How Classics Create an Aliterate Society

How Classics Create an Aliterate Society
Author(s): Donald R. Gallo
Source: The English Journal, Vol. 90, No. 3, The Lure of Young Adult Literature (Jan., 2001),
pp. 33-39
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/821305 .
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L

How Classics Create
anAliterate Society

DONALDR. GALLO

ere you an avidreaderas a teenager? Did you love WutheringHeights and The
ScarletLetter in high school? Good for you! At the same time, that could be a
problemforyou,becauseit maybe impossibleforyouto understandwhyso many
studentsin your school do not feel the same way aboutthe classics. i It seems
to be partof human naturefor us to thinkthat everyone has had experiencessimilarto ours
and that they shareour perspectiveon things.Thus, as a lover of classicalliterature,it seems
logicalforyouto concludethatthereis somethingwrongwithtoday'sstudentsif theydon'tshare

yourpassion.Youmayneverconsiderhow the re- ExpectationsA, Taleof TwoCities,Hamlet,andSilas
quiredliteraturein yourschool'scurriculumaffects MarnerI, hadto struggleto understandthemwhen
kidswho arenot likeyou. theywere assigned.

I'vebeen ableto see thingsdifferentlyf,orI MoreoverI, didnot see anyconnectionsbe-
wasnot an avidreaderas a teenager.I readmy as- tweenmylife andthe livesof the characterisn those
signments-I wasanobedientstudent.ButI almost novelsandplays.There'sa characterin MelGlenn's
never read for pleasure.Bookswere dull. Adults poetrybook,ClassDismissedII, whoseviewpointI
shared.Inthatpoem,PaulHewittsayshe can'tiden-
who are avidreaderssaythatreadingis activebe- tifywithHuckFinnorcareaboutWillieLoman.He
causereadersuse theirimaginationa, s opposedto asksifthe teacherhasanybooksthat"dealwithreal
watchingtelevision,whichis a passiveactivityH. A! life"(18).WhywasI supposedto careabouta Puri-
For me, playingbaseballandstickballandfootball tanwomanwhogotpregnantfromhavingsexwitha
was active!Hikingandcampingwere active!Build- minister?WhatdidI haveincommonwitha crazed
ing fortsin the woods, deep sea fishing,climbing
trees ... thosewereactive!Sittingin achairto read oldkingwhoalienatedthe onlydaughterwhoreally
a book,in comparisonw, asaboutaspassiveas any- loved him and then didn'thave enough sense to
one couldget! comein outof the rain?I didenjoythe witchesand
bloodystuffin Macbeth,andI foundthe riotsand
Therewerealsono booksin myhome,except beheadingsinA TaleofTwoCitiesinterestingb, utall
for a dictionaryand a couple of Bibles. Myfather thatknittingby MadameDeFargewasboring.
readthe New YorkDaily News everyday,andmy
familysubscribedto LIFE magazine.Andwhen I ManyofmyclassmatesandI couldneverfig-
wasa BoyScout,I subscribedtoBoy'sLifeandread ure out whatwe were supposedto get out of those
it thoroughlyeachmonth.Butthatwasaboutit. assignedstoriesandpoems.Likemoststudents,we
reliedon the teacherto tellus whattheymeant.One
Likemanyteenstodayb, ecauseI didnotread of myformercollegestudentsdefineda classicthis
muchI hada weakvocabularya,ndI did not write way:a classicis a book that"requiresa teacherto
veryeffectively.Thatwas doublybad,becausenot figureout a glimmerof whatit says."
onlywasI notinterestedinreadingbookslikeGreat

