People Explain Which Books They Read In School That They'd Never Let Their Kids Read Today
CW: graphic depictions of novels.
When I was in eighth-grade honors English, our first book of the year was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Unlike with other books, our eyes didn't glaze over as we read. In fact, we were enthralled.
We were very invested in the characters, we all cried at the end, and even though the book didn't have a happy ending, we bonded through the sadness and were still happy we were able to read the book.
My mom, who passed on her love of reading to me, always read the books we were assigned for school. She hated this one.
While she could appreciate the story and understood it was a product of its time, she thought the story, especially the end, maybe a bit inappropriate for students my age. She was not the type to make a stink about things, but she let me know her feelings.
My mom's opinion was not all that unique. There are lots of parents who weren't always fans of what their kids had to read for school.
Sometimes it's because they would've liked their child to be a little older when they read a particular book. This was my mom's complaint about Of Mice and Men. Other people don't think particular books are appropriate for school at all.
Those people took to Reddit to share what books they read in school that they wouldn't want their kids to read in school today...at least, not until they are a little older.
It all started when Redditor masterbuildera asked:
"What book did you read in school that you would never want your child to read?"
The Horror
"My 5th grade teacher read the Stephen King short story Survival Type to the class. For those who haven’t read: the narrator / mc is a drug smuggler who crash lands his plane on a deserted island. He ends up doing all the heroin he recovered from the crash and cannibalizes himself. We didn’t know at the time our teacher had early onset dementia..."
– iamtommynoble
"Holy sh*t! I was in my mid 30s when I heard that story(was listening to the audio book) and was cooking dinner. Had to save all of the food for later, no way I could eat after listening to that. I can't believe a teacher read that."
– pop_skittles
Obsolete
"“Microsoft Publisher 98 for Dummies”"
"Seems kinda pointless at this stage."
– CuppaMatt
"imagine dragging your tik tok watching kid trough that today"
"lmao 💀"
– TheVoidKilledMe
Questionable Choice
""A Day No Pigs Would Die" was pretty rough in 6th grade. Basically Charlotte's web with HAUNTINGLY graphic depictions of animal husbandry and slaughter. I don't remember getting a lot of value out of it at 11 years old, just pig-blood soaked nightmares lol"
– BizarroBuffalo
...*Shudders*...
"I recall being in 6th grade and a fellow student writing a book report on an erotic novel she had read about an extremely overweight man collapsing on a sex worker while mid intercourse and she rips off his jaw and uses it to sever off one of his limbs and get out from under him."
"I remember being 13 years old and thinking “this is pretty f*cked up for a 13 year old.”"
– Silvertongued99
"Holy crap. Yes, that’s a bit much. In that vein, Flowers in the Attic and the rest of the series."
– Pinkbeans1
Too Early
"Maybe this isn’t the question, but I read A Child Called ‘It’ as an elementary aged child. I bought it at the school’s Scholastic Book Fair, and was maybe 9 years old. Why on earth they thought that was an appropriate book for small children to be purchasing and reading, I will never know. The 90’s were a trip."
– YaBoyfriendKeefa
WAY Too Early
"I was in a gifted class and we read 1984...in the fourth grade. Great piece of literature, but maybe a titch intense for nine-year-olds, y'know?"
– Bratbabylestrange
Father Knows Best
"The Kite Runner....my dad saw me pick that up at a book store when I was in the 7th grade and he said no, I wasn't allowed to read that till I got older. Me being the rebellious little sh*t I was convinced my friend to buy it and we took turns reading it. Yeah that book is not for kids....I learnt some things that day :("
– Severe-Experience333
Unrecovered
"I read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in high school, they were trauma in paperback form."
– bananaphone92
"A thousand splendid suns BROKE my heart. Beautiful book, but traumatic."
– bakedNdelicious
"Same. Read it in college undergrad actually and was destroyed and cannot imagine how my emotional maturity would have been affected had it come out a few years earlier. Still one of my favorite books and authors of all time. Haunts me to this day."
– abeshius
Bonded
"I know it’s weak, but the ending to Of Mice and Men really messed up my 13 year old brain."
– usernames_are_danger
"My English class read it together (taking it in turns to read aloud) when I was 16 and it was a lovely experience - we hated it at first, and then by the end we were invested, and a bunch of people cried - including the cool girls who usually sat at the back giggling. My friends and I read ahead and knew the ending. We didn't spoil, but we were smug about knowing what was coming!"
"Probably a bit heavy for a 13yo though."
– Lornaan
"We read the stage version at my high school, not as homework but as a sort of "table read" where we went around the classroom with everyone taking a turn to read a line/lines."
