ABANDONED. YA Fiction- Short story about a boy with a list of 100 books

[Joseph]

I vaguely recall reading this story in my junior high or high school English Lit. book, so it was back somewhere between 1985 and 1995 that I read it, but I have no idea when it was first published since this was in a textbook. Although it would have to be sometime before 1995. It was a story about a boy who found this list of 100 books that if he read them they were supposed to make him smarter or improve his life or something like that. I remember there being a part of the story where the boy admits he doesn't really understand some of the books but he doesn't realize that that matters. I don't know if this will help any, but I distinctly remember the story was illustrated with a picture of the book standing in front of a book case that filled the whole page and if you looked at the books on the shelf, they spines were colored so that they gave the image of a side view of a face. Any ideas? Thanks.

[J]

Sounds interesting! Looking forward to the title to this one.

[Sofie]

There is a chapter in Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, called The Achievement of Desire, in which he reads a list of classics but doesn't understand a lot of it, or even the real purpose of reading it. Though I don't think that's the main point of the chapter. It's used in English classes a lot.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Joseph, could that be your book?

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Ok, sent him a PM. We'll see if he answers or not. If not, then I'm thinking that we can move this down to Abandoned.

[Joseph]

Sofie's response is a possibility. I'll have to look more into it when I get the chance. Thanks everyone for your help.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Do you want us to keep looking?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response, moving this to Abandoned.