Dd12 is supposed to be reading a "challenging" book each quarter for her 8th grade lit class. They are having individual literary discussions with the teacher about the books they read and doing other activities surrounding these books. Each child has a different book, so s/he can read something totally different from the other students.

Last quarter dd read Lord of the Flies, which she didn't love but didn't totally hate. In general, I'd say that she likes futuristic novels, horror, and some realistic fiction when there is personal conflict with which she can somewhat relate. She used to like SciFi, but not so much anymore. I can't say that she's loved most of the classics she's read.

Some of the possibilities she's come up with for this quarter include Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher (which is most probably too short), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, or The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. She's leaning toward The Bell Jar.

Does anyone know if there is anything in there that is grossly inappropriate for a 12 y/o? I must admit that she'd read things recently, like The Lovely Bones, that I'd probably rather she'd not and I'm getting to the point of doing less reading censoring. She's also read stuff like The Art of Racing in the Rain that she loved and that wasn't at all questionable, but those types of books probably won't constitute "challenging."

Given that she has been able to read pretty much anything up through college text books since she was about 8, I think that the only way to get to challenging is to go with older books that are written in less modern language, books that have been translated from another language, or books with themes that she might not immediately understand even if she can easily read the book itself. Unfortunately, a lot of books that fall into that category don't really interest her.

I love ' Jane Ayre' to first few chapters are high on 'gifted appeal.'

Has she read Pride & Prejudice yet? <3 I read Les Miserables at about that age, too.

Or, if she does like scifi or futuristic novels, she might try something by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars or Forty Signs of Rain would both be good choices). His heroes are scientists, there is a strong flavor of economic and social justice, and also a focus on ecological sustainability. It is very "literary" compared to pretty much all other science fiction I have ever read.

So sorry, I can't remember at all if Bell Jar is appropriate or not, it has been too many years. Could you google it or grab Cliff Notes or track down an old friend who is an english prof?

Selecting books is just so hard for us. Whether our kids are in K reading 5th grade books, or in Junior High ready for anything. It is a balance and a struggle, but I do know we owe it to our kids to make sure they are both challenged and protected if necessary (I guess I have a lot of memories of nightmares from what I read when I was a kid).

My best advice is to print off a list of books (or get it from her teacher) and figure out some she might be interested in and that will work. Sit with her to select 5 or so and figure it out from there (does she read a lot? if so, she could start a book and if it didn't work, well, she could try the next one of the group. If the teacher won't let her switch, well, could she read some ahead of time?).

Cat

I read the Bell Jar in one sitting when I was 20. I felt down about it for the whole next day (sort of a minor feel-like-I've-been-hit feeling).

It deals very heavily with the heroine's suicidal musings and her various attempts at killing herself. She ends up in a mental hospital; here's a quote from the Wikipedia:


Apart from the mental illness theme, she also considers her sexuality. Overall, I think the book is too mature for twelve-year-olds, but YMMV.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article.

Val

I must admit that the suicidal stuff scares me partially b/c I went through my own struggles with that in my teens. I don't know that introducing the idea that people struggle like that makes one more likely to do so, but I worry about it none the less.

That was exactly what made me shudder when I read The Lovely Bones after dd. She is young. She seems old for her age and she's very centered, but she's not at the point of impending sexuality. The Lovely Bones starts with the rape and murder of the main character. There are also various parts where it discusses the sex life of the main character's parents and her younger sister, who becomes sexually active at 14 after her older sister dies. She, conveniently, stays with and eventually marries that boy and doesn't get pregnant until after they are married.

I'm really not prude, but having my 12 y/o read about sex, sexual violence, and the sexual musings of those older than her is daunting for me.

I agree with you here. When my kids ask about sex, I'll honest (they're still young; the eldest is 10), but that doesn't mean that I think it's a good idea for them to get exposed to complex ideas related to sex or suicide or whatever when they're too young to really understand what these things are. They don't have the background yet.

Hope that made sense.

Val

The Metamorphosis? Nineteen Eighty-Four?
DH suggests Beowulf.

I tend to agree with Val on The Bell Jar--of course it seems likely that if you tell not to read it she might be even more inclined to read it. The suicidal stuff--esp. written by someone who ultimately followed through with it--would concern me more than sex and even violence.

I loved reading Les Miserables and suggested it to dd9 for our next bedtime read-aloud but she didn't go for it. Sorry I don't have any other suggestions--this is already a challenge and I can't even imagine how much more difficult it will be in a few years!

