Summer Reading Assignments - A Rant

[charliesmum]

Charlie 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

Comments

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

According to the sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken:

T.J. Avery

T.J. is a friend of the Logan Children and gets put on trial for a murder committed by the Simms brothers but is still convicted for the murder [and sentenced to death] even though he gave solid evidence that R.W. and Melvin Simms commited the murder. He is responsible for making Mama lose her job in the first book. Also, in the first book T.J. is beaten up by R.W. and Melvin Simms after the murder and as a result, his ribs are broken.

So yeah, that's joyful.

I can't even find Kim/Kim online.

Mischling Second Degree is nonfiction about a girl who was a quarter-Jewish--and in the Hitler Your and all kinds of Nazi training camps. Apparently her parents didn't tell her that she was part Jewish until after the war was over.

Slake's Limbo sounds depressing as hell, but seems to end somewhat optimistically in that the kid seems to decide to stop running away in the end. Not that that's much.

I like your idea about showing people overcoming racism. That seems to send more of a useful message than "people are horrible and this is the way things are and you can't do anything about it."

[rayvyn2k.livejournal.com]

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is a Newberry Medal winner and is a lovely story with a few scary elements thrown in.

Have him read that and tell the teacher you did not think those other books were appropriate for your son.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about something like that.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Or, if race is an issue for the teacher, there's always Newbery-award-winner Amos Fortune, Free Man, the story of a slave who buys his own freedom, buys the freedom of four women, masters a trade, buys land and a business, and dies, respected and honored, at 91. And it's based on a real person.

Or, if Charlie wouldn't mind reading about a girl, there's the Newbery Honor book A Girl Named Disaster. I read it recently and loved it. Nhamo is a great heroine, and the adventure doesn't stop when she leaves the wild and reaches other people.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good book. I may do that. Thanks!

[rayvyn2k.livejournal.com]

And that link goes to the web page which has video of Neil reading the book aloud. Perhaps Charlie would read along with Neil?

[drakonlily.livejournal.com]

ugh. Good idea, bad followthrough.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

ugh. Good idea, bad followthrough.

Me or them? :)

[drakonlily.livejournal.com]

Them, why not give them GOOD books, or at least summer themed books. What happened with the phantom tollbooth.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was actually one of my favorite books growing up. I still have my dog-eared copy.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I just read the synopsis. I'm sure it's a good book, it's just so grim for me. It doesn't sound like it has any glimmer of happiness in it at all. Does it?

What did you like about it? I'm just curious because it will help me sort through Charlie having to read it.

[femaelstrom27.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I do not remember my summer reading assignments being that grim when I was his age.

...Then again, before my senior year, I had to read "Oedipus," "Crime and Punishment," "Macbeth," and "Faust," so it could be that middle school and high school are just much more depressing than I remember.

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

You know, my high school reading was pretty much a long list of misery for the most part.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I think that schools tend to fall into the 'it's grim, so it's literature' way of thinking. I remember saying when I was in high school that it was no wonder teen suicide was so high, when these were the things we were forced to read. :)

Love the icon, BTW.

How are you with Eleven? I know you weren't sure you were gonna be happy with the new guy.

[femaelstrom27.livejournal.com]

Oh, he won my heart in approximately 20 minutes. As did Amy and Rory. I was powerless to resist.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

If it's summer, does it even matter *what* he's reading, as long as it's a reasonable length and he reads it?

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

That's what I think, too. And he's a terrible reader anyway. If I could just GET him to read I'd be happy.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I think they're following the "It's grim and hopeless, so it must be Great Writing" theory. Which, IMO, is a pile of pants.

I mean, I've always loved reading, but nearly always hated the books we had to read for school - luckily UK schools don't do the summer reading thing (or they didn't when I was a kid, anyway) so I could read what I liked in my own time (within the bounds of what the local library had of course).

What does Charlie like to read?

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I think they're following the "It's grim and hopeless, so it must be Great Writing" theory. Which, IMO, is a pile of pants.

Hee, me too.

I love to read and always had. If I'd stuck with just what the schools thought was literature, I'd be a lot less well read than I am now.