"I don't think I'd ever seen the entire class so invested in something. Not just kids approaching my own level of nerdiness, but everyone - even the troublemakers and barely literate kids. It kinda blew my friggin' mind. And then, when we finished the story (over the course of a few classes, I think), we all suffered together through the ending. Trauma bonding, yaaaay!"
"Honestly, that book was probably the only worthwhile book in our curriculum, as far as I can remember."
– Eleventy_Seven
Easy As 1, 2, 3
"Advanced Mathematics."
– SamuelVimesTrained
"A lesson book on calculus now that's hell"
– ToruMiz
"There are 3 kinds of people in this world:"
"Those that understand math, and those that don't."
– edlee98765
Personal Battles
"Was given The Things They Carried in HS and had nightmares for weeks because I had a brother overseas in combat at the time. Part of me never wants my kids to read it because of how much it negatively effected me, which I know isn't a good reason. I do think it is a worthwhile book but it will always, always make me uncomfortable."
– readyplayer_zero
The Wrong Message
"Hear me out, this is a weird take:"
"Cyrano de Bergerac"
"Not because it isn't a good story, it is. But because I think high school boys get the wrong message from it and it fuels this incel, neckbeard fantasy of "I am truly special, and I will pursue this woman until she realizes how special I am. She only likes that other guy because he's cute, it definitely isn't that I'm an a**hole." I don't think that's healthy for them, I think a lot of them don't get that it's satire because it's in middle english."
"I'm not saying they can't read it, but it shouldn't be required as part of the curriculum either (it was for me at least)."
– Nik_Tesla
"I’d go nose to nose with you about this one. (Not really, you’re right and make good points.)"
– tasareinspace
Not A Kid's Book
"I still wish I hadn’t read Where the Red Fern Grows though…cause I haven’t stopped crying and it’s been 25 years."
– jdino
"I was assigned this as a first grader. Apparently the teacher hadn't finished the book to know how truly traumatic the last chapter is. Plus the boy that bleeds out (that blood bubble on his lips always stuck with me). I reread it recently and cried so f*cking hard"
– gallopingwalloper
"I remember in I think my freshman year (hs), one of my friends who isn't a reader wanted a book suggestion when we had to pick one from the library. One of the first I looked at was Where the Red Fern Grows, I recalled it being good and gave it to him. Teacher refused it because it "was a kid's book.""
"I mean yeah, but f*ck you, no."
– Rectal_Fungi
Oof! Yeah, that one was a hard one to get through.
Just because it's a classic doesn't mean it's always the best choice.
Most of us were forced to read some classic literature in school. Most of us can also probably recall falling asleep while reading one of these books late into the night. Not every book resonates with every person, therefore--not every classic book will either.
What was the book you put down and never picked back up again?
u/demlightra asked:
"What is the worst classic literature you have read?"
Here were some of those answers.
Elephant Dung
The White Bone. All those elephants did was walk around and poop. You can't read more than a few pages without an unnecessary poop plotline.
This one might be my favorite:
"A hard, blackened morsel of dung. 'How old is it?' Mung says. 'Thirty-five days,' She-Snorts murmurs. 'Perhaps more.' They smell the morsel in wonder. It is so precious and so paltry. She-Screams, who has already evacuated a seepage, comes over and pokes her trunk in among everyone else's."
evacuated a seepage
Okay, I pulled up a random PDF page and they were talking about using warthog pee and hyena poop to make a band-aid. But, I felt like that was cheating because it wasn't elephant poop, so I pulled up the next page and lo and behold:
"When she awakes she notices, inches from her eyes, a pile of her own dung, the sweet known smell of which is so appetizing she would eat it had she the will to move."
HOW IS THIS CONSIDERED GOOD LITERATURE?!
Wuthering Wuthering Wuthering
I was one of those straight A students in high school who always did all the homework on time. That being said, the one book I did NOT finish was Wuthering Heights.
I was looking for this comment. What an infuriating book. There was not one character that I could actually find myself rooting for, in part due to the fact that most of the book was told from the perspective of a guy listening to a story from someone who was really only marginally involved, so emotions were really taken out of it. Took me forever to get through.
Too Much Description
Absolutely anything by Thomas Hardy. I had to read The Mayor of Casterbridge, it was the only book I didn't finish at school. I remember a guy walking into a town and there being like 10 pages of description of what the town looked like.
Purely Awful
The pearl. Even my teacher said it was one of the few John Steinbeck works she couldn't stand. The book is tiny and as an avid book lover should've taken me like an hour or two to read. It took me the entire summer. I had to force a page at a time. It was awful. Decades later and it's still the worst book I've ever read. And I tend to love most classics.
Conservative Anthems
Atlas Shrugged. The Fountainhead was actually worse, but I think more people would consider AS 'classic'. Both were dreadful though. Why I have read both is a mystery I cannot explain even to myself.