I agree that delving into the psychology of sex and suicide (especially suicide) is probably not a good idea. In my experience, reading a matter-of-fact record of adult experiences (such as war, sexuality, or mental health) differed significantly from reading material delving into the psychological experience of an adult experience. I was quite interested in war as a kid and read a lot of history books, The Iliad... It was an entirely new game when I read All Quiet on the Western Front, which chronicles not only the more-factual side of war but exegetes the psychology of a soldier's experience, and it was more than I could deal with as a young teen.

Since she likes horror, scifi, and fiction with conflicts, she might like The Jungle (mostly pg/pg13 subject in there), something by Jules Verne (lots of good novels with less mature content), a Russian novel (In the First Circle is a pretty appropriate book about spiritual and politic conflict in characters, as well as some of the implications of communism), or perhaps a longer Poe story/collection of stories (his tales of deduction and of imagination are based in rationality rather than in psychology with respect to the horror).

I don't read Sci fi, but DS recommends:

Enders Game (Orson Scott Card)
House of the Scorpion
Forever War (Haldeman)
anything by William Gibson, Philip K. Dick

P.S. I think Bell Jar was highly depressing & would say no to that one.

My daughter, then 13, enjoyed The Prince and the Pauper for one of her self-selected summer readings before 9th grade.

DS choose Enders Shadow for his first self-selected novel earlier this year as he had read Enders Game a while ago. He seemed to enjoy it also.

Definitely not the Bell jar.

Les Miserables - a tad long even omitting the detour to the Battle Of Waterloo. Still the only book to have moved me to tears.

A Tale Of 2 Cities or Nicholas Nickleby - once you get to grips with the 'archaic' language Dickens can'rt be beat for drama, colour, pathos and raw human emotion - briliant!

Thanks for the continuing ideas.
Dd's teacher has deemed all of Poe's writing too short and she has already read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I'll look into seeing if Verne wrote anything else that might appeal to her.

Asimov's "Foundation" series - for some deep philosophical questions about being and destiny.

For Russian literature, I think the Bulgakov novel The Master and Margarita might appeal to a thoughtful twelve-year-old with a bent for the fantastic, or perhaps the works of Nikolai Gogol. Has she read any Kafka? The Castle is wonderful and hilarious.

I have a fondness for Stanislaw Lem; I think your daughter might enjoy The Cyberiad, The Star Diaries, A Perfect Vacuum, and many others. Other science-fictiony ideas of mine, off the top of my head, include The Sirens of Titan and War with the Newts.

Some of the books that my 11yo has recently (well, within the last year or so) read for school/extension activities:

Jack London's Call of the Wild
The Red Badge of Courage,
Pride and Prejudice
Othello* (but be aware that there are sexual elements of this play)
Romeo and Juliet* (ditto on the above)
A Midsummer Night's Dream* (ditto on the above, though less obvious here)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Fahrenheit 451
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Night


* These are available as fantastic "side-by-side" editions with the full unedited text on one page and the modern English equivalent on the facing page. My daughter first read R&J that way when she was about seven-- it helped her follow the play when we saw it that year.

I'd think that To Kill a Mockingbird or Something Wicked This Way Comes would be terrific choices. While the subject of rape is an uncomfortable thing, TKaM is not, by any means graphic in its treatment of that subject. Do be aware that there are racial slurs used in that book. (When DD read that, we talked a long time about the meaning of the word "common" as a choice of genius on the part of Harper Lee.)

One thing that I try to be careful of is to preserve those few novels that are slated for the curriculum as "pristine" where we can. I saved TKaM for DD for this fall because even though she could have read it a year ago, I knew that her 9th grade English class would be reading it. It's hard enough that she generally reads so much more than her classmates-- it just takes the joy out of it if she's read something several times by the time she sees it in school. BTDTGTTS.




We definitely struggle with reading material around here, as well. I haven't been able to completely vet content since DD was about eight; she just reads so darned FAST. My DD loves John Grisham, Dan Brown, and Jodi Piccoult, but wowie-o... I warn her off of stuff that has overt sexual content. She's just not ready for it, so she actually appreciates me telling her "No, it has sexual content."
On the other hand, she is slowly becoming okay with some of that, which is opening up new avenues for her.

Other things she's really enjoyed lately--

Patrick MacManus' books,
Alan Gordon's Fool's Guild historical mysteries,
H.G. Wells
George Orwell
Mark Twain
Dickens
Marley and Me
DonnaJo Napoli's YA novels (these are really very good, even if DD blows through them pretty fast)


FWIW, I think I was about twelve when I first read The Bell Jar. <shudders> Not good.