First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys.  Not that all months aren’t rare.  But there be good and bad, as the pirates say.  Take September, a bad month: school begins.  Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet.  July, well July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school.  June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.

But you take October, now.  School’s been on a month and you’re riding easier in the reins, jogging along.  You got time to think of the garbage you’ll dump on Old Man Prickett’s portch, or the hairy-ape costume you’ll wear to the YMCA the last night of the month.  And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.

Bradbury is the perfect author for October: from Something Wicked This Way Comes to The Halloween Tree to The October Country, Bradbury’s stories evoke the month’s crisp air and golden colors as the year begins to die.  Even the titles of his short stories echo the mysterious atmosphere of October: “The Coffin,” “The Scythe,” “There Will Come Soft Rains,” “The Last Night of the World,” “The Golden Apples of the Sun.”

If you’re looking for books to recommend to your students during the month of October, start with Ray Bradbury, but don’t forget October Sky (Rocket Boys) by Homer Hickham and by October 1964 David Halberstam.

You can also add to the October atmosphere in your classroom by reading October poetry and playing October music:

October Poetry 

• October by Hillaire Belloc
• Poem in October by Dylan Thomas
• Especially when the October wind by Dylan Thomas
• Maple Leaves by Thomas Baily Aldrich
• October Twilight by Edith May
• The Indian Summer by John Brainard
• Sonnet – October by William Cullen Bryant
• October by Paul Laurence Dunbar

October Music:

• Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994 by Sting
• October by U2
• “This is October” by Ceili Rain from Change in Your Pocket
• Songbird by Eva Cassidy, featuring “Autumn Leaves,” “Fields of Gold,” “Oh, I Had a Golden Thread,” and “Over the Rainbow”
• October Road by James Taylor
• “Forever Autumn” by Justin Hayward on The Best of the Moody Blues
• “Golden Autumn Day” by Van Morrison from Back on Top
• Moondance by Van Morrison
• Down the Road by Van Morrison
• Autumn by George Winston
• Jazz Moods: Sounds of Autumn
• Autumn Dreams by Danny Wright

First, it’s developed by extremely literate students. According to Atwell, students at the Center for Teaching and Learning read about 40 titles a year. At the end of the year, every student is asked to recommend books. As Atwell explains,

In June, all the boys and girls at our school help us create master lists, organized by grade level and gender, of the inviting, accessible books that they’ve loved best. These “Kids Recommend” lists contain the books students name in response to this question: What 10 to 12 books do you love so much that you think they might convince a _____-grade girl/boy who’s a lot like you—except that she/he doesn’t read much—that books are great? The answers are available to our students and their parents over the summer, as well as other teachers and the general public here at our school’s website.

Second, the list is updated every year:

Students update the lists annually, because the field of children’s literature changes so quickly. While a handful of titles do maintain their popularity over the years—S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1968), the novel that created the field of young adult literature, continues to speak to kids—most drop off and are replaced over time.

The lists are sorted by gender because “in general, their tastes in books aren’t the same, after the primary years. At the middle-school level, the overlap in titles is only about twenty percent.”

Here are links to the lists:

Boys’ Recommendations, Grades 7-8

Girls’ Recommendations, Grades 7-8

And for your colleagues who teach primary and elementary students, here are the rest of the lists:

Boys’ Recommendations, Grades 5-6

Girls’ Recommendation, Grades 5-6

Boys’ Recommendation, Grades 3-4

Girls’ Recommendation, Grades 3-4

Recommendations for Grades 1-2

Recommendations for Kindergarten

Atwell hopes that these lists

will set a trend. Our ultimate goal is a whole network of websites of great titles, nominated by K-12 kids who choose and read their own books in all kinds of school settings: their favorite titles each year, as the go-to resource for selecting literature for classroom libraries in many communities across America.

I plan on asking my students for their recommendations at the end of the year, and I encourage you to do the same. If you already have a list of student-recommended titles, leave a link to it in the comments section and I’ll put all the lists together on one page.

I could have called this 300 Recommended Science Fiction and Fantasy Books if I would have listed every book in a series, but I limited myself to the first book, or the series name if the books have been published in an omnibus edition.

