RTW: Favorite Class Read

Road Trip Wednesday is hosted by YA Highway–the “YA” standing for “Young Adult.” Many young adults have been returning to school over the past week or so. In recognition of this, the YA Highway team want to know:

What’s your favorite book that you had to read for a class?

There are two ways I could answer this, because there are books I was required to read, hated at the time, but grew to like when I read them in later years, and there are some books that I actually liked at the time I was told to read them. Granted, the latter category is, sadly, very small. But if I were to pick a book from each, here’s what I would choose:

A book I had to read that later became a favorite: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. I’ve talked about this book so much, do I need to repeat how much I like it? That I consider it to be the closest thing to the perfect novel? That it’s a masterclass on how to write a novel? How, if, like Harper Lee, I was only to publish one novel, I could only hope it would be as good as this? You get the point.

As for a book I had to read that I enjoyed at the time, that would be FREIDRICH by Hans Peter Richter. I don’t remember too much about the book itself, except that the title character is a Jewish boy living with his family in Nazi Germany, just as Hitler’s persecution of the Jews begins. We see the horrors of Nazi oppression within the context of this family, told from the perspective of Freidrich’s German friend. From what I recall, it’s not a happy story (you probably figured that out), but I remember thinking that it was well-written and thought-provoking. I should probably get a copy and re-read it. Interestingly, both these books were required reading from the same teacher.

Have you a favorite book that was required reading in school? Drop a note in the comments, or blog about it and join the Road Trip at YA Highway by putting a link to your article in the comments there.

Some Housekeeping Notes:

• I’ve made a couple of changes to the blog pages (i.e., those tab things at the top) you may or may not have noticed if you’re a regular visitor. First, my “Novel” tab has gone. Yes… I’m officially retiring The Novel. Which means, I think I’ve queried it enough for now. The response I’ve had so far indicates that now’s not the time for this novel. It probably needs further polishing, and right now I’m concentrating effort on the WIP. Maybe it’ll see the light of day sometime in the future. We’ll see. I still like it, so I’m not giving up hope with it. Just moving on for now.
• Second, for those who are interested, I’ve added a “Sunday School Notes” tab. The new Sunday School session starts up at our church this coming Sunday, and the class I teach will be continuing our study of Romans. As before, I will post study notes on the blog every Tuesday. To help those who want to catch up on previous study notes, I’ve compiled links to all the previous posts in that tab.