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When I was in high school, we had "suggest summer reading" lists. Things that the school or teachers thought were important works, but not important enough to actually teach. I read most of them, and can still not tell why The Red Pony was a good read.
It was not until university that I actually got how/why some of these works were so important. Maybe the young mind simply is not so well-geared to literature. When I learned of what a firebrand Milton was, reading Paradise Lost the second time (it was assigned in HS), it was a great read. Satan as James Dean or Marlon Brando, god, as Ward Cleaver!
I think that it is not so much the texts themselves so much as it is the way they are presented. Maybe there is too much of the author's backstory/motivation that cannot be discussed with younger readers, and that really informs a person's view of a text.
Also, I find it amusing that Homer's works are classics, just as Miller's Tropic of Cancer is. Let the sophomores read *that*, and there would definitely be renewed interest in Classics! ;-
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