Like any list, this one is subjective and biased. Still, I think you’ll find it a good introduction to some great books in the genre. The obligatory books are there, as well as some forgotten gems. I tried not to put anything on the list that I had not personally read or at least heard a great deal about. I also tried to keep junior high and high school students in mind.

In a nutshell: it’s my list, so there!

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50 Science Fiction Titles

1. The Annotated Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott
   
2. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
3. The Plague Dogs: A Novel by Richard Adams
4. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
6. Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
7. Eon by Greg Bear
8. The Demolished Man byAlfred Bester
9. A Case of Conscience by Jame Blish
10. Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
11. The Exiles Trilogy by Ben Bova
12. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
13. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
14. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
16. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
17. The Forever Machine by Mark Clifton
    
18. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
19. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
20. Dorsai by Gordon Dickson
21. The Annotated Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
22. Time and Again by Jack Finney
23. Alas, Babylon byPat Frank
24. The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
    
25. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
26. Red Planet by Robert Heinlein
27. Dune by Frank Herbert
28. Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
29. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
30. Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
31. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.
32. The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
33. Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
34. Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien
35. 1984 by George Orwell
36. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
37. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
38. Berserkers: The Beginning by Fred Saberhagen
39. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
40. On the Beach by Neville Shute
41. City by Clifford Simak
    
42. Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
43. In the Balance: An Alternate History of the Second World War by Harry Turtledove
44. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
45. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
    
46. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
47. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
48. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
49. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
50. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

50 Great Fantasy Titles

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams
2. Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson
3. The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
   
4. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
5. The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs
6. All the Bells on Earth by James Blaylock
7. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
8. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
   
9. The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
11. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
12. The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
13. The First Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson
14. The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
15. The Belgariad by David Eddings
16. The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
    
17. Magician: Apprentice by Raymond Feist
18. Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
    
19. Lord Darcy by Randall Garrett
20. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
21. She, King Solomon’s Mines, and Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard
22. Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was by Barry Hughart
    
23. Redwall by Brian Jacques
24. The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan
25. The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 1) by Guy Gavriel Kay
    
26. Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz
27. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
28. Lankhmar: Tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber
29. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
30. Lilith by George MacDonald
31. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
32. The Iron Tower Trilogy by Dennis McKiernan
33. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip
34. Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip
35. Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock
36. Silverlock by John Myers Myers
    
37. His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1) by Naomi Novik
38. The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake
39. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
    
40. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
41. Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen
42. The First Swords by Fred Saberhagen
43. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
44. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. Lyonesse by Jack Vance
    
46. Tales of the Dying Earth by JackVance
47. The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr.
48. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
49. War in Heaven by Charles Williams
50. The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams

Quick Review

If something is in the public domain–literature, art, music–then, as the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Guide states, “it is not protected by intellectual property laws…which means it’s free for you to use without permission.”

The Stanford guide explains that most books enter the public domain because their copyrights have expired.  These books include “any work published in the United States before 1923.” Other works may be released into the public domain by the author or creator. The volunteers at Librivox.org, for instance, record audio books of public domain texts and release the recordings into the public domain.

Public Domain Literature in Schools

Thanks to sites like Project Gutenberg and Librivox, there is an ever-growing repository of public domain materials that we can use in our classrooms at little to no cost. Last year I used short stories by Chekhov, Hugo, Poe and Tolstoy, to name a few.

I photocopied the stories and poems and asked students to put them in their three-ring binders, creating a dynamic textbook that grew as the year progressed. We do have a literature anthology at my school, which we used occasionally, but students can’t mark up a page with their notes as they can with the photocopied public domain texts.

Using public domain texts also allows me the freedom to change stories from year to year. I’m not dependent on the stories in the literature anthology. There are, however two big disadvantages to using public domain texts.

Disadvantages

First, relying solely on public domain texts means you are limited to teaching older, mostly Euro-centric material. Books like Bless Me, Ultima, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird or Ender’s Game are not yet in the public domain, and teaching these books requires that they be purchased. Still, there are enough high-interest titles in the public domain to teach students how to read well.