EnGLISH journal

Nevertheless,I didreadthe requiredbooks, concerns!TheyareaboutADULTissues.Moreover,
as I said;I listenedin classmostof the time, andI theywere writtenfor EDUCATEDadultswho had
passed quizzes and tests on the material,usually the LEISUREtime to readthem.Theywere also,
withBs andCsbecauseI wasafairlyintelligentkid. not incidentally,written to be ENJOYED-not
(Asamatteroffact,I andmyparentswereoftentold DISSECTED,notANALYZEDa, ndcertainlynot
by schoolcounselorsandteachersthat I was "not TESTED. When I became an adult,I becamein-
workingup to my potential."Youknowthe type.) terested in adultthings,andso the classicsfinally
MyclassmatesMarjorieandElizabeth,on the other had meaningfor me, and I could finallyappreci-
hand,alwaysearnedAs-they weresmartandthey ate them.
lovedto read.Mylessintelligentclassmatesdidnot
fareaswell:Roy,RichardV, incent,Tony--theguys. Nowyoucansee whyI understandandsym-
Like the irradiatedmarigolds in Paul Zindel's pathizewiththe tenthgradeboywho told me that
PulitzerPrize-winningplay,TheEffectof Gamma hisrequiredliteraturebooks"... havenothingtodo
RaysonMan-in-the-MooMn arigoldsM, arjorieand withme."Andthe tenthgradegirlwho definedlit-
Elizabethhadmutatedandflourished(theyproba- eratureas "keepingin touchwiththe dead."Orthe
blygrewuptobecometeachers)w, hileRichardand teenagerwho said,"I'mtiredof readingthisboring
Tonyandotherslikethem,badlyburnedbytheirex- stuff.I wantto readsomethingwithapulse!"Oneof
periences,shriveledupandsworeneverto readan- myformergraduatestudentsputit thisway:"Myex-
other book in their lives. periencein highschoolwiththe classicswassimilar
to dissectinga frog:itwastediousandit stunk."
Why was I supposed to care
Such negativeexperiencesand their result-
about a Puritan woman ing attitudeshavecreatedoverthe lasthalfcentury
analiteratesocietyinAmericaW. earea nationthat
who got pregnant from teachesitschildrenhowto readin the earlygrades,
thenforcesthemduringtheirteenageyearsto read
having sex with a minister? literaryworksthatmostof themdislikeso muchthat
theyhaveno desirewhatsoeverto continuethoseex-
LiketoomanystudentsI, neverlearnedmuch periencesintoadulthood.DanielPennac,a French
fromthoseclassicsthen,neverdevelopeda loveof authori,n hisbookBetterThanLife,firstpublished
reading from them. Fortunatelymy life turned in Frenchin 1992,describesthe roleof the typical
aroundhalfwaythroughcollegewhenmyroommates schoolthisway:
StuWilsonandAl Fasslerw, holovedto read,intro-
ducedme to HoldenCaulfieldandImmanuaKl ant, ... it looks as though school, no matter the age
aswellasto classicaml usic.I alsohadseveralexcel- or nation, has had only one role. And that'sto
lent Englishteachers,especiallyDr.JimPrins,who teach the masteryof technique and critical com-
helpedme see the relevanceof theissuesinclassical mentaryand to cut off spontaneous contact with
literature.More significantlym, y interestlevel caught books by discouragingthe pleasure of reading.
up with the level at which classicalliteraturehas al- It'swritten in stone in every land:pleasure has
waysexisted.Whatinterested me in reallife was sud- no business in school, and knowledge gained
denly what all those books were about! must be the fruit of deliberate suffering. A
defensible position, of course. No lack of argu-
When I lookbackatthatphenomenon now,it ments in its favor.School cannot be a place of
all makes perfect sense to me. I wasn't READY for pleasure, with all the freedom that would imply.
classicalliteraturewhen I was 13, 14... 17, 18. Even School is a factory,and we need to know which
though I was more physicallymaturethanmost of my workers are up to snuff. (91-92)
peers (I was shavingweekly before my twelfth birth-
day), I was still a typical teenager interested in Pennac continues the factorymetaphor,with teach-
teenage things.Theclassicsare not about TEENAGE
ers as bosses, subjects as tools, and competition as
the model of the workadayworld. He concludes his

chapter with this:

It is the natureof livingbeings to love life...
But vitalityhas never been listed on a school
curriculum.Here, functionis everything.Life
is elsewhere.Youlearnhow to readat school.

