What It Is

[McNeil]

Hi, and welcome. Although I said in the "group description" that this would be a forum for the discussion of American lit., I would like to broaden that. I am not going to give you a reading list to plow through over the summer in order to prepare yourself for the class next year. What I want you to do is to READ A LOT and to record what you are reading and your thoughts about it. If you want to get together with others and read the same book, that's great. It makes for good discussion. But I want to get to know you as a reader by pretty much sitting back and observing.
I expect at least one post per week, and I'd love it if you could read for an hour a day. If this seems like an insane demand, to be told to read a book of choice for an hour a day, then you need to head straight down to the counselors and get out of the class. You will just be in so much agony all year--it's painful to watch.
Regarding the "book of choice" criteria. I'd like it if you would challenge yourself just a little--maybe every other book, every third book? I don't care if you read Harry Potter and Twilight, but if those are the only things I see all summer long, I'LL be going down to the counselor's office to change MY schedule (j/k). Oh, by the way, j/k is about the extent of my texting knowledge, so please use real words and sentences in your writing.

If you want to read non-fiction, religious, self-help, etc. that is fine and will be interesting to see; however, I want the bulk of your reading to be FICTION.

If I throw out suggestions for books, please don't feel obligated to read them. The whole kissing up thing could wreck a great summer of reading. Next fall I will be the bane of your existence when it comes to obligatory reading, so save that eagerness for then.

Finally, please be notified that the suggestions I give will probably not be things approved by the KSD Curriculum Council, and could contain things that you find to be offensive. I will try to warn you, but if it's been a while since I read a book, I tend to not remember those things, since they are not, of course, what made the book memorable and valuable enough to me that I would recommend it to another. Obviously, if something offends you, stop reading it!

I am looking forward to getting to know you over the summer, and I hope you are excited, too.

[Rosey]

So when we read that every other book, does it have to be one from your list or can it be any classic that we want?

[McNeil]

No, it does not have to be from the list! And it does not have to be a "classic." Just--let me put it like literacy guru Nancie Atwell does: you know those books that you can get totally absorbed in --even when you're on an airplane or your little brother is screaming? Yet they are not necessarily that memorable? If they are a series, they kind of all run together in your mind, that sort of thing. Atwell calls these books "holiday" books. They are excellent fun, and I highly recommend that you read A LOT of these over the summer. Like candy! On the other end of the spectrum you have books that fit in the "challenge" category. Plato would be a challenge. Saramago would be a challenge. Books with a lot of dialect, tricky narrative devices (complicated flashback, multiple narrators, etc.), vocabulary that is challenging (usually because somewhat archaic--there are a lot of words common in Victorian novels, for example, that we simply don't use very much any more. Or the diction is especially terse or poetic in such a way that your brain has to really work to figure out what is even going on. Then there is the "just right" book--it isn't too hard to read, but it's not just a holiday, either. You might need a little quiet space to read, you might need to read more slowly, and you might have to think a little with a just right book. What I would like you to read several (intentionally vague...get used to it...) of these "just right" books this summer in addition to whatever you consider to be just fun holiday reading. We'll be doing books that will probably be more in the Challenge category during the school year. If you want to read super challenging stuff all summer, rock on. Just don't feel like you have to wreck the joy of reading for the sake of this "goodreads" thing. It's summer!!! Yay!!! Joy of reading!!

[Rosey]

By the way, have you read Blindness by Jose Saramago?
that one seems interesting.

[McNeil]

Rosey wrote: "By the way, have you read Blindness by Jose Saramago?
that one seems interesting."

Yes, I read it two years ago. I will have to say that I came out of that one very unsure as to what I had just read. I was pretty certain that the whole thing--the whole blindness--was just symbolic, but I didn't quite get what it was symbolic OF, if it was supposed to be a specific thing, anyway. Not just a sort of general commentary on society deal. AND--there is A LOT of POOP (literally) in that book. And some graphic sexual stuff. I don't recommend it if you don't feel comfortable with that sort of thing. It was all true to the situation, i.e. not gratuitous at all, and I wouldn't want the book to be any different than it was, but I'm not sure everyone on the planet will adore it.

I have the movie on my Netflix queue, but I've heard it doesn't do the book justice. (surprise surprise.)

I'm not some big censor, I'm just giving you a heads up is all.

PS to my recollection there is nothing objectionable (ah, my memory, though!) about The Cave.