clear standouts for assigned books that shaped me in HS.
i had a similar experience trying to read p&p! when my english teacher told me "it's supposed to be funny", reading it and anything else slightly challenging became such a pleasure.
so fascinating- to read and to think about. would love to see an extension of your list into adulthood!
0-5 Mary Betty Lizzy McNutt's Birthday by Felicia Bond
6-7 The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
8-10 The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink
11-12 The Last Silk Dress by Ann Rinaldi
13-15 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
16-18 (not sure this counts as a book) Franny and Zoey, Nine Stories by JD Salinger
For what it's worth, in 2002-2006 for my BS, I was required to read WAY less than i was required to read in high school. I'm not the click-bait target elite audience for the Atlantic, obviously. but i'm homeschooling my elementary aged child on literature-based liberal curriculum and i am a bit aghast at all my own childhood & adolescence lacked, literary and culturally. i'm pleased to see a bit of a similar desire for better-read children/young adults. now let's do something about it!
Thank you for this! You prompted my own list. I didn't start reading for pleasure anything that was considered "great literature" at the time until I was in college.
Millions of Cats
Wicked Pigeon Ladies in the Garden
Harriet the Spy
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
The Hobbit
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (!)
Fletch
It didn't come to mind while I was writing, but Fletch would've been high on my list during high school. Loved the whole series.
Have you read Carrie Santo-Thomas’s Substack about the article (The Atlantic Did Me Dirty)?
I just saw the link scrolling through Notes this morning. Very interesting, and not that surprising. I'm going to add it to my post.
My two favorites from high school: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor.
What fun this is! And tough to choose for this fellow book lover but I’m going with the books I re-read often.
Pokey Little Puppy (according to my mom, I picked the book over all others when I wanted someone to read to me)
Encyclopedia Brown (yes!)
The Secret Garden (still have my copy)
Any Judy Blume
The Outsiders
Last year of high school, Anna Karenina (I loved my world literature class and my teacher; still love Russian literature and re-read Anna about every ten years or so)
Judy Blume could've substituted for my 11-12 years slot, probably. I was a Judy Blume completist.
While it wouldn't make my list, "The Outsiders" reminds me that "That Was Then, This is Now" was a huge favorite. And yes on Judy Blume and Encyclopedia Brown too!
Not sure if you're aware of this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-game-30th-anniversary-edition
But for my books:
0-5- Anything by Margaret Hillert
6-7- Thornton Burgess and/or Miss Pickerell
8-10- Nancy Drew
11-12- Anne of Green Gables
13-15- P.G. Wodehouse
16-18- Jane Eyre
Just realizing now how much this book makes me look like I'm approximately 80 years older than I actually am!
But this also brings up the thought I've been having lately, in trying to get books my daughter will enjoy: she has an incredibly hard time with anything that takes place before about 2010. Our culture and way of navigating the world has changed so much with cell phones that I have to explain too many things, and her interest flags quickly; we tried reading Henry Huggins, and a world where a boy is independently taking the bus to/from the YMCA and he has to find a dime to call home was just incomprehensible to her.
The world of Anne of Green Gables and her puffed sleeves was more familiar to me than the world of Beverly Cleary is to my daughter.
That link sent me to an instant flashback. That's amazing.
And your point about the changing world and potential disconnects is interesting. I was a fan of the Great Brain series of books which were set in the early 20th century (as I recall) and none of it felt too out of touch with the 1970s. This is something really worth thinking about.
My loving memories of reading in middle school revolve around the Nancy Drew series and Black Beauty. Then, drudgery of reading took hold. However, my junior English teacher assigned Rebecca. Between Mrs. Danvers’ cruelty and Maxim’s avoidance, I returned to reading for pleasure. I became a high school English teacher because of this experience and worked to help students find a book(or two :D) that were a good fit.
Billy and Blaze (entire series)
Black Beauty / Black Stallion / Misty of Chincoteague (tie)
The Outsiders
The Women's Room / Catch 22 /
Tell Me a Riddle
All the Pretty Horses (not an actual horse book)
laughed out loud at your three horse books tying, BIG SAME for me!
Thirding on the horse books!
I'm curious how old you were when you read The Women's Room. I read it for the first time in 9th grade, and re-read it many times after. It shaped a lot of my thinking for a long time.
What a great bit of analysis at the top. I would love to see you write a piece on the genre “You Elites Are Screwing Things Up, Signed, We Elites" and pitch it to The Atlantic.
Your progression of favorite books brought back to me how foundational "Starship Troopers" was for me at 11. When I read "Enders Game" a few years later, I began to understand how genre works to give readers and writers a structure of shared meanings that grows over time.
