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PJfanwillneverleave1
PJfanwillneverleave1 Posts: 12,885
edited May 2016 in A Moving Train
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Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on
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  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    Wow! :lol:
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • Enkidu
    Enkidu So Cal Posts: 2,996
    Do you remember the book? It's definitely a book that changed my life - I grew up in a small town in the south and my parents told me to read it to understand about black/white relations. And they were right. Lots of the town in the book were like my small southern home town.

    It's one of the most important books I've read. My children read it in school and I'm glad they did and I hope their children read it, too.
  • PJfanwillneverleave1
    PJfanwillneverleave1 Posts: 12,885
    edited December 2016
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    Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on
  • Who Princess
    Who Princess out here in the fields Posts: 7,305
    I don't think I understand why you object to kids reading it in school. It's an excellent piece of literature and it succeeds on more than one level. It captures small town life during a time that's nearly past living memory and it depicts the South and race relations during the Jim Crow era. I think it's valid for teens to learn about those things and they probably absorb more from reading a work of fiction than studying it in history class.
    "The stars are all connected to the brain."
  • PJfanwillneverleave1
    PJfanwillneverleave1 Posts: 12,885
    edited December 2016
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    Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on
  • Enkidu
    Enkidu So Cal Posts: 2,996
    This must be a joke thread. To Kill a Mockingbird isn't important and shouldn't be read in school? Why don't we add Shakespeare? Grapes of Wrath, Diary of Anne Frank (it's about a girl!). I mean, seriously?

    I read TKAM before we read it in school - in either 5th or 6th grade because my parents wanted me to read it. I think there are many towns (in the south or not) that could do with reading the book in 2016 to understand race relations. Sad, but true.
  • Who Princess
    Who Princess out here in the fields Posts: 7,305
    PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

    Who Princess said:

    I don't think I understand why you object to kids reading it in school. It's an excellent piece of literature and it succeeds on more than one level. It captures small town life during a time that's nearly past living memory and it depicts the South and race relations during the Jim Crow era. I think it's valid for teens to learn about those things and they probably absorb more from reading a work of fiction than studying it in history class.

    I don't object to it being in school. It just seems that the older we get the more we question things.
    Reading that book in highschool had no interpersonal interpretations at the time because I was just a kid doing what was told to pass in class.
    Unless you actively studied and interpreted this novel after reading it as a child it has no bearing on a childs life.
    It is a piece of literature yes, just that.
    Why does society to this day uphold this book to such a high degree? ,
    I guess you're saying you read it because you had to and you didn't think about it further? Did any of the other works of fiction you read in school stay with you?

    I didn't think deeply about everything that I read in high school literature classes but there were some books that generated lots of class discussion and that I remember vividly years later. TKAM was one of those books for me. Also, All the King's Men, Slaughterhouse Five, and Cry, the Beloved Country, for various other reasons. Other books I read may not have been as meaningful to me but made impressions on some of my friends.

    I wouldn't say that TKAM is "a piece of literature, just that." It's an excellent piece of writing. I haven't picked it up in decades but I still remember in particular Lee's gift for dialog.
    "The stars are all connected to the brain."
  • PJfanwillneverleave1
    PJfanwillneverleave1 Posts: 12,885
    edited December 2016
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    Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on
  • Who Princess
    Who Princess out here in the fields Posts: 7,305
    Black Like Me is a powerful book. It affected me very much.

    Side note: the author, John Howard Griffin, lived in the area where I grew up and his daughter and I were close friends in grade school. I spent many weekends at their family's farm. It was something of a jolt to read the book in high school and realize that the events had happened to the person who I had just known as my friend's dad.
    "The stars are all connected to the brain."
  • RKCNDY
    RKCNDY Posts: 31,013
    PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

    With the recent passing of the author it brought up memories of reading this book in grade 8 English.
    Long time since then and now I don't really comprehend the fanfare of keeping this book in the curriculum.
    Just got me thinking of who approves of what is taught in public schools.

    edit - This is not a RIP thread whatsoever. This is not being insensitive to what has happened. This is a thread about the book.

    There are a lot of ignorant people in this world...
    The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

    - Christopher McCandless
  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    edited February 2016
    There are so many levels to that book, so many themes, so many character revelations. Harper Lee wrote one book in her life (I don't count the other one recently released because it was rejected before TKAM was written and for good reason) and a person could spend one's life seeing those revelations unfold. I'm just now beginning to fully understand Boo Radley... and he's my favorite character. I'm still looking for the knot in the tree.
    Post edited by brianlux on
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • eddiec
    eddiec Posts: 3,959
    image
  • rgambs
    rgambs Posts: 13,576
    I didn't read it until 2 years ago, didn't have it in any classes. I thought it was a very good novel that would have great power for young people.
    I think the OP is just being contrary because she can't resist.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • josevolution
    josevolution Posts: 31,576
    As long as the bible doesn't make it back to the school curriculum I'm ok but TKAMB to me was a fascinating story that should be read by everybody ....
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
  • PJfanwillneverleave1
    PJfanwillneverleave1 Posts: 12,885
    edited December 2016
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    Post edited by PJfanwillneverleave1 on
  • Bentleyspop
    Bentleyspop Craft Beer Brewery, Colorado Posts: 11,409
    It absolutely should be part of educational curriculum.

    I read it in 3rd grade on my own and not as an assignment. Which led to many interesting and in depth conversations with my parents, teachers, and others over the years.

    Since then I have read it every 3 or 4 years and watch the movie at least once a year or more.
    Been to lectures and presentations on the book and or movie a few times over the years.

    As far as I am concerned there are no negatives to having this as part of a curriculum.

    This is a must read for everyone.
  • hedonist
    hedonist Posts: 24,524
    Just because one wasn't capable of absorbing that particular book at a certain age doesn't mean everyone else lacks that insight. I too read it before it was required - our parents encouraged reading from a young age. My sister still has the battered, dog-eared paperback we shared growing up.

    Anyway, it's early and eloquence escapes me at the moment, so I'll defer to the well-spoken comments above.
  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

    josevolution said:

    As long as the bible doesn't make it back to the school curriculum I'm ok but TKAMB to me was a fascinating story that should be read by everybody ....

    I have always said that the bible should be available in the curriculum to teach as part of English ficition like with greek mythical novels.
    The sooner we get people to regard the bible as just a book of stories the sooner the human race will improve. I mean it certainly is a well written novel and could teach a lot about ancient writing.
    I read the Bible. Parts of it make for good reading, interesting history, fascinating fantasy/sci fi, even sensual in parts (song of Solomon) but there are big chunks of that book that are simply stone cold dead on boring and mind numbing. If I used the Bible in a curriculum, I would (figuratively at least) tear out massive chunks of it first.

    I'd still much more prefer to use TKAMB. It has all the good stuff the long convoluted Bible has only written with greater clarity and certainly is more believable.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • tempo_n_groove
    tempo_n_groove Posts: 41,359
    I've never read TKAMB. I suppose I should.

    As for books in the cirrocumulus that should be removed id vote for "A midsummer nights dream"

    Also to add isn't this the book that was supposedly written by Salinger?
  • rgambs
    rgambs Posts: 13,576
    tempo_n_groove said:

    I've never read TKAMB. I suppose I should.

    As for books in the cirrocumulus that should be removed id vote for "A midsummer nights dream"

    Also to add isn't this the book that was supposedly written by Salinger?

    Never heard that, doesn't have Salinger's voice at all IMO.

    Also, yes that is one of the worst, along with Romeo and Juliet.
    It should be Merchant of Venice and Othello, along with Hamlet, Othello, and Julius Caesar.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?

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