Summer Reading Assignments - A Rant
Jul. 7th, 2010 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charliesmumCharlie has a summer reading assignment, and I find this annoying on so many levels.
I'm fine if they say 'read a book over the summer and you will get credit for it' but to tell him to read specific books is counter-productive. Let him pick a book he's interested in; show him reading can actually be fun, but don't force him to read a 'school book' in the flipping summer time.
Worse, this is the book he is supposed to read: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Which is a 'Newberry Winner' so you know it's grim and depressing. I read the synopsis and ya know what? I don't want Charlie reading it.
I mean, this is apparently how the book ends: Meanwhile, T. J. has become a rogue, a known thief, and he hangs out with two trouble-making White teenagers, Melvin and R. W.. One day, they bring him along on a murderous rampage and manage to frame him. Papa and L. T. go to stop the lynching that follows. Almost as soon as they leave, however, the cotton field catches fire, as if it was struck by lightning. The lynch mob and the local black farmers must band together in order to stop the fire. It turns out that Papa started the fire in order to stop the lynching.
T.J. has been arrested and will probably be killed for 'his murder'.
What is Charlie supposed to get out of that? People are horrible, and no one can get out of the life they're in because the world is so horrible, so why even bother? And I'm sure the book has good bits in it; but Charlie has issues with abstract concepts at the best of times, I'm not sure he'd get that out of this book.
I always hated books and stories that take such a grim view of the world. Yes, racism was bad; it still is. Why not a book that shows people overcoming it? Sure it may be fantasy, but maybe by showing kids 'how it can be instead of how it is will inspire them to make it so.
As a bonus these are the books he can also read:
Slake's Limbo - A homeless boy who lives in a NY Subway
Kim/Kim - WWII Japanese Internment
Mischling Second Degree - Childhood in Nazi Germany
I'm fine if they say 'read a book over the summer and you will get credit for it' but to tell him to read specific books is counter-productive. Let him pick a book he's interested in; show him reading can actually be fun, but don't force him to read a 'school book' in the flipping summer time.
Worse, this is the book he is supposed to read: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Which is a 'Newberry Winner' so you know it's grim and depressing. I read the synopsis and ya know what? I don't want Charlie reading it.
I mean, this is apparently how the book ends: Meanwhile, T. J. has become a rogue, a known thief, and he hangs out with two trouble-making White teenagers, Melvin and R. W.. One day, they bring him along on a murderous rampage and manage to frame him. Papa and L. T. go to stop the lynching that follows. Almost as soon as they leave, however, the cotton field catches fire, as if it was struck by lightning. The lynch mob and the local black farmers must band together in order to stop the fire. It turns out that Papa started the fire in order to stop the lynching.
T.J. has been arrested and will probably be killed for 'his murder'.
What is Charlie supposed to get out of that? People are horrible, and no one can get out of the life they're in because the world is so horrible, so why even bother? And I'm sure the book has good bits in it; but Charlie has issues with abstract concepts at the best of times, I'm not sure he'd get that out of this book.
I always hated books and stories that take such a grim view of the world. Yes, racism was bad; it still is. Why not a book that shows people overcoming it? Sure it may be fantasy, but maybe by showing kids 'how it can be instead of how it is will inspire them to make it so.
As a bonus these are the books he can also read:
Slake's Limbo - A homeless boy who lives in a NY Subway
Kim/Kim - WWII Japanese Internment
Mischling Second Degree - Childhood in Nazi Germany