What's the point of required reading?

Susan James said:It’s not quite like that, 😕 because
they've swapped out all those old wartime stories for more patriotic classics.
I have a pretty good memory of my own reading lists, though I might nudge my mom to dig through her old notebooks to be sure. 🤔

And regarding how these subjects are actually taught in class, I think Proab hit the nail on the head—it mostly depends on the teacher's vibe. That's what needs to change, not necessarily the actual content itself.

Honestly, I doubt anyone in high school even does those old-school book reports anymore—you know, where you sit there scribbling character analyses and themes into a specific notebook. That kind of thing hasn't been the norm since, what, twenty years ago?

Robert Rodriguez9 said:Like I said before, it wasn't always about everyone getting a grade. In high school, the teacher would just use one or two specific questions to sniff out who actually did the reading and who didn't. If you gave a deep, detailed answer, you got an A. If you showed zero effort, you got an F. Sometimes you could slide by, though. Same thing during class discussions—if you were super engaged, you got an A; if they caught you off guard and realized you hadn't touched the book, you were looking at an F. That was high school for you. Middle school was just the usual, boring busywork.

It was pretty much the same for me, except I could usually hold my own in a discussion even without reading the book, unless they hit me with those really specific details. That's why I say he mostly left me alone and wouldn't grill me with those kinds of questions, except for the occasional time he decided to mess with me. 😬
He was actually a great guy—really gentle and poetic at heart. Since I absolutely loved Baudelaire and was reading poetry well beyond the required reading list, he’d usually let me off easy. 😍

rowdypanther12 said:It was pretty much the same for me, except I could usually hold my own in a discussion even without reading the book, unless they hit me with those really specific details. That's why I say he mostly left me alone and wouldn't grill me with those kinds of questions, except for the occasional time he decided to mess with me. 😬
He was actually a great guy—really gentle and poetic at heart. Since I absolutely loved Baudelaire and was reading poetry well beyond the required reading list, he’d usually let me off easy. 😍

I clearly had some amazing American literature teachers, because they never picked on us over tiny details; we actually had so many great discussions. During my first two years of high school (with two different teachers), we’d write take-home assignments or answer prompts that followed what hiddendriver34 is describing—not just dryly listing the time, setting, or a plot summary, but writing essay-style reflections through deeper questions. By junior and senior year, we didn't even do that anymore; we just spent our class time having deep debates with our third teacher.
Nobody ever forced us to memorize the color of some curtains or the specific types of walking sticks used. 🙏

I love Baudelaire too 😍, and looking back, I see they’ve actually taken him off the required reading list now 😢
. We definitely had that kind of experience.

My elementary school American teacher was quite unstable. It was almost surreal; if you simply mentioned something beautiful about God, she would hand you an A. As for her grading on required reading, it wasn't about whether you actually read the book. It was about whether you liked it, if you found some divine or sublime connection within its pages, and whether she personally took a liking to you.

Fortunately, my high school teacher was nothing short of phenomenal.

No amount of bluffing worked with her. She could tell instantly if you had read the material, if you had just skimmed a summary online, or if you hadn't touched the book at all.

At the start of every class, she would ask for volunteers who hadn't finished the reading. If students tried to lie and were caught—which happened every single time—they received a failing grade that they couldn't make up. A few students initially thought they could outsmart her, but once they realized it was impossible and started failing, they began volunteering upfront. They became "volunteers" by necessity. 😁

The second group was easy targets. After a few quick questions, they would start to struggle. They knew the general plot from the internet, but as soon as she probed deeper, their superficiality was exposed. They would receive that permanent failing grade. For those students, it was a gut-wrenching moment because their maximum possible grade would drop to a C, since she wouldn't allow any A's or B's to be paired with a failing mark in her grading system.

Finally, there was a small group of students who truly read the books. We would spend the rest of the period, or even the next block period, engaging in deep discussions. During those sessions, a few A's or B's might occasionally slip through.

If someone had read the book but failed to grasp the nuances, they might receive a mediocre C. In those cases, the teacher would usually act in the student's best interest, asking if they wanted the grade recorded or if they preferred to wait, depending on how it would affect their overall GPA.