Second, there are no teaching materials when you use public domain texts. Anthologies come with study questions, vocabulary words and other teaching ideas. With public domain texts you must either buy ancillary materials, find resources on the Internet or create your own materials. I actually believe this is an advantage, since it frees the teacher from dependence on someone else’s interpretation of the text. I think we give students too many study questions and vocabulary words. Hand them the text, show them how good readers read, and let them get to work on it, discussing it with them as they go.

Conclusion

I have a lot more to say about how to use public domain literature in the classroom, but for now I’ll close by linking to a recommended reading list of public domain titles that could be used in a junior high or high school classroom. There are almost seventy titles on the list, but I could have listed seven hundred. This is just a beginning. There is no poetry or drama on the list, so you won’t see authors like Walt Whitman or William Shakespeare, though their works, too, are in the public domain.

If you decide to use public domain texts, be sure to read Prepare a Gutenberg Text for eReading from Lifehacker. It will show you how to make the Gutenberg texts readable and printable.

I call the list “Open Source Literature” because, similar to programs like Firefox and Linux, users can take these texts and adapt them, change them and use them in any way they want.

Here, then is the link to Open Source Literature.

The only thing I can figure is that since I read some of their books ten years ago when I made the list, they think I just copied titles and called it good. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have spent over seventeen years teaching literature to junior high students, and in that time have formulated my own opinions regarding what teens like to read.

I contacted Scribd this afternoon, and Jared Friedman, president of Scribd, has already replied to my email, directing me to file something called a counter-notification, which I have done. Hopefully the matter will be cleared up shortly.

If I have violated copyright unintentionally I will correct the matter and post a new list. But I can’t for the life of me imagine how my personally developed list could violate copyright.

And I’m not sure what the SFWA has to gain by requesting that the list be removed. That list does nothing but encourage people to buy their books. I don’t know if Cory Doctorow is a member of the SFWA, but I’m going to send him an email and let him know about the situation to see what he thinks. He’s been advocate for Creative Commons ebooks for awhile and he might be interested in this.

Regardless, I guess I’ll take it as a compliment that what I’m doing here is attracting some attention.

What do you think? If you’ve seen my list, do you think it violates copyright? And if you’re the member of the SFWA who reported it, maybe you could provide some explanation of what exactly I did wrong.

• 15 Mammoth Books for Teens – I’m not sure why, but this is my most popular document, with 494 views.
• ROMAN Reading: 5 Practical Skills for Transforming Your Life through Literature – My ebook has been viewed 421 times since I released it three months ago.
• Dead Poets Society Teaching Unit – 292 views since August 1
• 300+ Recommended Books for Junior High Students – This was the second most viewed document in August with over 250 views. Update: This link will not work because of a copyright allegation. See this post for more information. (August 27, 2007, 3:50 PDT)  Update #2: Scribd has re-enabled the list after not hearing back from the SFWA about my counter-notification.  (September 11, 2007, 2:55 PDT)
• Chronological Middle-earth Reading List – 169 people viewed this document in August

Scribd is a great place to share your documents with the rest of the world. Why not upload some of your homemade teaching materials and make them available for other teachers to use?

Paul Harvey’s the Rest of the Story and More of Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story: My students love these short, true stories. They always have a twist at the end, and the kids love trying to figure them out.

Sudden Twists by Burton Goodman: I don’t typically like adapted stories, but this short collection has proven to be very popular with my students.

The World’s Shortest Stories: Murder, Love, Horror, Suspense, All This and Much More in the Most Amazing Short Stories Ever Written: Each of the stories in this collection are exactly 55 words long. After reading them for a few days I ask students to write their own 55-word story.

3 Minutes or Less: Life Lessons from America’s Greatest Writers: Great reflections and anecdotes that can lead to some deep discussions. Be sure to preview these before reading, as some of the content may not be appropriate for middle school.

Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up: Barry always brings a laugh, especially his four-part series on bad music: “Mustang Davey,” “The Whammies,” “The Worst Songs Ever Recorded,” “And the Winner Is…”; When I read these articles I bring a homemade CD of the bad songs he mentions for students to listen to, including “Having My Baby,” “Muskrat Love,” “Achy Breaky Heart,” and “MacArthur Park.”

