Poll of the Day > What was the best book you had to read for school?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was super fortunate.

I read The Great Gilly Hopkins twice. Once in 4th grade and again 2 years later at a different school. And even as a kid, I always thought it was interesting that we had a protagonist who was literally, without a doubt, racist (she changes, of course)

IDK, I think it effected me as a kid more than anything else I read at that age. I wonder if they still have kids read it.

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"De Donkere Kamer van Damokles" (The Darkroom of Damocles in English translations)

I was advised to read it by my Dutch teacher, as I was struggling with finding Dutch books that interested me at the time (little to no Sci-Fi or Fantasy on the official reading list). It genuinely is a good mystery book and in some ways focusses more on the psyche of the main character, than the war he is getting himself involved in. (Yeah, a lot of "good" Dutch literature are WW2 resistance books)


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Where the Red Fern Grows in elementary school. Frankenstein in high school.

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The Hobbit in the 5th grade. The material I'd been given since then really went downhill, culminating in copious amounts of madness and death in mid-to-late high school, and me having to find stuff on my own.

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I can't read way to rub it in my face ya jerk

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None of them, because we were always assigned pretentious bullshit

The ones I REALLY liked were The Outsiders and Johnny Tremain.

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The Mosquito Coast

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I've always enjoyed looking at maps of military engagements and orders of battle, so I think my favorite book I read for school was The Sinking of the Bismarck by William L Shirer.



The Bismarck was a new breed of fast battleship, displacing 50,000 tons with a top speed of 30 knots, a 12.6 inch armor belt, eight 15 inch guns, and equipped with radar. On her first operation at sea, the Bismarck, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, engaged the British battlecruiser HMS Hood and the battleship HMS Prince of Wales. The British opened fire at 0552, and at about 0600 the Bismarck's fifth salvo hit the Hood from 18,000 yards away, setting off an explosion in the magazine which blew off the stern. The Hood went under in just three minutes, taking all but three of the 1418 man crew with her. The Prince of Wales, a slower ship with 14 inch guns and suffering serious damage, was able to withdraw but one of her shells managed to damage the Bismarck's fuel tanks, contaminating her fuel supplies and forcing her to steer for Brest in occupied France.

The destruction of the Hood caused the British to throw every resource they had available into hunting down and destroying the Bismarck. Less than a day away from the protection of the German U-boat fleet and the Luftwaffe, the British were finally able to find the Bismarck, slow her down, and engage her.

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The only ones I remember are Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird so I guess one of them

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But if you mean books we were forced to read, rather than books we got to pick ourselves, probably Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQxDAsi9gEs

Though I remember getting to have some fun with Macbeth. A fellow classmate had a box of donuts and everyone was bugging her but she wouldn't let anyone have one. So I said, "Is this a donut which I see before me?", and she said, "OK, you get one."


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I Am the Cheese

I remember that the true nature of the story isn't revealed until the last couple of chapters, and since I finished the book like 2 weeks before the class was supposed to my teacher said I couldn't be involved in any discussions on it until the last one.

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The best books are the ones I've read on my own.

The best required book I read was The Great Brain, in 5th grade.

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To Kill a Mockingbird immediately comes to mind, I really enjoyed that one.

I would also recommend Maus, which is a graphic novel about a Jewish man living through The Holocaust.

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To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind.

Also, The Stranger by Albert Camus really resonated with me in grade 11.

In university, for a course on educational psychology when I was doing my education degree, we had to read a book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. It was a first person story from the perspective of a kid with autism, and it really changed the way I looked at autism.

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Mine were 1984, Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird (Catcher and Mockingbird were required reading: Animal Farm and 1984 weren't). Then again I'd also read short stories from Ray Bradbury, O. Henry, Washington Irving, etc. at the time; so my reading list was pretty well rounded.

I can't remember allll required reading from back in the day, but Lord of the Flies I thought was pretty good

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I honestly don't remember a lot of them.

Maybe The Outsider/Stranger by Camus? That's the one I remember the most.

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Blightzkrieg posted...

I honestly don't remember a lot of them.

Maybe The Outsider/Stranger by Camus? That's the one I remember the most.

came in here to say the stranger. fucking loved that book when I read it.

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None. And honestly I couldn't finish any book that was required for us read. Everything from Mark Twain to Shakespeare and everything else was just terrible.

However, I did enjoy reading about history and astronomy on my own time.

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I just read two good ones:

Tattoos of the Heart by Gregory Boyle
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Probably Of Mice and Men. The only other 2 I can recall was To Kill a Mocking Bird and 12 Angry Men. The latter I enjoyed a lot more.


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I wound up liking Pride & Prejudice. Although if we're talking objective quality, something like 1984 would probably take it. That said, there's probably something better that I'm forgetting.


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I really liked A Day No Pigs Would Die, Bridge to Terabithia, Hatchet, The Martian Chronicles, Animal Farm. Among others mentioned here like Lord of the Flies and Where the Red Fern Grows. I cant pick a best a lot of stories brought something to the table.

I used to read a lot and I forget which ones were required and which ones I picked out myself ha.

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The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Well that was my favourite I dunno bout technically best. We also had To Kill A Mockingbird, A Kestrel for a Knave, Animal Farm and Macbeth. For my English Literature O Levels I chose Chrysalids as my main book and Kestrel. Turns out I chose right and got a Grade 1 distinction (highest mark). Others tried to get fancy with the Shakespeare but I skipped that crap.

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Rumble Fish

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Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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In elementary: Where the Red Fern Grows

In high school: Treasure Island

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Firewerx posted...

Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I never had to read that for school but I read it a few years ago and it was equally engaging and terrifying

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Metalsonic66 posted...

I never had to read that for school but I read it a few years ago and it was equally engaging and terrifying

It's soul-crushingly depressing when you appreciate how difficult it is to prove O'Brien wrong.

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Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse 5, love me some Vonnegut.

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they made us read some edgar allen poe in high school and that stuck with me to the point where i could recite the entirety of tell-tale heart by memory

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Lord of the Flies.

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Step By Wicked Step comes to mind.

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The only one I really remember is Holes only because we also got to watch the movie.

Now I want to watch the movie again.

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Ender's game.

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trodi_911 posted...

The only one I really remember is Holes only because we also got to watch the movie.

Now I want to watch the movie again.

I remember that book/movie. It wasn't very popular at my school though, don't recall anyone reading it for class. I only heard of it later in life.

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