Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
I think a great teacher makes all the difference - much better than relying on learned introductions or footnotes; you can interact with a teacher and ask really stupid questions.
Of course, there is the danger that some might be turned off for life; but there's also the joy of seeing something you initially loathe turn into something you treasure for the rest of your life, right in front of your disbelieving eyes. 
I'm glad I did 'difficult' books at school. |
Here we like to joke that children like to read until they've finished (our variety of) High School... I know it has been changed (a lot) these 20 years, but back then, you had to read 20 books for Dutch, and 10 for each foreign language you took (of which one was mandatory, so you had to read at least 30 books). I choose English as my foreign langauge, and the selection of English books was rather wide. The most important part was that you read those books and understood what they were about.
For Dutch though, you had to read 5 from that period, 5 from that, etc. (ranging from 1600 till now, and those older "books" were in Middle Dutch verse form mostly). And those had to be from the "literature list". All of them horribly dull with quadruple meanings, very difficult language often, and then make a book report on each and every one of them. And all in two years (the last two years which were actually 1 1/2 years, as the exams would be in May). And at the end of those two years, you'd do your exam, which had an oral part for Dutch where the teacher would saw you through with questions about books you completely forgotten about...
Quote:
Originally Posted by jgray
Actually, in school, I was never required to read such classics as "1984" or "Brave New World". I did read them on my own when I was in junior high school, because one of my older brothers had left over copies from when they were required to read them. I enjoyed them both.
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Not for English, but for Dutch we had to...
There were some books I really liked, though, from the Dutch literature list:
Max Havelaar by Multatuli (
wikisource)
Erik, or the Little Insect Book by
Godfried Bomans
Little John, by
Frederik van Eeden
The Forbidden Realm by
Jan Jacob Slauerhoff
The destruction of Hyperion by Hugo Raes (a Flemish author).