The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class: This nonfiction book is kind of a “cultural literacy” collection. Each day has a different theme: Monday is History, Tuesday is Literature, and so on. I haven’t used this in class yet, but I plan to introduce it this year.

Clifton Fadiman’s Fireside Reader: Some of these fiction and nonfiction read-alouds are too long to read in ten minutes, but every one of them is high quality. Includes authors like Chekhov and Thucydides.

Out of Print But Worth Looking For

100 Great Fantasy Short, Short Stories: This anthology edited by Isaac Asimov contains some real gems, including several variations of the three wishes story and the darkly ironic “Give Her Hell.”

Microcosmic Tales: Also edited by Isaac Asimov, the collection features short short science fiction stories.

100 Malicious Little Mysteries: And yet another quality Asimov-edited collection.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories Not for the Nervous: A collection of macabre stories edited by the master of horror. Be sure to read “Don’t Look Behind You,” “The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes,” and “For All the Rude People.” These usually take 20-30 minutes to read, so plan accordingly. “Don’t Look Behind You” makes a great Halloween story.

I teach 6,7,and 8th grade Science. I love books and really want to include some novels into the curriculum or even just as something I have the kids do.
The lang. arts teacher reads The Giver and A Wrinkle In Time with them, so I need some more ideas. Anyone use anything good that I could use?

If you’re in the same situation, or if you’re a language arts teacher looking to add some science content to your curriculum, here are four books you might consider:

Flatland by Edwin Abbot – I love this little book. It’s maybe more appropriate for math teachers, but it’s a fantastic book. It tells the story of A Square and how he learns about the third dimension. As he learns about our dimension, we learn about possible fourth and fifth dimensions. It also helps students with a few basic geometric concepts. It’s short, its funny and it educates. Highly recommended and available free online.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – Most people think of censorship issues when they think of this book, but it also deals with issues relating to the impact of technology on our lives. Our seventh graders read this book every year. The ending is a bit weak, but Bradbury always gives students food for thought and discussion.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly – A bit much for 6th or 7th grade perhaps, but a great exploration of the ethics of science. I taught this a few times to eighth graders, and students were amazed at how much depth there was to the story compared to the movies and our cultural conception of the monster. For literature teachers it’s also a great exploration of the shadow character. Also available free online, it would make a good companion to a study of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

October Sky by Homer Hickam – I personally haven’t read it, but it’s a title you might consider. I’m only familiar with the movie and the rough details of the story.

If I had to only recommend one, I’d go with Flatland. Your students will love it and so will you.

“Does anyone read them? I’ve made a start and have gleaned one or two tidbits to fill in some gaps the story, but I’m not sure I can make it through the “Chronology of the Westlands” or “The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age.” I suppose I should read them once so I can feel that I’ve read the whole book, but it’s a bit painful. Has anyone else out there read them”

Not only have I read them, but to me they’re one of the reasons I love Tolkien so much.  He was a world-builder, and he called his philosophy of writing “subcreation.”  He believed that when a writer created a text he was imitating God’s creative action in the universe.  For more on Tolkien’s beliefs about subcreating see his essay “On Fairy-Stories” and his beautiful but largely unknown story “Leaf by Niggle.”  Both can be found in The Tolkien Reader.  “Leaf by Niggle” is one of the most poignant and spiritual stories about artistry that I’ve ever read. Anyone who creates anything should read it: writers, painters, architects, and so on.

So when Tolkien added the appendices to The Lord of the Rings it was because there was so much more to his subcreated world than could fit in the narrative.  No other author in the world has created as believable a fictional backstory as Tolkien has.  Middle-earth is the most comprehensive imaginative world ever developed.  The appendices reveal more about that world and its inhabitants.

To enjoy the appendices and Tolkien’s posthumous publications, one needs to approach them in a different manner than one approaches The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  The reader needs to have the mind-set of a historian, or a student of Middle-earth anthropology.

For those interested in reading the entire history of Middle-earth from beginning to end, I’ve put together this “Chronological Middle-earth Reading List.”  I give this list out each year to my eighth graders when we read The Hobbit.

So, yes, the appendices are worth reading, but not in the same way the rest of The Lord of the Rings is read.