I mean we got Tale of Two Cities, when Our Mutual Friend was a much better novel and didn't have someone getting hanged at the end of it.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I mean we got Tale of Two Cities, when Our Mutual Friend was a much better novel and didn't have someone getting hanged at the end of it.

I've not read either of those, but the Dickens I have read I find very variable - I enjoyed Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield and Great Expectations wasn't bad, but I couldn't get into the Pckwick Papers at all - dull, dull, dull!

I shall have to give OMF a go then if you liked it :-)

[rvnshadow2001.livejournal.com]

Why not tell the teacher you find the book inappropriate and have him read To Kill A Mockingbird instead??

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Frankly I think these books are too advanced for Charlie anyway. He is not a good reader. I'm going to offer him some other books that he may like, and tell the teacher - well, what you said.

I want him to read, he will get graded, I just don't want him reading this book.

[pookledo.livejournal.com]

They all sound very grim. I wonder if they have a project on racism when they get back after the holidays?

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Hey -- Sorry I didn't reply this sooner (I know it looks weird for me to leave a long comment on a days-old post!), but I was sick all week and then out of town all weekend, so I wasn't up to doing very much clear-headed thinking. ;) Anyway, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (and the other books in the series) have been really important books in my life, ever since I first read Roll of Thunder in fifth or sixth grade, I don't remember. It's one of those books that you can read/understand on several levels: it reads like a fairly straightforward chapter in history/outline of what racism looked like in the Depression-era South, but as I've gotten older it's given me a remarkably nuanced viewpoint on how that history of racism has shaped our present-day experiences: it simultaneously presents an amazing human portrait of a family surviving difficult circumstances, and brings to life a million small details of what life in that era was like.

Now that I've done my "I love this book!" thing, on to your actual questions. Basically, I wouldn't say the book is grim at all. It has plenty of grim details, yes. It isn't interested in whitewashing (um... no pun intended) anything. That means there's a lynching and the threat of more, and the main character is manhandled a bit at one point because she doesn't understand how it's safe to act around racist whites, and in general the blacks in the book live with fear hanging over their heads. But the message of the book is much more one of love and hope and determination to fight through to a better place. The ending of the book winds up with Logan setting some of his cotton on fire, yes, but it's not grim so much as a mixed ending: by doing that, he keeps an innocent kid from getting lynched, which seemed like it was going to be all but impossible to do. It'll be harder for the Logans to survive because he did that, but they've fought through hard times again and you know that they'll keep fighting. And meanwhile, TJ gets a trial instead of a lynching, which was a really substantial triumph in those days.

Basically it's a book about survival, but even more than that it's a book about family. There are lots of funny or lighthearted moments in the book, and they tend to be about family: family members sharing jokes or stories about the past or what have you. Their strength comes from their love and dedication to one another; it's their heritage, how they got their land in the first place, and when they can they use the advantages that their land gives them to help the community. There really is a lot of hope in the book. It depicts some grim realities, but it's much more about the Logan family and how they survive together.

(Also, the relationship between whites and blacks in the book is tentative at best -- at worst it consists of lynchings etc., of course, but at best, the blacks are wary of the whites because the power balance is so unequal and too much outright trust can get you hurt. But a white lawyer is at the center of the fight to keep TJ from being lynched, and he works with the Logans throughout the book to fight various other injustices. So in that sense it demonstrates that whites and blacks can band together to fight racism. I really like the way she did that because, again, it's hopeful but realistic.)

So... that's my pitch for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry! :)

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I just read a Wiki synopsis, and it sounded horribly grim to me.

Charlie is not a strong reader, and has trouble with abstract concepts, so I'm really afraid that even if he got through the book, he wouldn't take away the right things, and wind up being anxious about things. It's happened before.

I also wonder, and forgive me because this sounds so much like that 'I have black friends' argument, but I honestly think he doesn't really get race. Literally the three best friends he has during school are black. I'm afraid it will confuse him and he will start to look at his friends differently because the book told him so. If you know what I mean.

Mostly I just wish they just said 'read a book'. Why can't kids pick a book THEY want to read during the summer? Why make reading any harder for Charlie than it already is?

But thanks, if I do wind up having him at least skim it, I know what to talk about.