But whataboutthe love of reading?(92-93)

SJanuarY 2001

Whataboutthe Loveof Reading? clothedin silkandthread-laceh,adtheirtoyspin-
ningwheelsofpolishedoak-there mightbe seen
I'd like to see "thelove of reading"listed as the num- in districtsfarawayamongthelanesordeepinthe
ber one goalof the English curriculumat everygrade bosomof the hills,certainpallidundersizedmen,
in all school systems. What a revolutionaryidea! Of who,bythe sideof the brawnycountryfolk,
course, those who advocate the teaching of classics lookedliketheremnantosf adisinheritedrace.(1)
have alwayssaid that loving and appreciatinglitera-
ture is their goal. The opposite, however, has been And that'sonly the first sentence! The first page of
the result of those good intentions, as G. Robert Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, The Good
Carlsen and Anne Sherrillshow clearly in Voicesof Earth, or The Scarlet Letter (if you consider "The
Readers:How We Come to Love Books.After study- Custom-House"as the opening chapter)aren'tmuch
ing the randomlyselected autobiographicalessaysof better, especially when you consider them from the
1,000 undergraduate and graduate students written point of view of an Internet-savvy,TV-literate,MTV-
over a thirty-yeartime span, they conclude:
viewing contemporaryteenager.
... [T]eacherpsrofessthatbypresentingtheclas- Comparethe opening of SilasMarnerquoted
sics,theyarereallyincreasingreadingenthusiasm
orteachingappreciatioonf greatworksorboth.It above with this opening paragraph from Walter
is disturbintghattheprotocolsindicatethatexactly Dean Myers'srecent award-winningMonster:
theoppositeis happeningto manyoftheyoung.
(136) Thebesttimeto cryis atnight,whenthelightsare
outandsomeoneis beingbeatenupandscream-
In the early 1980s I asked students in a num- ingforhelp.Thatwayevenif yousnifflea little
ber of Connecticut schools how the books they chose theywon'thearyou.If anybodyknowsthatyouare
to readon their own comparewith the assignedread- cryingt,hey'llstarttalkingaboutit andsoonit'llbe
ings in their English classes. Severalstudents wrote: yourturnto getbeatupwhenthelightsgoout.(1)
"Teacherbooks are boring." Several said the obvi-
ous: "Thebooks I like are interesting.""Minehave a Or these opening sentences from a short story by
lot of action . .."One student said:"Thebooks I read Will Weaver titled "The Photograph":
sometimes arethe same asto whatis going on around
me"(implyingthat assignedbooks are not connected "Naked?"
with the reallife of teenagers). Similarly,anotherstu- "Yes."
dent wrote, "[Mybooks] talk and use the same lan- "Ms.Jenson?Ourbelovedphysed teacher
guage as me."Another said,"Thebooks I readon my
own, you never want to put them down;the ones as- andgirls'trackcoach?"
signed, you never want to pick up" (Gallo "Reac- "Skinny-dippinAgb. solutelyS.hewasinthe
tions" 7-9).
laketotallynaked."(3)
In that same survey,40 percent of juniorhigh
school boys and 35 percent of girls said they seldom I can'timagine any high school student not wanting
or never liked the books they were required to read to read more of that story.
in school. In senior high schools, the percentages
were 41 for boys and 23 for girls. In contrast, only Middle school kids, especially boys, want ac-
tion, adventure, suspense. A seventh graderwriting
20 percent of the students said they usually or al- to his pen pal, one of my graduatestudents, a couple
ways liked the assigned books (8). years back explained his tastes bluntly:"Ilike horror
with a lot of killing and suspense." The writing also
So, what do most teenagers today want from has to be vivid so that readers, as one boy said, can
a book?Whatever the type of reading,almostallkids "get a clear picture of what is happening."Another
will be more attracted to a book that grabs their at- seventh grade boy, in a class taught by a friend of
tention immediately-which right away leaves out mine, says he enjoyed a novel by Raymond Feist
most classicalliterature.Consider this opening from called Shadowofa Dark Queen because "ithad great
George Eliot's Silas Marner: detail"so that "when he decapitated a guy because
he killed a girlthathe liked, I could visualize the pic-
In the dayswhenthe spinningwheelshummed ture in my mind."Maybe that'snot quite the kind of
busilyin the farmhouses-andevengreatladies, interest we would like to see, but these seventh

gradersare very clear about their likes and dislikes.
What teens want more than anything else

from novels is entertainment.And that'sexactlywhat
I want-and what I suspect most readers want-