Lesson Plans and Other Teaching Resources

The Great Books Foundation – Essential website for learning Shared Inquiry Discussion, the best way to get kids talking about books

ReadWriteThink – Fantastic database of lesson plans and student tools

ROMAN Reading: 5 Practical Skills for Transforming Your Life Through Literature – My ebook about how to read a book

Children’s Literature Web Guide – Mostly for K-6 teachers, but some valuable resources

Linda’s Links to Literature – General resources for teaching literature

Today in Literature – A good place to get literature trivia or to find some interesting tidbit for the beginning of class

Eduhound – Resources for teachers in all areas, not just literature

Reading Aloud to Children – Some helpful hints and suggestions

Quotiki – When you need a writing prompt or something inspirational for you bulletin board this is a great resource for finding and saving quotes

Professional Development:

TeacherClockHours.com – Every professional workshop and conference in one location. For teachers in Washington State, soon to expand into other states.

Making Meaning in Literature – Don’t miss this free online workshop for 6-8 teachers from Annenberg Media–you won’t believe the quality of these materials.

Conversations in Literature – An amazingly produced and developed free video workshop for 6-12 teachers from Annenberg, complete with hour-long video training sessions

Wikiversity: Education – Wikimedia’s online learning resources for educators and those interested in teaching

Wikiversity: Language and Literature – Wikimedia’s online learning resources for the study of the langage arts

Laura Robb’s Reading Workshop Resources

Nancy Patterson’s Literature Circle Lessons

Judy Lightfoot’s Teaching Page

Online books and poetry

Project Gutenberg – The king of all online book sites

How to Prepare a Gutenberg text for eReading – An easy way to format Gutenberg texts so they can be printed and read more easily

Online Books Page – Second only to Project Gutenberg in stature, but a bigger book database

Google Books – Searchable, readable books online with links to places you can borrow or buy them

Google Scholar – Search scholarly literature; includes full-text books

Wikibooks – Open-content textbooks
Librivox – Free audio book classics

The Poetry Archive – Recordings of famous poets reading and discussing their poems

Best Places to Get Free Books – A nice collection of links

MiddlewebCinderella Stories – from the Children’s Literature Web Guide

SurLaLune Annotated Fairy Tales

Book Lists

300+ Recommended Books for Junior High Students – The eighth grade reading list for my students is now available in .pdf format

Literary Testosterone: 30 Must-Read Classics for Teenage Boys

Mr. Senger’s Students Teen Book Reviews – My junior high students have been writing book recommendations for teens since 1990, and now I have over 400 recommendations on 3×5 cards that I am trying to enter into this database.

15 Mammoth Books for Teens – A .pdf reading list of long books for teenagers

Recommended Fantasy Author List – One of the best resources for fantasy fiction on the Internet for many years

Robert Teeter’s Great Book Lists – A comprehensive collection of recommended reading lists

Novel Guides – Lots of good resources for teaching individual books SCORE Cyberguides

Glencoe Study Guides

Penguin Groups Reading Guides

ReadingGroupGuides.com

Modern Library Reading Group Guides

Sparknotes Literature Guides

Litsum

Course Materials for the Study of Science Fiction

Instructor Guides from HarperAcademic

Book Clubs Resource

Reference SitesOnline Etymology Dictionary

Encyclopedia Mythica

Cliffs Notes Online

Online Tools for Students

Gradefix – Students enter their homework and how much time each assignment will take, and Gradefix automatically calculates when to study and for how long. A great tool for procrastinators and their parents.

Stu.dicio.us – For students to keep notes, track grades, organize projects and homework, and collaborate with others

Yahoo Answers – Students and teachers can ask and answer questions on any topic

Research Tools

MyStickies – Put sticky notes on web pages to keep track of relevant information

i-Lighter – Allows students to highlight and write notes about web pages; great for Internet research

Easybib – Answer questions about your reference source and Easybib shows you how it should look in the bibliography

Ottobib – Enter the ISBN of any book and Ottobib gives you the bibliographic information you need for your research paper in MLA, APA, and other styles.

Cl1p.net – An Internet notepad that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connectionYourdraft.com – Collaborative writing on the web

Thinkature.com – Collaborative brainstorming and mapping

Collaborative Mind Mapping – another collaborative brainstorming site