“A wonderful story of triumph over imperfection, shame, and loss. Large, awkward, learning-disabled Maxwell Kane, whose father is in prison for murdering his mother, and crippled, undersized Kevin are both mocked by their peers; the cruel taunting they endure is all too realistic and believable. The boys establish a friendship-and a partnership. Kevin defends them with his intelligence, while Max is his friend’s “legs,” affording him a chance to participate in the larger world. Inspired by tales of King Arthur, they become knights fighting for good and true causes….The author writes with empathy, honoring the possibilities of even peripheral characters; Kevin and Max are memorable and luminous.”

For the past three years, my eighth graders have found it engaging, entertaining and moving. Here are ten reasons why you should consider reading it to your seventh or eighth grade class:

1. The main characters are seventh graders going into eighth grade, and they’re portrayed like realistic junior high kids.
2. Both characters are social outsiders, which does two important things: a) it gives the social outsiders in your own class someone to identify with; b) more importantly, it helps the rest of the kids in the class be more accepting of the differences of others.
3. There is a strong pro-reading anti-TV message to the story that doesn’t come off preachy, corny or phony.
4. The novel shows that a person’s value does not come from what they can do or not do, but from their very being.
5. The book constantly makes reference to Arthurian legends, always a popular subject with 8th graders.
6. Both boys and girls find the story compelling, from the adventurous antics and kidnapping subplot to concern over the treatment of those with disabilities.
7. The chapters are short enough to read at the beginning of class without cutting into the period too much.
8. With only 23 chapters, the book can be read in about a month.
9. Kevin is a loveable geek, and there aren’t enough loveable geeks in fiction
10. Finally, there are at least a half a dozen ways the book can be incorporated into literature, reading or religion class; a few examples:
    • As an exploration of what writing fiction is – Kevin often talks about the power of remembering, and the control a person has over what he or she remembers
    • As an example of how writing can be therapeutic – Max writes the story to get over the traumatic events of that year
    • As a discussion-starter for how to treat people with differences – Both Max and Kevin struggle with being different, and the book offers hope to those who feel left out

In a gesture of great generosity, Rodman Philbrick has made available at no charge a version of Freak the Mighty as a one- or two-act play. To get a copy of the play as a pdf, visit Mr. Philbrick’s website and follow the directions you find there. While you’re at the site, be sure to look at the teacher’s guide.

I also highly recommend the movie adaption, The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone, Kieran Culkin, Gillian Anderson, and James Gandolfini. Even the soundtrack is incredible, with the title song performed by Sting. Be sure to preview the movie before showing it due to some swear words and few “birdies” flying, if you know what I mean.

[Cross posted at Catholic School Chronicle]

Here are a couple of great resources to help you introduce this epic to your students:

Dante’s Inferno – A Virtual Tour of Hell

The World of Dante

Don’t let its age fool you–Dante’s Inferno is still one of the most captivating, readable, and thought-provoking works of literature in the world. Its division into relatively short cantos make it easy to use as a read-aloud. I started reading it once to a group of eighth graders with the intention of giving them a taste of it, but they wouldn’t let me stop until I had finished the entire Inferno. Students from that class still come up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed it, and how vivid it is in their minds still.

But don’t take my word for it–try it yourself.

The ten volume Gateway to the Great Books was published in 1963 by Britannica, and was designed to be a sort of literary boot camp to prepare readers to read the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World. The Gateway collection includes short fiction and essays by authors like Emerson, Hawthorne, DeFoe, Kipling, Voltaire, Lincoln, Pliny, Tacitus, Hume, and Chekhov. The works are divided into categories like imaginative literature, critical essays, society, natural science, and philosophy.

To get back into the habit of reading, this morning I chose Virginia Woolf’s essay “How Should One Read a Book?” I’ve never ready anything by Woolf before, and I was immediately drawn in to her prose. I don’t wish to write a full review here, but I will say that her essay is definitely don’t-miss reading for all literature teachers, and would be worth teaching to advanced junior high students or high school students. For a little more information on Woolf’s essay you can read Danielle’s reaction at A Work in Progress.

I’ll leave you with two quotes that stuck with me after I finished the essay this morning:

 Do not dictate to your author; try to become him.

And,

I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly on imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”

1. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler – If you’ve read Teen Literacy Tips for any length of time you probably know how much I value this book.  It’s the book that’s had the biggest impact on my own personal reading habits and on the way I teach literature.
2. The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major
3. Read for Your Life: 11 Ways to Better Yourself Through Books by Pat Williams
4. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia: Fourth Edition (Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia)
5. The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers by Nancie Atwell
6. In the Middle: New Understanding About Writing, Reading, and Learning by Nancie Atwell
7. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs & Reading Groups by Harvy Daniels
8. Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles by Harvey Daniels
9. Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical And Creative Thinking In Middle And High School by Matt Copeland
10. Socratic Seminars and Literature Circles for Middle and High School English by Victor Moeller
11. Reading for Understanding by Ruth Schoenbach
12. Building Academic Literacy: Lessons from Reading Apprenticeship Classrooms, Grades 6-12
13. Building Academic Literacy: An Anthology for Reading Apprenticeship
14. Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies: Modeling What Good Readers Do by Jeffrey Wilhelm
15. Going with the Flow: How to Engage Boys (and Girls) in Their Literacy Learning by Jeffrey Wilhelm
16. “You Gotta BE the Book”: Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents, Second Edition by Jeffrey Wilhelm
17. The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them
18. For the Love of Books by Ronald Shwartz
    
