I saw someone discussing Ethan Frome and it brought back a lot of memories. We had to read this book during the 9th grade, and for any of you that have not read it, the book deals with topics like adult infidelity and emotional cheating. The whole book, the adults are just depressed and it’s winter and the middle aged married couple are having martial problems. Maybe even facing a mid life crisis.
I just don’t think most 13 year olds could see the nuances with these kind topics.
We even had to watch the movie after…and not one kid could keep their eyes open. I usually LOVED the movies we were made to watch, but this one was really not it.
A million years have passed since the 9th grade, and now I do feel for the characters and sympatize their pain. At 13? No way. I couldn’t understand their feelings. I couldn’t understand the reasons behind their feelings either.
It is not a book I would reach out for even now, but I understand and appreciate aspects of it, I suppose.
by TokkiJK
20 Comments
I think it was sixth grade where Snow Falling On Cedars was assigned. Some sex in that book that probably wasn’t perfect for that age
Freshman year of high school was The Things They Carried. Heavy but manageable
I hated Jane Eyre. I still do. Worst book I ever had the misfortune to have to read.
I regard the attempt by our convent school to impose Victorian moral values on us as a dreadful thing to do to kids.
Johnny Got His Gun. A long term substitute teacher thought us 10 year olds would love to hear the stream of consciousness of a faceless quadriplegic.
It was horrifying
I always had pretty much no oversight on the books I was reading. I was incredibly precocious, reading at the college level in the fourth grade. This led me to pick up *I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings* at 10. It’s a beautiful book, and I’ve since reread it as an adult, but as a preteen I was wholly unprepared and I wish an adult had been there to talk me through it or to just tell me to wait a few years.
My son read Metamorphosis for 9th grade summer reading. He said he didn’t understand why they would assign such a depressing book to teenagers who might already be depressed. Fair critique I think.
The librarian read us The Giver when I was in 3rd grade. The biggest thing that stood out to me was how all the babies came from only one woman, and it stuck with me. I eventually watched the movie when it was made just to figure out what the book was actually about.
I can’t remember the name of it now, but in grade 5 we had to read a (possibly autobiographical) book about a refugee in Afghanistan, which was upsetting for some students because of the death in it. I think the teacher shelved it after we got through a few chapters.
Honestly none of them? But in 8th grade we did the play version of Anne Frank’s diary which I didn’t even know existed and I hated it. We had to act as them. I would’ve just liked to read the actual diary
The hate you give. It was more of a teacher couldn’t moderate the discussion she took sides and let another student yell to get their point across which made me cry
Oh my God. I transferred schools and had to read Ethan Fromme twice. Now, it has the “worst book ever” spot in my rankings. I understand that there’s clear symbolism, but I really think there are better books to teach it.
Bless the children that still have to read The Red Pony. No elementary aged kids should have to read a vivid description of the poor dead pony having its eyes pecked out.
None. Books that I didn’t get all the nuances, I still enjoyed and I got more when I thought on them later.
Flowers in the Attic in 5th grade or middle school, early 90’s, Houston, TX.
I read Fahrenheit 451 in 7th grade and it completely went over my head. I reread it in college and had a much greater appreciation for it
In middle school we had to read the Frontiersman. A violent book about what happened between the Americans and the native Americans. It’s good to know some of the things that happened back then, but that might be too young of an age for content like that.
Of Mice and Men is sixth grade. And then we watched the movie.
I think by the time my younger siblings went through sixth grade they no longer read that.
My third grade teacher read our class “Where the Red Fern Grows”. Ostensibly it is a children’s book, but I would argue it is not safe for any age. Or at least, it will fuck you up emotionally for a long time after. I’m 36 now and I can still recall some of the graphic depictions of injuries to a pet. That said, in a very rural school district, the chances that kids will have seen similar is pretty high. 🙁
I remember being so disturbed over the SA in Julie of the Wolves in elementary school.
The Scarlet Ibis. I was in fourth grade and was left traumatized
We watched Ethan Frome in sixth grade at my school. I was the only person who knew who Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette were. It was not a hit.
I was already reading college level books but I liked a break now and then. My teacher took that as an affront and wrote me a permission slip to go to the high school library (this was a tiny rural public school in 1992) and told the librarian to check out Jane Eyre to me. After that it was Wuthering Heights. And after that, Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
These days, I love me some Austen and Daphne DuMaurier, but I still can not stomach Brontë or Hardy. That one teacher pretty much killed my love of literature because she thought she knew better than me what I should be reading.
The librarian and I had a fantastic relationship. I was not required to have a permission slip like most and I had already read Gone With the Wind, War and Peace, and Anna Karenina for fun. We tried to explain this but old sour jaw couldn’t wrap her head around it.
All that because I requested to read Incognito Mosquito again for fun because it made me cackle.