In my view, this approach is fair to both the students and the teacher. It is difficult to imagine a more honest way to handle it.

nimblemoose2 said:My elementary school American teacher was quite unstable. It was almost surreal; if you simply mentioned something beautiful about God, she would hand you an A. As for her grading on required reading, it wasn't about whether you actually read the book. It was about whether you liked it, if you found some divine or sublime connection within its pages, and whether she personally took a liking to you.

Fortunately, my high school teacher was nothing short of phenomenal.

No amount of bluffing worked with her. She could tell instantly if you had read the material, if you had just skimmed a summary online, or if you hadn't touched the book at all.

At the start of every class, she would ask for volunteers who hadn't finished the reading. If students tried to lie and were caught—which happened every single time—they received a failing grade that they couldn't make up. A few students initially thought they could outsmart her, but once they realized it was impossible and started failing, they began volunteering upfront. They became "volunteers" by necessity. 😁

The second group was easy targets. After a few quick questions, they would start to struggle. They knew the general plot from the internet, but as soon as she probed deeper, their superficiality was exposed. They would receive that permanent failing grade. For those students, it was a gut-wrenching moment because their maximum possible grade would drop to a C, since she wouldn't allow any A's or B's to be paired with a failing mark in her grading system.

Finally, there was a small group of students who truly read the books. We would spend the rest of the period, or even the next block period, engaging in deep discussions. During those sessions, a few A's or B's might occasionally slip through.

If someone had read the book but failed to grasp the nuances, they might receive a mediocre C. In those cases, the teacher would usually act in the student's best interest, asking if they wanted the grade recorded or if they preferred to wait, depending on how it would affect their overall GPA.

In my view, this approach is fair to both the students and the teacher. It is difficult to imagine a more honest way to handle it.

Great, so go ahead and call the school board. Let them try to explain why a student ends up with a C when everything else is an A.

Michelle Nelson4 said:So, I suppose it all boils down to what kind of environment your parents created for you...

...or just how much luck you had with your specific teacher.

And then we end up looking like we're lagging behind developing nations when you look at the correlation between parental education levels and a child's academic success. It brings a whole host of other issues along with it, too...

That’s pretty much it.
But we tend to point all our fingers at the school system and the homework load, because, well, I suppose it's easier to blame the institution than to admit a parent might be just as responsible for a kid's lack of interest in reading as anyone else.

Honestly, you can say whatever you want about parents, but my folks just didn't read to me—and they certainly didn't make a habit of it. I didn't even really discover the local library until I started school; once I did, though, I guess I was checking out new books practically every single week.
My husband's mom has enough books to start her own library, yet she refuses to touch a Kindle, so my husband has basically only read one book in his entire life—*The Bourne Identity*, lol. Then there’s my cousin, who was devouring comic books since he was five and read an insane amount of stuff, which meant he absolutely hated every required reading assignment in high school; meanwhile, his younger brother never cared for reading at all and probably hasn't finished a single assigned book in his life. It's funny how two kids from the same house can turn out so completely different. 🤔 Yeah, I'm sure it's definitely the parents' fault if the kids find the classics boring or way too dense. 🙄

urbantinker8 said:So, fine—for those who grew up loving books, or kids who started reading way before they ever touched a required school assignment, everyone's going to have different takes on specific titles. Some books might seem brilliant to them, while others might be absolute trash, but collectively, none of it should "kill" their general desire to read.
Besides, nobody is stopping anyone from reading whatever else they want alongside the assigned stuff.
But no, it's much easier to just say, "Because of one bad experience in school, I'm never stepping foot in a public library again." It's a bit dramatic, isn't it?🙄

And if you haven't felt like reading since you were a kid, then frankly, nobody gives a damn about your opinion.

Look, urbantinker8, someone who has been a reader since childhood will likely end up well-educated regardless of whether they ever step foot in a classroom. In my view, the true purpose of school should be to serve those who didn't grow up with a book in their hands—to act as a bridge that introduces them to literature and helps them develop a genuine love for reading.

A parent simply cannot be held entirely responsible for everything that goes wrong. It’s an impossible standard to meet, and frankly, it's an unfair one. To suggest that a child's every failure or stumble is a direct reflection of parental inadequacy is to ignore the sheer complexity of human development. Think of it like trying to steer a ship through a massive storm in the middle of the Atlantic. A captain can have the best training, the most reliable vessel, and the clearest charts from the Coast Guard, but they still can't control the gale winds or the rogue waves. They can manage the rudder, sure, but once those elements hit, the outcome is no longer solely in their hands. Children are individuals with their own temperaments, peer influences, and increasingly, their own agency. You can provide the best foundation possible—steady guidance, a stable home, and solid values—but you aren't building a robot programmed to follow instructions. You are raising a person. Once they step out into the world, there are a thousand variables at play that no amount of parenting can account for. Blaming a parent for every deviation from the expected path isn't just reductive; it's logically flawed.