19. A Passion for Books : A Book Lover’s Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Love and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books
20. The Book on the Bookshelf by HenryPetroski
21. Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books by H.J. Jackson
22. The Delights of Reading: Quotes, Notes & Anecdotes edited by Otto Bettmann
23. The Reader’s Quotation Book, a Literary Companion edited by Steven Gilbar
24. Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize edited by John Hollander
25. The World’s Shortest Stories: Murder, Love, Horror, Suspense, All This and Much More in the Most Amazing Short Stories Ever Written, Each One Just 55 Words Long edited by Steve Moss

What’s in your library?

Guys Write for Guys Read is a collection of memoirs, fiction, poetry and art edited by Jon Scieszka for the sole purpose of encouraging boys to read. One minute it has you laughing out loud, and the next minute you’re reaching for the phone to call your dad. It’s irreverent, it’s funny and it’s going to be the Christmas gift I buy this year for every guy I know.

Five reasons young guys will like Guys Write for Guys Read:

1. It’s funny.
2. It’s got sports, girls and farts.
3. It’s got pictures.
4. It’s edited by Jon Scieszka.
5. It’s got the author of Captain Underpants.

Ok, maybe there are other reasons guys will like it, but those are the main ones. If this book is not in your classroom, you’re missing out on a great way to get reluctant readers to start reading.

Five reasons teachers will like Guys Write for Guys Read:

1. It’s edited by Jon Scieszka.
2. It’s funny.
3. The stories are short enough to be read aloud in class each day.
4. It’s got Stephen King, Gary Paulsen, Neil Gaiman, Lloyd Alexander, Eoin Colfer, Will Hobbs, Richard Peck, and Jeffrey Wilhelm, among others.
5. It will get boys hooked on reading.

I don’t have permission to include any stories from the book on this site, but NPR does, so I strongly suggest you hop on over to “Guys Read: Encouraging Boys to Love Books” where you can read two of the funniest stories in the book, “The Follower” by Jack Gantos and “Copies” by David Lubar.

For those concerned about the book stereotyping boys, there are plenty of stories that will help boys move beyond a narrow view of manhood. The book is not just about farts and vomiting (though it would be hard to imagine a guy book without them). There are some very powerful life lessons as well. One of my favorite lines from the book comes from Richard Peck’s memoir of his father: “Nobody a writer ever loved is dead.”

And “Training the Bear” by Will Weaver is worth the price of admission all by itself. Weaver’s brief metaphor of testosterone as “the bear within” is outstanding for helping boys understand what begins to happen to them in adolescence.

The book is perfect for boys who struggle to read, for fathers and sons to read together, or for women who want to understand the hormone machine that lives in their house (and I’m not just talking about the teenager). It’s PG-13, so read it first if you’re concerned about content–but you better buy two, because you may like it so much you won’t want to part with it.

Guys Write for Guys Read by Jon Scieszka

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

The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German foster child living in a small town during the late 1930s and early 1940s. What she witnesses and experiences is tragic enough, but what makes Zusak’s novel especially compelling is that the person narrating Liesel’s story is Death himself.

The brilliance of Zusak’s novel is the way Death relates the events of Liesel’s life. The narrator is possibly the most interesting of all the characters in the novel, and Zusak does a masterful job of creating a believable persona for Death. He has a kind of wisdom and sensitivity that one might find surprising from a being whose job it is to cart away the souls of the dead. Death also foreshadows and in some cases pointedly reveals all the major events of the story because he wants to spare his readers emotional pain. This is a caring, insightful narrator, and I came to think of him as the Angel of Death, rather than as simply death personified.

The characters are just as compelling, and though Zusak’s favorite character is Rudy, my favorite was Liesel’s father, Hans, probably because I’m a father myself. There are many characters with whom readers can identify: Liesel, the main character; Rudy, her best friend; Hans, her father; Rosa, her mother. Each of them comes alive on the pages.

The Book Thief also offers much to the developing reader. Students can study the narrative technique, the use of foreshadowing, and the interesting way the narrator interrupts the narrative with bold declarative statements and questions. The book also illustrates the power of words (both positive and negative), and the therapeutic value of reading.

For parents concerned about its content, The Book Thief can be disturbing at times, but, gratefully, Zusak shows remarkably effective restraint. There are occasional mild swear words (including German profanities), but these are minor compared to some other “young adult” books I’ve had to suffer through. The Book Thief also avoids the all-too-common tendency of many young adult authors to dwell on and overemphasize sexual topics.

The Book Thief is a powerful, important story that people will still be reading decades from now.

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.