ENGLISH JOUrnaIl

We are a nation that teaches its Oneof the mostvaluablequalitiesof contem-
childrenhow to readin the early poraryteenagefictionis thatit helps studentsfeel
grades, then forces them during normalc, omfortableu,nderstoodI.nmanyschoolsys-
tems, teenage fiction is limited to middle school

classesorto remedialevelclassesin the highschool,
mainlybecausethosebooksareeasierto readthan

classics. Older and more advancedreaders can

their teenage years to read literary handlethe classics-true. Butevenourbrighteststu-
works that most of them dislike so dents arestillteenagerswithtypicalteenageprob-
lemsandneeds,andbylimitingthosemoreadvanced
much that they have no desire studentsto classics,ourcurriculafailto meet their
whatsoever to continue those
socialandemotionalneeds. Everyoneknowsthere
areeasyteen novelsforyoungerandless ableread-
ers, but there are also some superbnovelsin this
genrethataremorecomplex-sophisticatedenough
forevenAPreaders.(Onthattopic,checkoutanar-
ticle by PatriciaSpencer in the November 1989

experiences into adulthood. EnglishJournal.)
But,youmayask,ifwe stopteachingclassics,

oratleastdecreaseourrelianceonthem,howwould

froma novel.That'salsoprimarilywhatwriterssay we teachthe readingandanalyticaslkillswithless
theywantreadersto get fromtheirbooks.If read- challengingliteraryworks?Significanqtuestion.The
ers learnsomethingalongthe way,that'seven bet- answeris easy:teachthe newerbooksbasicallythe
ter.Butoncethelessonbecomestheprimaryreason sameway.Well,let me qualifythat.I meanteach
forusingabook,theactofreadingbecomesachore. thesameliteraryconceptsanddevelopthesamean-
So it makesgood sense to find teachablenovels alyticalskills,butperhapsin abetterway.Thereare
whosestoriesarelively,interestinge, njoyableh, ope- stilltoomanyteacherswhokillanybookbytheway
fullyhumorous,too, fromwhichwe can alsolearn theyteachit, askingstudentsto recallpickyandin-
something-abouthowpeopledealwiththeirprob- significandt etails,testingeveryday,removingwhat-
lems,howotherpeopleinteract,possiblyhowother everjoyakidmighthavehadin readingthebookin
culturesfunction(thoughyoungerteens,beingba- the firstplace.
Like classics, contemporary books for
sicallyself-centered,preferto readaboutpeopleas
teenagershaveplots thatcan be charted,settings
muchlikethemselvesaspossible),andso forth.
One of my formeruniversitystudents re- thatplaysignificanrtoles,andcharacterws hoseper-
calledherearlyadolescentexperienceswithbooks: sonalitiesa, ctions,andinteractionscanbe analyzed.
"Asa teenager,I wasableto be myselfwhen I was Therearefigurativelanguagef,oreshadowingir, ony,
reading,while the rest of the time I was fittingin. andotherliteraryelementsin the bestof the newer
Because a lot of the novels I read dealt with works.The symbolism,however,usuallyisn't as

teenagerswithsimilarproblems,I feltcomfortable." heavyasin mostclassics,andthevocabularyis usu-
Anotherstudent,this one a seventh grade allylessdifficult,butnoyoungadultreaderwillob-

girl,when askedto analyzewhatmakesa bookin- ject to those things; in fact, many teachers I know

teresting,wrotethis: will be relieved by that as well.

