What's On My Nightstand ("Are 'Classics' Really Must Reads" Edition)

The last few weeks, I've been reading The Secret Garden out loud to our 7th grader for her Language Arts class. I remember starting this book as a kid, and a copy of it has remained on my shelf for all these years because, "it's a classic!" But as I read it through this time with my daughter, I remembered why I lost interest in it early on as a child. The language was over my head, the written Yorkshire accent lost me, and the story just really wasn't that interesting. I was looking for somet...