Reading List: English 9/10 (WONDER CORE)
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
—Franz Kafka
Fall
—Franz Kafka
Fall
The Odyssey
Sirens and Cyclopses and Sea Monsters! Oh my!
Years after the end of the Trojan War, the Greek hero Odysseus still hasn't come home to Ithaca. Most people figure he's dead. But we don't: Homer lets us know right away that Odysseus is being held as a (willing) captive on the island of the goddess Calypso. Oh, and sea god Poseidon is ticked off at Odysseus, and sees no reason to let him get home. Back in Ithaca, Odysseus' wife Penelope is getting swarmed by a horde of unwanted suitors. Penelope's son, Telemachus, now a typically moody teenager, gets a visit from the goddess Athena (who was always chummy with Odysseus). She tells him to go looking for news of his missing father. The grandaddy of all adventure stories, The Odyssey sets the bar for imagined monsters and complicated, morally compromised heroes. This is where our modern love affair with mythology and the Hero's Journey begins. |
Of Mice & Men
A road trip full of hope and heartbreak.
Lennie and George are best friends on a road trip, but this isn't that fun kind of road trip with wacky adventures. They're broke and looking for work on the farms of Northern California. The broke part is a problem, since they're planning on owning a farm someday. George is the brains behind this operation, while Lennie is, well, a few crayons short of a 164-colors box. Based on Steinbeck's own experiences in the 1920s, the title is taken from Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse", which reads, in English: "The best laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry." |
A Wizard of Earthsea
Before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone there was A Wizard of Earthsea.
In A Wizard of Earthsea, we meet a young boy who is wild and proud, then we see him make a terrible mistake and face something that he's not powerful enough to deal with. Once he's grown up a bit, we see him try to fix the terrible mistake he made. Long before Harry Potter came along, Ursula Le Guin's 1968 novel imagined what a school for wizards would be like. Ged, its hero, will become the Archmage of a world in which magic is as common as electricity, but this is a tale from before that time. It's a coming-of-age story with wands, spells, mystery and heartache. |
Spring
Lord of the FliesBefore The Hunger Games there was Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies, Nobel Prize-winner William Golding’s 1954 novel, is generally accepted as a disturbing allegory of humankind in the 20th century. The story of a group of British schoolboys marooned on an island, Golding uses their predicament to investigate mankind’s inherent savagery. The novel greatly influenced writers of horror and post-apocalyptic fiction. A modern companion to the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the novel has been called a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, and even a vision of the apocalypse. |
NightIt all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's heartbreaking masterpiece—a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. The memoir details Wiesel's experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust toward the end of the World War II. Wiesel's story remains essential reading. It's the terrifying record of the author's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. |
An Introduction to PoetryPoetry is the art of using words charged with their utmost meaning.
Kennedy & Gioia's, An Introduction to Poetry, continues to inspire students with a rich collection of poems and engaging insights on reading, analyzing, and writing about poetry. Both noted poets themselves, the text's editors X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia write of their subject with wit and a contagious enthusiasm. First published in 1966, this 13th edition includes more than 500 of the discipline's greatest poems, blending classic works and contemporary selections. It aims to help students read poems closely, providing a basic introduction to the elements of poetry. |