If that's the case, what is even the point of sending kids to school? What purpose does it actually serve if there's absolutely no support or recourse once a parent has either failed them or done their job poorly in the first place?

urbantinker8 said:And honestly, this one massive "truth" that everyone seems to swallow whole? It’s just completely and utterly nonsensical.☕
I sometimes find myself wondering how on earth a required reading list can actually make someone hate books altogether. It seems almost counterintuitive, doesn't it? You’d think giving people more stories would foster a love for reading, but I guess when you force a student to grind through some dense, outdated classic just to pass a test, it can really sour the whole experience. Maybe it's that feeling of being trapped by a syllabus, or perhaps it's just the sheer exhaustion of analyzing every single metaphor instead of just letting the story breathe. It's like being forced to eat a gourmet meal while someone stands over your shoulder with a stopwatch and a grading rubric; eventually, you just stop tasting the food and start dreading the next sitting.🤔
If we're assuming that Zornik's mountains are somehow some kind of boring masterpiece—which, I mean, that's a pretty heavy claim to make—then I suppose you’d have to conclude that everything else ever written or painted is just equally tedious. It’s a bit of a slippery slope, isn't it? If one specific work hits that level of monotony, then maybe our entire standard for art is just fundamentally broken, or perhaps we're all just collectively lacking a sense of wonder. I guess if that's the case, then yeah, everything else might just be more of the same.
If we’re looking at the American Renaissance as this grand period meant for soul-searching and confession, I guess you have to wonder if every single era in world literature serves that same purpose. It feels like maybe all of them do, in their own way, though I suppose some are more obvious about it than others.
I suppose if someone actually sits down and makes it through all three books of Dante’s Inferno, they might just be the type of person who leaves all hope behind right there on the sidewalk in front of the New York Public Library.

I mean, there’s really no point in lying to yourselves or anyone else, I guess. It just seems like a lot of unnecessary effort.
The kind of person who lives for those deep, meaningful quotes... well, I guess they’re just going to keep quoting things, no matter what happens.
I guess you’ll eventually run into that one person who complains about a required school reading, and they’ll probably claim that some single bad assignment just totally soured them on books for the rest of their lives.😉

I’m still reading today, too. My Kindle has become such an indispensable companion that I honestly feel naked without it—it’s practically a daily essential, right up there with my wallet.

I’ll admit it: there were times when required reading actually managed to sour my entire relationship with books.

There’s a mountain of classics sitting on my shelf that I probably would have actually enjoyed, but I haven't touched a single one. If a book makes the mandatory reading list for high school, it’s clearly garbage.

Stipe23 said:I fail to see what this is even referring to.

I am referring back to my own previous post from a little while ago.

Linda Price5 As specified by:
If the entire point of education is to drill children into becoming compliant adults—people who will clock in and perform mindless, tedious tasks they find utterly pointless just so they can scrape together enough to pay their electric bills—then I fail to see why we bother them with mandatory literature and a bloated curriculum. Instead, we should just have them sewing garments or sanding down table legs for seven or ten bucks an hour. That would teach them the exact same lesson: how to sit still and mind their own business. At least then, there would be a controlled environment where they’re kept under lock and key while their parents are at work, preventing them from forming street gangs and terrorizing neighborhoods. At any rate, it would actually be productive.

Seven bucks times five hours times one hundred seventy-five school days a year adds up to $2042, and over eight years, we're looking at $49,000.

If we let them listen to audiobooks or podcasts while they're sanding or sewing, they might actually finish those eight years without being completely brainless and uneducated.

The only real headache is figuring out where to lock the teachers up during work hours so they don't start forming gangs and terrorizing local neighborhoods, though I suppose even that could probably be solved.

I was just hunting down this specific thread for Stipa when I stumbled upon my own old posts from 2012.

Linda Price5 said:I don't know. There were plenty of times I almost threw in the towel. 😁 I eventually decided to save myself the headache by just refusing to read the required school books—because let's face it, if it's mandatory reading, it's usually garbage.