Most of my favoritebooks have all had one thing The only two elements common in the clas-
in common. That is the main charactersin the sics that some contemporaryyoung adult novels lack

books were young kids, or teens. I think that are plot complexity and dull, lengthy descriptions.
books with kids in them are very interesting This doesn't mean that no contemporary novels
to me because I can sort of relate to them, and I for teens have complex plots; the works of Robert
Cormier, M. E. Kerr, Chris Crutcher, and Chris
like readingabout things that could happen to
people my age. Also, sometimes when I read Lynch,for example,arequite complex.The most ap-
books that have older charactersin them, they pealingcharacteristicof youngadultnovels,of course,
are dealingwith problems that I can'trelate to is theirhigh interestlevel. In short,we can teach high
or don'tunderstand.

* january 2001

schoolstudentsliteraryskillswith YAbookswhile There areliterallyhundredsof greatbooks
everyoneenjoysthe readingactivity(.Ifyouwantre- likethese,writtenby sensitive,knowledgeablea,nd
searchproof,go waybackto 1965andreadNathan insightfulwriterswho understandteenagereaders.
S. Blount'sreportin theJournalof EducationaRl e- Alongwiththe well-establishedwritersin thisfield,
searchandBruceAppleby's1967dissertation.) suchas RichardPeck,RobertCormierC, hrisCrut-
cher,NormaFox Mazer,CarolineCooney,Bruce
It bothersme a greatdealwhenhighschool BrooksM, .E. KerrA, ldenR.CarterW, illHobbs,and
Englishteachersor universityprofessorscondemn WalterDean Myers,therearemanytalentednewer
youngadultbooksbecausetheybelievetheyareshal- writerssuchas EllenWittlingerR, obThomas,Han
low andpoorlywritten.Thosepeople areignorant Nolan,AdamRappT, rudyKrisherM, argarePteterson
elitistswho haven'tdone theirhomework,haven't Haddix,and LaurieHalse Anderson.Youneed to
readtheirworksandexperiencethemforyourselves.
readevenanadequatesamplingof thenovels,short Then,youneedtotellyourstudentsaboutthem,even
stories,nonfiction,andpoetryforteensthatis avail- ifyouneverteachthesebooksinyourclassroomb, e-
able for classroomuse and independentreading. causethereis no otherwayyourstudentswill ever
Those criticsseem to thinkthatyoungadultbooks hearaboutthesebooksorotherslikethem.
mean shallowromances,Sweet ValleyHigh, trans-
parentmysterieso, rsupernaturatlhrillerslikethose It bothers me a great deal when
by R. L. Stine.Theyequatesimplicitywithlackof
qualityA. ndtheyarepartlyright,becausethosekinds high school English teachers or
of booksarepartof whatsomekidsareinterestedin,
especiallyin middle school. But there is so much university professors condemn
more. No thoughtfulreadercan ever accuseAfter
the FirstDeathby RobertCormierD, ancingon the young adult books because
Edgeby HanNolan,Speakby LaurieHalseAnder-
son, or Whitechurchby ChrisLynchof being sim- they believe they are
plistic. Spend a couple of hoursreadingI Hadn't
Meantto TellYouThisby JacquelineWoodsonand shallowand poorlywritten.
then try to tell me it'sshallow.Read Ironmanby
ChrisCrutcherandyou'lleatyourwords.ReadGary How else will yourkidsknowaboutthem?
Paulsen'sSoldier'Hs eartandyou'llwonderwhyany- They don'tsee ads for these books on television.
onewouldwantto strugglethroughCrane'sTheRed Theydon'thearthemdiscussedon the radio.Their
parentsand grandparentscan'trecommendthese
Badgeof Courage. booksbecausemostof themweren'twrittenwhen
If youwantto hookyourstudentswitha mys- thoseolderfolkswereteenagersI.ntoomanyschools,
library/medisapecialistsdo notget a chanceto rec-
tery,therearenone betterthanTheKiller'sCousin ommendthesebooksto kidsbecausemostteachers,
and LockedInside, both by NancyWerlin.If you especially in high school, never invite the librarians
wantmulticulturaplerspectives,checkout Go and to theirclassrooms.Worse,manylibrarianswho work
ComeBackby JoanAbelove.If you arelookingfor with teenagers-in both school librariesand public
bookswith strongfemale characters,try Annette libraries -were never trained in the field of books
CurtisKlause'sBloodand Chocolate,JoanBauer's for young people, so they don'tknow as much about
RulesoftheRoad,LaurieHalseAnderson'Sspeak,or these books as they should.
JerrySpinelli'Ss targirlF. orsuperbsportsnovelsthat
Who is left? The only people in the whole
are about more than sports, read Thomas Cochran's universe who can talk to students about books-
other than their peers-is us! Unfortunately, the
Roughnecksor Rich Wallace'sPlayingWithoutthe evidence shows that most teachers DON'T talkwith

