Summer Reading? Already?

What? Summer reading? Are you kidding- it's just barely winter! UFGH. If you are/ever have been in school, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong- books are great. That's pretty much obvious. But kids shouldn't have to be forced to read them over their summer vacations. They also definitely shouldn't have to make a decision on their summer reading selections this early in the year. I mean come on, second semester is half over. That means you have 2 1/2 more semesters left to organize for next year.



Apparently, in my school, they have summer reading meetings before the year is even over with all the high school students. Because naturally, they can't have any confusion over what book people are reading or whatever... To make matters worse, everybody in the school has to write an essay (in 1 period) when they get back to ensure that they have indeed read the book. Not that the teachers have read every single book, of course. So what ends up happening is that half of the kids actually read the book (far in advance, mind you) and then proceed to completely forget the plot, while the other half don't read a word and just write random crap for the essay. No, my mistake, everyone writes random crap for the essay.

Another annoying thing is that, hello, I've already read most of these books, and the ones I haven't read I don't want to read. For instance: I have read A Great and Terrible Beauty (Libba Bray- 7th grade), Deadline (Chris Crutcher-8th grade), Everlost (Neal Shusterman- 8th grade), Graceling (Kristin Cashore- 6th grade?), Hacking Harvard (Robin Wasserman- 7th grade), Killing Lincoln (Bill O'Reilly- this year), Playing with Matches (Brian Katcher- 7th grade), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie- 8th grade), The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak- 5th grade), The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien- 4th grade), and What Happened to Goodbye (Sarah Dessen- 8th grade). Admittedly, this is only roughly 1/2 of the list, but the rest pretty much consists of only books that do not appeal to me in the least. (Such as: Gym Candy by Carl Deuker, which is about a freshman who uses steroids and realizes the consequences. Seeing as I'm never going to have a use for steroids to boost my athletic abilities (nonexistent) and don't want to hear about a sports-obsessed kid who is tearing his life apart with illegal substances, I don't really want to read this book. But someone else might. In a sense, it's good that there's a variety, but there's so many books that no one or not enough people will want to read.)

It's quite odd, but I believe that this year, the theme for the summer reading books is murder. All of the books that aren't chick-lit or the regular Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell seem to contain at least one person being killed. (I also noticed that last year, the theme was rape. What a morbid school district...) So I'm not sure if it's simply these kinds of books that are trending or if the school legitimately wanted everybody to read about murder, but either way, it's a tad confusing. See, the school system is always talking about the new HIB- Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying- Laws that were recently passed in New Jersey (my state) and how these things lead to many teenagers committing suicide, and yet they're telling us we have to all read up about killers, specifically PROTAGONISTS that are killers... Not that I don't love horror books, I just think the schools are going on a bit too much about bullying and should stop, lest it turn them into complete hypocrites.

I've decided to read Darren Shan (the author of The Deomata!)'s The Thin Executioner because I was going to read it anyways. About a dystopian world in which every "crime" is punished with beheading and weakness is looked down upon, a thin boy must fight for his place in society. Though part of a respected family, he will have to compete for his spot as successor to his aging father's role as executioner. And so, he embarks on a journey to beg the god of fire for invincibility, facing many obstacles along the way. Actually, I'm probably going to read it long before the summer and then just reread it in September... So look out for the book review soon! ;)

~Ellen~