And I suspect I missed out on quite a few great stories that I would have loved if they hadn't been forced upon me by some school district curriculum. Especially back in fourth grade.

I honestly can't say. There have been plenty of times when I came just a hair too short. 😁 I’ve decided to save myself the headache and just stop reading the assigned book. If it’s been labeled "required reading," it’s bound to be absolute garbage.

I can’t help but feel I missed out on a significant number of books that I would have actually enjoyed, simply because they were assigned as mandatory school reading. It was especially true back in fourth grade.

Linda Price5 said:But the purpose of the school system should be to ensure that even a kid like little Matthew—whose uncle works as a floor installer and whose mother only finished eighth grade—actually stands a chance.

A truly functional educational system is one that levels the playing field, regardless of whether your parents are intellectuals hosting salons for the literary elite or working-class folks just trying to scrape by through a grueling twenty-four-hour grind.

Linda Price5 said:To become literate.

Anyone can read, and books are readily available to kids—the issue lies primarily within the family dynamic, doesn't it?

If we assume the issue is strictly rooted in the home environment, then we might as well scrap the entire public school system. After all, they’d be largely redundant if intellectuals simply educate their own children, while carpenters do the same—just in a different direction—and call it a day. 😁

I maintain that a robust educational system should account for a student's social habitus and provide a genuine opportunity for high-quality learning. For instance, in Finland, the correlation between parental reading habits and a fifteen-year-old's literacy levels is remarkably slim; in other places, it is overwhelmingly significant. A teenager who lacks the capacity to grasp even a relatively straightforward piece of prose—a situation affecting roughly one-fifth of American fifteen-year-olds—will find virtually no value in any assigned reading material.

Our classrooms are filled with students who simply cannot read. Someone struggling through the works of družba prati kvržica at a pace of barely a hundred words per minute isn't suffering from a lack of access to books; they're suffering from a lack of fundamental skill.

I really want to back up whoever said Pinocchio is a total snooze-fest. My little girl didn't have it for school, but I tried reading it to her about two years ago and it was just painful. It might be an issue with the publishers, though—there are so many obscure words, and to make matters worse, the print is tiny and the text is all crammed together without any indentation or breathing room. Plus, the beginning is just boring.
It was boring for me, too, so my daughter and I just gave up on it.
Maybe there's a more readable edition out there somewhere.

Peter Doyle2 said:Honestly, you can say whatever you want about parents, but my folks just didn't read to me—and they certainly didn't make a habit of it. I didn't even really discover the local library until I started school; once I did, though, I guess I was checking out new books practically every single week.
My husband's mom has enough books to start her own library, yet she refuses to touch a Kindle, so my husband has basically only read one book in his entire life—*The Bourne Identity*, lol. Then there’s my cousin, who was devouring comic books since he was five and read an insane amount of stuff, which meant he absolutely hated every required reading assignment in high school; meanwhile, his younger brother never cared for reading at all and probably hasn't finished a single assigned book in his life. It's funny how two kids from the same house can turn out so completely different. 🤔 Yeah, I'm sure it's definitely the parents' fault if the kids find the classics boring or way too dense. 🙄

Exactly. You have readers and non-readers, and you can't force one to become the other, but there are plenty of kids in the middle who could actually be hooked by a good book if they found the right one.😁

Susan James said:And what exactly would audiobooks make easier? If the content itself is boring, it's going to be boring whether you're reading it or listening to it.😕

If the content itself isn't a total snooze fest, audiobooks can be a genuine game-changer. They open up literature to anyone who struggles with traditional reading—whether that’s someone dealing with dyslexia, someone who never quite mastered the art of focus, or even just a slow reader who loses the thread of a sentence before they even reach the period. For those folks, listening makes great writing accessible instead of a chore.

It functions much like parental reading does for a child—providing access to books they aren't yet capable of navigating on their own. 😁

rowdypanther12 said:I really want to back up whoever said Pinocchio is a total snooze-fest. My little girl didn't have it for school, but I tried reading it to her about two years ago and it was just painful. It might be an issue with the publishers, though—there are so many obscure words, and to make matters worse, the print is tiny and the text is all crammed together without any indentation or breathing room. Plus, the beginning is just boring.
It was boring for me, too, so my daughter and I just gave up on it.
Maybe there's a more readable edition out there somewhere.

