Middle School and The Outsiders

[p.falk]

My son is in 8th grade and he came home with The Outsiders by SE Hinton. I was in middle school in 1991 and I remembered reading that book as well.

At work I brought up the movie for The Outsiders and commented how when I first saw that movie I was cheering on the Socials. And everyone in that conversation admitted to having read that book when in middle school.

Apparently SE Hinton is our (Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z) Herman Melville.

Administrators must be pretty complacent to always think, "hmmmm, out of all the good literature out there.... The Outsiders again!".


It's not a bad book, just not good to have pride of place decade after decade.

[Doom]

What is wrong with it? It is an age-appropriate, easy-to-read book that is time-tested, popular with youth, and encourages reading.

You know what else they are going to read?


Where The Red Fern Grows

To Kill A Mockingbird

And I bet they read

The Phantom Toolbooth

Charlotte's Web

and perhaps even The Indian in the Cupboard or The Wind in the Willows in elementary school.

In high school, they will probably read The Lord of the Rings

What would you prefer? Some modern woke book about transgenderism? I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

[anawim]

In high school, they will probably read The Lord of the Rings

In high school we read Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer, etc. LotR would have been a nice change of pace.

[Doom]

I doubt it was all that widely known when you were in high school, it wasn't published in the US until 1966, and it didn't start to become a phenomenon until the early 70s

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

We read none of the classics in my high school English class. We didn't read non-classics either. I'm not entirely sure after all these years what we did, but all the books that "everyone has read," I have not (unless I picked them up in the meantime).

[Riverboat]

I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

I shudder to think of the alternative reading in other schools. Pfalk, be grateful the kid is reading this book. You realize she wrote this when she was a teenager, right?

[p.falk]

What is wrong with it? It is an age-appropriate, easy-to-read book that is time-tested, popular with youth, and encourages reading.

You know what else they are going to read?


Where The Red Fern Grows

To Kill A Mockingbird

And I bet they read

The Phantom Toolbooth

Charlotte's Web

and perhaps even The Indian in the Cupboard or The Wind in the Willows in elementary school.

In high school, they will probably read The Lord of the Rings

What would you prefer? Some modern woke book about transgenderism? I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

Hmmmm…
Remove SE Hinton and give them a collection of Ray Bradbury. That’ll stir up a sense of wonder.


There’s nothing wrong with The Outsiders, there’s nothing wrong with a bowl of Kellogg’s.
There’s just a rich canon of literature for SE Hinton to hsve risen to the level of Rite of Passage.

[anawim]

I doubt it was all that widely known when you were in high school, it wasn't published in the US until 1966, and it didn't start to become a phenomenon until the early 70s

I graduated in '72. It was a book that I had heard of, but you're right, it hadn't yet become widely famous.

[Doom]

I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

I shudder to think of the alternative reading in other schools. Pfalk, be grateful the kid is reading this book. You realize she wrote this when she was a teenager, right?

And that means it is a bad book that no one should read? I don’t see the logic here.

[Doom]

Hmmmm…
Remove SE Hinton and give them a collection of Ray Bradbury. That’ll stir up a sense of wonder.


There’s nothing wrong with The Outsiders, there’s nothing wrong with a bowl of Kellogg’s.
There’s just a rich canon of literature for SE Hinton to hsve risen to the level of Rite of Passage.

It is a book that teenagers like, can relate to, and are willing to read. Are they willing to read Ray Bradbury, can they relate to his writing? Probably not. At that age it is less about the specific book than it is just getting them to read period. High concept fiction that they can’t relate to is not going to get the job done.

[p.falk]

I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

I shudder to think of the alternative reading in other schools. Pfalk, be grateful the kid is reading this book. You realize she wrote this when she was a teenager, right?

And that means it is a bad book that no one should read? I don’t see the logic here.

Doom, sometimes you read waaay too much into what someone is saying.

This isn't all that serious of a thread. I think it funny that The Outsiders is a book that is consistently read for decades by middle schoolers.
But you seem to think "Hey Falk, it's The Outsiders or some modern-woke transgender dreck, take your pick."

[Jack3]

You know what else they are going to read?

Where The Red Fern Grows
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Phantom Toolbooth
Charlotte's Web
The Indian in the Cupboard
The Wind in the Willows

In high school, they will probably read The Lord of the Rings

I have nothing to add to the main conversation; I just note that I hadn't heard of some of these books.

The books popular during my own schooling (that my classmates would choose for their leisurely reading) include:

The Harry Potter series
Wimpy kid series
Famous Five
Secret Seven
Geronimo Stilton
Goosebumps
Roald Dahl
The Alchemist

Narnia and Tolkien were seen as movies, but not read

Indian English authors popular in school were:
Chetan Bhagat
Sudha Murty
RK Narayan
Arundhati Roy (but only because she won the Booker)

Popular Malayalam books among basic readers were
Aadujeevitham
Oru kudayum kunjipengalum

Advanced malayalam readers were rare.

The "current" landscape is too vast and I have no idea.
One person I know liked Jeffrey Archer.

[Doom]

[

This isn't all that serious of a thread. I think it funny that The Outsiders is a book that is consistently read for decades by middle schoolers.
But you seem to think, "Hey Falk, it's The Outsiders or some modern-woke transgender dreck, take your pick."

I literally don't understand this conversation. It's a 60-year-old book (time-tested!) that kids are willing to read. The reason certain books are consistently assigned is that English teachers learns from experience which books generate interest and classroom discussion. When a book stops doing that, they change them up.

For decades, Huckleberry Finn was assigned, but then it became controversial because students, especially black students, were offended by the fact that it uses the "n word" literally hundreds of times. Kids started becoming unwilling to read it, and classroom discussions became heated. Contrary to myth, it wasn't "banned"; kids can still read it if they want to, but it is no longer mandatory. Indeed, Huckleberry Finn is not racist; it is anti-racist, but kids that age aren't media savvy and have difficulty understanding subtlety and subtext. They couldn't see the point that racism was being satirized; they only saw the offensive racial slur, and everything else was lost.

To give you an example of how difficult it is for kids to understand "how" to properly interpret a book, consider, when we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time, most of the kids in my class didn't understand the ending. In the book, Bob Ewing attacks and tries to kill Scout with a knife. Then Boo Radley comes out and grabs Ewing and accidentally killing him with his own knife. The adults then concoct a story that Ewing died by his own hand when he fell on his knife. Most of the kids in the classroom discussion didn't get that; they thought that the fake alibi for Boo Radley is what actually happened. The subtlety of the planned cover-up of the murder was lost on them.

Most kids don't like to read, but the handful of nerdy intellectual kids like me who read dozens of books way ahead of my alleged "reading level" every year, the kids to whom high concept science fiction like Ray Bradbury would appeal have already read the entire high school reading list by the end of the 5th grade and they don't really need to be encouraged. The rest of them need some kind of encouragement.

[Riverboat]

I am frankly relieved to hear that there are still places that assign the traditional, modern childhood classics.

I shudder to think of the alternative reading in other schools. Pfalk, be grateful the kid is reading this book. You realize she wrote this when she was a teenager, right?

And that means it is a bad book that no one should read? I don’t see the logic here.

I'm lost. Let me try to recapitulate:

1. I told pfalk to be grateful The Outsiders was assigned.
2. I also suggested that many other schools are assigning truly deplorable works.
3. The Outsiders was written by a teenager, a clearly precocious one. This book has endured for decades, and is testimony to its readability and interest to young readers.

Am I missing anything?