Ball. For historicalfiction, you'll find nothing better

thanJason'sGold by Will Hobbs. If you want to have

top-notch discussions in your classes, you can'tmiss

with Rob Thomas's Doing Time, Ellen Wittlinger's

Hard Love, Will Hobbs's The Maze, Joyce McDon-

ald'sSwallowingStones,ChrisLynch'Ws hitechurch,

or one of the many short storycollections published

recently, such as Twelve Shots, edited by Harry

Mazer,or Time Capsule, which I edited.

ENGLISH JOUrnaRL

their teenage students about books that will interest too. It would be even better if the entire school set
them. In fact, 35 percent of the seventh grade stu-
dents in a surveythatone of my formerstudents con- aside 15-20 minutes every day for silent reading.
ducted said that they couldn'trecall a single teacher School reading assignments are not allowed. No
ever recommending a book of anykind to them, and homework. Just pleasure reading. And you get to
60 percent recalled only one teacher who had ever read as well.
done so (Cararini).And if their teachers did recom-
You might even startyour programby read-
mend books, it was usuallyclassicsthat the teachers ing to your classes. Read the opening chapter or a
had readin college, books thatwere written forwell- particularlyvivid scene from a novel and then stop.
educated, leisured adultsand that don'thave a single If the story and your lively reading of it have done
teenage characterin them. In thatsame surveyof kids their job, at least one of the students in your class
in a medium size citymiddle school, onlythree out of will askto borrowthe book so she or he can read the
the fifty-seven eighth graderssurveyed checked the
statement,"Teachersknowwhat booksstudentslike." whole thing. Don't be surprisedif they do so in one
night. And if one student is enthused about a book,
How sad. In fact, that'salmost criminal. that will influence others to tryit. Good experiences
are addictive.
One of the best ways I've found to introduce
teens to good books is to have an extensive class- You say you don't know where to find infor-
room library--mostly paperbacksbecause they are mation about good books for teenagers? There's a
easier for kids to handle and carry.Every classroom young adultliteraturecolumn that appearsregularly
should contain dozens of them, nonfiction as well as in this journal. And there are two journals devoted
exclusively to books for teenagers: The ALAN Re-
fiction, and poetry too. Even picture books. Add to view and VOYA-you can subscribe. The National
your collection frequently. Booktalk a few of them Council of Teachers of English publishes two vol-
each week. (Of course, to do that, you will need to umes every three years or so that are just pages and
read them first.) pages of annotations of new books for teens, orga-
nized by topic and genre: for middle schools it'sYour
If you can't completely change the curricu- Reading; for high schools it'sBooksfor You. Every
lum so thatyou can replace some of the classicswith libraryin your system should have a copy of the cur-
contemporarybooks, especially books with teenage rent and back issues of those books, and you should
main characters, then consider pairing teen novels have a copy on your desk for easy reference.
with one or more of your classics. In From Hinton
to Hamlet, SarahHerz and I explainhow you can do Do I need to remindyou thatyou can find re-
that quite efficiently. In four separate volumes of views of these books on the Amazon or Barnes &
Adolescent Literatureas a Complementto the Clas-
sics, edited by Joan Kaywell,you can find teaching Noble Web sites? If you want biographicalinforma-
ideas and even some dailylesson plans for doing that tion aboutauthors,one of the best recentlypublished
with several classics. sources is a fourvolume set called Writersfor Young
Adults, edited by Ted Hipple. And by the time you
Anotherwayto incorporatemore teen lit into read this, a new Web site called Authors4Teens.com
your classroomis to introduceyourstudentsto some
of the numerous short stories with teenage charac- should be up and running,featuringextensive inter-
ters that are now available. Twenty years ago there views with top authorsin the field, though it is a re-
were five collections of storieswritten for teenagers. strictedsite. (For access, contact Greenwood Press.)