"Enders Game" and its sequel did more to shape my politics than any political history or any other non-fiction I have read with the possible exception of "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" by William James, which has the same themes as "Speaker for the Dead" without the aliens.
It's interesting to consider how genre exposure may shape one's perceptions. I was not a big science fiction reader as a kid, though I did read some Heinlein and Asimov. I don't think I read Ender's Game until I was an adult. I think those spy novels helped stoke my interest in politics that developed when I was pretty young.
My own engagement with genre flipped the order. I came to spy novels late, through reading John le Carré's Smiley books well after college and finding in them a reflection of the academic bureaucracies where I made my living, just with much lower stakes. This has left me with a bias where I see a novel like Creation Lake as more literary and adult compared to something like Oryx and Crake or The Road, which feel more juvenile.
Moby Dick, still is after 55 years.
High school, 1969-1971:
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. (A movie tie-in)
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsy. (He was in the news all the time then.)
Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. (Another movie tie-in.)
Serious readers often mock movie-tie-ins but they certainly did set me on a path.
All time favorites by the end of high school
Different Seasons by Stephen King (still have the paperback I purchased in the late 80s).
Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy (went to a military school so it was fitting)
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
Pat Conroy was another adult author I would've been reading in early high school. Both Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline were great. I think I even read Prince of Tides when it came out.
I was on a Conroy kick around that time (early 90s) and read all 3 (Santini, Discipline, Prince) pretty much back to back
I mention it more fully in a comment above, but I was a huge Conroy fan and Lords of Discipline was probably my favorite book for a long period.
And coincidentally, I recently read Conroy's "My Reading Life", which is quite wonderful (and totally in the spirit of this post; it's really a book length version with lots of biography as well).
I graduated high school in the late 1970s. My favorite books were Garp and East of Eden. As I realize now they were both large scale messy fascinating family tales. My other favorites were MASH which I read after loving the movie and TV show and All the Presidents Men because I thought I wanted to go into journalism. None of these were assigned school reading.
For nonfiction I would've put All the President's Men right behind Tom Wolfe as a favorite. I was strangely fascinated with the Nixon administration.
I wasn’t much of a reader back then, but I would say The Great Gatsby was my favorite. It struck a chord with me because I was not a “cool kid” in high school. In high school I mostly read sports books and to this day John Tunis remains one of my favorite authors. I have a collection of his books and within the past year or so finally got around to reading a few that I had not read as a youth. College is where I really became a reader!
So much to think about! I let my Atlantic subscription expire, so I had not read the article, but had seen the headline-which is a bit apocalyptic. I’m glad to read both your breakdown of the flaws in the argument, and that of Carrie M. Santo-Thomas. As for your favorite books, we share two in common! My go to gift for babies and young children is Richard Scary. I spent hours as a young child pouring over those books. Sadly, I no longer have my original copies. And Bridge to Terabithia was a deeply impactful book for me.
I allegedly lugged around and recited Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever from age 2-4.
The next thing I remember being in love with was the Anne of Green Gables series around age 14. I wasn't an obsessive reader until the 1990s BBC Pride and Prejudice series got me to read the actual book. I couldn't believe how funny it was! I subsequently read more Austen (which sent me down a long rabbit hole of 19th century British literature) but P&P remained my high school favorite. And I think I probably loved the fact that really none of my contemporaries were the least interested in her. It was a secret knowledge that made me feel special!
My experience with assigned reading was different from yours, it seems. I had an amazing HS English teacher and I don't remember having to write any boring papers. We simply read and discussed. Cold Sassy Tree and My Antonia are the clear standouts for assigned books that shaped me in HS.
i had a similar experience trying to read p&p! when my english teacher told me "it's supposed to be funny", reading it and anything else slightly challenging became such a pleasure.
so fascinating- to read and to think about. would love to see an extension of your list into adulthood!
0-5 Mary Betty Lizzy McNutt's Birthday by Felicia Bond
6-7 The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
8-10 The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink
11-12 The Last Silk Dress by Ann Rinaldi
13-15 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
16-18 (not sure this counts as a book) Franny and Zoey, Nine Stories by JD Salinger
For what it's worth, in 2002-2006 for my BS, I was required to read WAY less than i was required to read in high school. I'm not the click-bait target elite audience for the Atlantic, obviously. but i'm homeschooling my elementary aged child on literature-based liberal curriculum and i am a bit aghast at all my own childhood & adolescence lacked, literary and culturally. i'm pleased to see a bit of a similar desire for better-read children/young adults. now let's do something about it!