Exactly. You have readers and non-readers, and you can't force one to become the other, but there are plenty of kids in the middle who could actually be hooked by a good book if they found the right one.😁

But that’s exactly my point! I mean, the crew over at Penguin Random House probably isn't going to "lure" anyone into reading—if anything, they just turn people off. Even in our group, there are maybe five or six of us who read both before and after high school, but honestly, the required reading back in school just made us hate reading altogether. I guess it won't matter much for those people who fall somewhere in that middle ground 😬

Well, Linda Price5, I don't think you froze up on reading in general, just on school assignments. 😁I used to skip whatever didn't interest me back in high school, and honestly, I didn't skip much. But for the stuff I did skip? I have absolutely zero desire to pick those up now.
There are other books I regret not picking up when I was a teenager—not because they were required reading, but just because I missed them. I ended up reading them much later, and I kept thinking about how much I wished I’d discovered them when I was 16 or 17.
Plus, my list of "greatest classics" left to read is still incredibly long. So many books, so little time. 😁

Well, Linda Price5, I don't think you froze up on reading in general, just on required school reading 😁 I used to skip whatever didn't interest me back in high school, though I wasn't a huge rebel about it. The stuff I did skip? Honestly, I have zero desire to pick those up now.
There are other books I regret not diving into during my teens that weren't assigned by teachers. I eventually got around to them later, but I spent so much time thinking about how much I missed out by not reading them when I was 16 or 17.
And my list of "great classics" I still need to tackle is incredibly long—so many books, so little time 😁

Peter Doyle2 said:Honestly, you can say whatever you want about parents, but my folks just didn't read to me—and they certainly didn't make a habit of it. I didn't even really discover the local library until I started school; once I did, though, I guess I was checking out new books practically every single week.
My husband's mom has enough books to start her own library, yet she refuses to touch a Kindle, so my husband has basically only read one book in his entire life—*The Bourne Identity*, lol. Then there’s my cousin, who was devouring comic books since he was five and read an insane amount of stuff, which meant he absolutely hated every required reading assignment in high school; meanwhile, his younger brother never cared for reading at all and probably hasn't finished a single assigned book in his life. It's funny how two kids from the same house can turn out so completely different. 🤔 Yeah, I'm sure it's definitely the parents' fault if the kids find the classics boring or way too dense. 🙄

Did I actually say anywhere that parents are to blame for kids finding classics dull?
Honestly, everyone, let's please stop putting words in my mouth.🙄
What I said was that school definitely isn't—and can't be—the sole reason why people "grow to hate" reading.
School can't really ruin a habit that you never even had to begin with. True, it can encourage someone to develop that habit, but it largely comes down to an individual's interest and the specific book itself. Not every book is wonderful or fun, but then again, they aren't all the most horrific things imaginable either.

Peter Doyle2 and Linda Price5, look—school doesn't really care about a kid whose parents never bothered to read to them, but it is significantly harder to introduce literature to someone who lacks any reading habit whatsoever, including that early experience of looking at picture books as a child.
To me, it seems almost unbelievable when parents don't read to toddlers—it feels like it borders on a form of neglect.☕
Obviously, someone who hasn't read anything from *Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark* to *The Very Hungry Caterpillar* before starting school is unlikely to be thrilled by the titles on a required reading list. But the purpose of these assignments is to introduce readers to some of the canonical works of an era, regardless of whether those specific works appeal to them or not. It's not there to cater to the tastes of an audience that has zero reading experience or even a sense of what they might enjoy reading.
Good grief, we've gone from debating fishing rights to reaching the level of a heated Pinocchio argument.🤦
Anyway, why don't you all give me five to ten suggestions for what would be perfect reading material for your kids, from first grade through senior year of high school, and explain why you chose them.
I'm listening.🍿

Pinocchio might be fine for third grade, but I honestly don't think most kids can handle a book that thick and heavy when they're only in second grade.
Yeah, most kids are still struggling just to recognize letters in second grade. I actually think the reading list is pretty reasonable for that age group. 😁