Todaythere are more than 100 collections. Youcan The most inspiringplace to learnaboutbooks

find an extensive list of many of those short story ti- like those I've been discussing is at the yearlyALAN
tles and how to use them in a text called Into Focus:
Workshop that follows the NCTE convention each
Understanding and Creating Middle School Read-
November, where for two full days you will hear
ers, edited by Kyleen Beers and Barbara Samuels
more than a dozen authors and an equal number of
(340-45).
educatorstalkaboutbooks for teens. Youwill also go
Providinga block of time each week, or even
home with a shoppingbag full of autographedbooks
each day,when kids can read whatever they choose
to enjoyand sharewith yourstudents and colleagues.
for pleasure will increase reading interest and expe-
One finalword:please do not conclude that I
rience. Consider it practice. Athletes practice;musi-
am againstreading and teaching classics. But know-
cianspractice;our studentsneed to practicereading,
ing that our traditionalclassical literature curricula

have done more harmthan good to so manystudents

January zool1

overtheyears,I urgeyoutoalsoconsiderusingsome Herz, SarahK.,withDonald R. Gallo.FromHintonto Ham-
let:BuildingBridgesbetweenYoungAdultLiterature
of thewonderfulcontemporarbyooksthatareavail- and the Classics.Westport,CT:Greenwood,1996.

ableto meetthe readingneedsandinterestsof today's Hipple, Ted, ed. Writersfor YoungAdults,4 volumes. New
students. Not only will your students appreciate York:Scribner's,1997-2000.
them,butI guaranteethatYOUalsowillenjoythem.
Hobbs, Will.Jason'sGold. New York:Morrow,1999.
Here'sto thejoyof reading! . TheMaze. New York:Morrow,1998.

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to the Classics,4 volumes. Norwood, MA:Christo-
Abelove,Joan.Goand ComeBack.New York:DK Inc., 1998. pher-Gordon,1993-1999.
Anderson,LaurieHalse. Speak.New York:Farrar,Straus&
Klause, Annette Curtis. Blood and Chocolate. New York:
Giroux,1999. Delacorte, 1997.

Appleby,BruceD. "TheEffectof IndividualizedReadingon Lynch,Chris.Whitechurch.New York:HarperCollins1, 999.
CertainAspectsof LiteratureStudywithHighSchool Mazer,Harry,ed. TwelveShots:OutstandingStoriesabout
Seniors."DissertationAbstracts28 (1967):2592.
Guns. New York:Delacorte, 1997.
Bauer,Joan.Rulesof the Road. New York:Putnam,1998. McDonald,Joyce.SwallowingStones.New York:Delacorte,
Beers, Kylene,andBarbaraG. Samuels,eds. IntoFocus:Un-
1997.
derstanding and CreatingMiddle SchoolReaders.
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the 'Ideal Novel.'" TheJournalof EducationalRe- Brace, 1997.
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Cararini,Michael. "ReadingSurvey."Unpublished report, York:Delacorte, 1998.
1989. Pennac,MDaEn:iSelt.eBnehttoeursTe/hPaenmLbifreo.Tkrea,1n9s9.D9.avidHomel.York,
Spencer,Patricia."YANovelsin the APClassroom:Crutcher
Carlsen,G. Robert,andAnneSherrillV. oicesofReaders:How
We Cometo Love Books.Urbana,IL:NCTE, 1988. Meets Camus."EnglishJournal78:7 (1989):44-46.
Spinelli,Jerry.Stargirl.New York:Knopf,2000.
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