I recently read The Kite Runner for a reading group. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: I really didn't like that book. I might even go so far as to say I hated it. (Which is particularly awkward since the chick who runs my reading group described it as "the best book she'd read in a decade.") Oy. That's gonna be a fun discussion this Monday.
What bugged me was the complete lack of honor, integrity and nobility in the protagonist. I can't say hero. He was in no way heroic. Maybe that's why I love romance novels so much. The hero (or heroine) in a romance novel would never just stand by and watch while someone close to him was attacked and molested. A true hero would have to be bound or drugged or paralyzed in order to display the level of despicable inaction in the face of crisis demonstrated consistently by the "hero" of The Kite Runner throughout the book.
The other day, I was venting about The Kite Runner to a good friend of mine who is a high school English teacher. She has it on the Recommended Reads shelf in her classroom because she is desperate to encourage literacy in her students. She recognized the fact that the protagonist was a terrible role model, but was having a hard time finding books to stock the shelf that had enough "literary merit" to be recommended without pissing off hyper parents yet still possessed characters that were actually good people who did the right thing.
So, in the interest of research, today's Gigolo Contest Query is of a slightly more serious bent: What books would you recommend that are 1) appropriate for high school eyes (light on the explicit sex & language) 2) at a reading level that will not frighten them off and 3) have characters behaving with honor and decency, even in the face of adversity?
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5 comments:
I got nuthin'. As a tyke, I read the Little House books (all of 'em). I inherited Huck Finn recently and tried to read it, but it didn't interest me and I didn't finish it. Maybe someday. My son, who is not a reader (unless you count comic books - and I do) is reading Treasure Island. He wants to read some classics - or so he says. My daughter read all of the Gosebumps books until she got into Harry Potter. Now she has a tyke of her own. So I think I am out of touch with what kids read.
Kelly
This is a really bad question for me. See, I was reading adult books by the time I was 8. My first adult book was Clan of the Cave Bear. If you haven't read it, the lead female is raped at the age of I think it was 12? Anyways, I grew up in a family where I was never told not to read or watch something do to sex or violence or anti-religious material. I personally don't care what someone reads as long as they are reading. Also, thanks for the mini review on the Kite Runner, I normally don't read these kinds of books and (not that I was thinking about reading this one) now I know that I won't read it! :D
Oh, and I did all of the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Sweet Valley High, Goosebumps, R.L. Stine, etc when I was a kid as well :)
Tough question for a lifelong voracious reader. I look back to what I enjoyed reading in high school and it spanned everything from Ayn Rand to JRR Tolkien to Thomas Hardy to Jean Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche. The Count of Monte Cristo was a favorite adventure tale, but it's long and the style may be a bit dense for people who aren't avid readers. Hmmm...does Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy qualify as literature?
My all time favorite is To Kill A Mockingbird. I loved Harry Potter.
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