As for kids who don't read much, look at my experience—I haven't really read to my little one. It’s not that I didn't try; I’ve been attempting it since she was a baby, but she just wasn't interested.
Not even a little bit.
I mean, maybe we could squeeze in a bit before bed, but otherwise, she wouldn't sit still for more than three minutes, let alone focus on a book.
It wasn't until she learned to read fluently on her own and calmed down a bit that she started picking up books by herself. She’s definitely not a voracious reader, but I’m grateful for every single page she finishes. 😁

rowdypanther12 said:Pinocchio might be fine for third grade, but I honestly don't think most kids can handle a book that thick and heavy when they're only in second grade.
Yeah, most kids are still struggling just to recognize letters in second grade. I actually think the reading list is pretty reasonable for that age group. 😁

As for kids who don't read much, look at my experience—I haven't really read to my little one. It’s not that I didn't try; I’ve been attempting it since she was a baby, but she just wasn't interested.
Not even a little bit.
I mean, maybe we could squeeze in a bit before bed, but otherwise, she wouldn't sit still for more than three minutes, let alone focus on a book.
It wasn't until she learned to read fluently on her own and calmed down a bit that she started picking up books by herself. She’s definitely not a voracious reader, but I’m grateful for every single page she finishes. 😁

And honestly, that’s what matters most—that you actually tried.

rowdypanther12 said:Well, Linda Price5, I don't think you froze up on reading in general, just on school assignments. 😁I used to skip whatever didn't interest me back in high school, and honestly, I didn't skip much. But for the stuff I did skip? I have absolutely zero desire to pick those up now.
There are other books I regret not picking up when I was a teenager—not because they were required reading, but just because I missed them. I ended up reading them much later, and I kept thinking about how much I wished I’d discovered them when I was 16 or 17.
Plus, my list of "greatest classics" left to read is still incredibly long. So many books, so little time. 😁

Exactly. As someone who has practically lived with a book in hand—eating with one, walking with one—I can tell you I never actually read the Mark Twain novel that sat staring at me from my shelf. By the time I reached the age where I might have picked up Mark Twain, I had already decided it was garbage simply because it was part of the mandatory curriculum.

Aren't those required school readings actually quite useful? They're especially vital for people who aren't total bookworms by nature. 😬

Someone once asked me how I find the time to read for pleasure when they claim, "Required reading is awful." It's as if kids develop this mindset that the assigned school books are the absolute peak of what a library has to offer; they can't even fathom that there might be something better waiting for them beyond those tedious assignments.

I remember a girl being genuinely shocked when I explained that I don't enjoy school reading either, but that other books are actually superior. By the end of our conversation, she decided to head to the library to check out what I was reading, and she ended up reading for fun in her spare time. 😁

I was honestly terrified I might cause a backlash, which was my biggest worry. And looking back, I really don't think it had any impact on whether she'll actually grow to love reading.
She isn't exactly a bookworm—not like I used to be—but she does read more than the average person and definitely has a positive outlook on books.

urbantinker8 said:Did I actually say anywhere that parents are to blame for kids finding classics dull?
Honestly, everyone, let's please stop putting words in my mouth.🙄
What I said was that school definitely isn't—and can't be—the sole reason why people "grow to hate" reading.
School can't really ruin a habit that you never even had to begin with. True, it can encourage someone to develop that habit, but it largely comes down to an individual's interest and the specific book itself. Not every book is wonderful or fun, but then again, they aren't all the most horrific things imaginable either.

Peter Doyle2 and Linda Price5, look—school doesn't really care about a kid whose parents never bothered to read to them, but it is significantly harder to introduce literature to someone who lacks any reading habit whatsoever, including that early experience of looking at picture books as a child.
To me, it seems almost unbelievable when parents don't read to toddlers—it feels like it borders on a form of neglect.☕
Obviously, someone who hasn't read anything from *Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark* to *The Very Hungry Caterpillar* before starting school is unlikely to be thrilled by the titles on a required reading list. But the purpose of these assignments is to introduce readers to some of the canonical works of an era, regardless of whether those specific works appeal to them or not. It's not there to cater to the tastes of an audience that has zero reading experience or even a sense of what they might enjoy reading.
Good grief, we've gone from debating fishing rights to reaching the level of a heated Pinocchio argument.🤦
Anyway, why don't you all give me five to ten suggestions for what would be perfect reading material for your kids, from first grade through senior year of high school, and explain why you chose them.
I'm listening.🍿

I was under the impression that before middle school, kids attend elementary school, where they aren't exactly diving into the heavy hitters of various literary eras; they're more likely to be stuck reading Ante Gardaš. 😁