Pro tip: if you for some reason decide to read it anyway, stop when Galt takes over the radio station then skip ahead for (depending on the print size) 60-80 pages. You won't miss anything; it's just a protracted delusional monologue and I'm not exaggerating about the length.
Call Me Ishmael....Wait...Wrong Book
I hated Last of the Mohicans (incredibly dull) and The Old Man and the Sea (just doesn't make sense). I was told that Hemingway's weird grammar was because he didn't want anything to be unnecessary, but then why is it necessary for us to know that the old man gets up and urinates? Twice?
It's Just A Sham...No Pun Intended
Great Expectations was hell for me.
Far too long and too boring for my high school ADHD brain to handle.
It didn't stand a chance against TV and video games. Trying to remember anything from it is just like a foggy dream.
Might like it today though, who knows. Just finished Monte Cristo and enjoyed it.
I'd Rather Stare At A Windmill
Spanish speaker here. I looove reading, like, books and literature are huge part of my life, but reading Don Quixote was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was so boring, slow, and just unpleasant. I just hope I never have to read It again.
Omg They Were Roommates
A Separate Peace. I've never hated a book as viscerally as that one. Would have been an infinitely better read if Finny and Gene just got it over with and had sex. I know Knowles has denied there's any homoerotic element to it, but then why the hell did he write 236 pages of absolutely nothing except for sweltering sexual tension with no payoff?
I would have rather followed Leper's perspective as he enlists in the army and battles his own eroding sanity and cosmic dread. Can't believe Knowles teased us with less than a page of sheer terror and John Carpenter-esque body horror before casually reminding us "No no. This isn't that story. Here's a scene of Gene trying on Phineas' pink shirt. Enjoy as I describe everything except his pounding erection splitting the seams on his uniform slacks."
Dusts And Bowls
The Grapes Of Wrath. I hated that book so much that I refused to read anymore after the 4th chapter in high school. I read a book that was easily twice as long instead. Catcher In The Rye is rough too because it's so damn depressing, but I've read that twice.
Missouri Woman Finds A Heartwarming Surprise From A Stranger Tucked Into A Book She Just Bought
A Missouri woman's day was made when she found a heartwarming note and a $5 bill slipped into a book she bought, now she is passing that good will on to others.
"Remember that you are loved, you are amazing, you are strong," read the note found by Ashley Jost of Columbia, Missouri.
Jost was out shopping at Target when Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis happened to catch her eye.
As part of a challenge with friends Jost had agreed to read at least 10 pages a day for 75 days.
"I keep hearing this book is an easy read and kind of inspirational," Jost said. "So I thought okay, 17 bucks, I'll just grab this book and it'll be my first read of this challenge."
But once Jost got home she was in for a surprise:
Jost read a chapter of the book. When she finished the chapter and tossed the book on the ottoman, something slipped out of it.
"Five dollars fell out, and it took me a second," said Jost "I was like, 'Wait, what just happened?'"
Jost examined the rest of the book and discovered a pink Post-it note wedged in between one of the last pages.
"To the person who buys this book: I am having a tough day. I thought maybe I could brighten someone else's with this little surprise," the note read. "Go buy a coffee, a donut or a face mask. Practice some self care today. Remember that you are loved, you are amazing, you are strong.
- Lisa"
"I read it once, and I read it again," Jost said. "I thought, 'dang this is really neat'"
Jost couldn't believe what she had found.
"Like this is something that only happens to strangers on the internet, not some random person in the middle of Missouri who just happens to decide in the heat of the moment to buy this book at Target."
So Jost decided to share the random act of kindness with others, posting the note and the story on Twitter.
Jost wasn't the only one touched by the heartwarming gesture and soon the story began spreading across the internet.
Although Jost said she was surprised by the all the response the story has received she think it shows a little kindness is something "we all need."
"I think the engagement is an indicator that people just sort of need the pick-me-up. We need it all the time, but particularly we do heading into the work week and in this busy time of year for everybody."
So Jost has decided to pass the good will she received onto others by paying it forward.
"We live in a college town where there are so many people living paycheck to paycheck," said Jost "So I decided I wanted to do one random act of kindness every day this week, each worth $5."
And others inspired by the random act of kindness are following Jost's example.
And although she may never get to do it in person Jost and others wanted to say thank you to the mysterious Lisa for her kind gesture, "where ever she is."
If you know someone hasn't seen a movie or read a book, but they want to, don't spoil it. It's tough urge to beat, sure. But your friend will definitely hold it against you. Oh, and turn off your phones in a movie theater.
sluna-l asked: What's the worst spoiler someone has ever done to you?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.