“Martin Fierro” by Jose Hernandez. Me and all my classmates thought it would be the most boring book. We were surprised. And it was full of teachings for soon-to-be adults.
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
I gonna add one that I actually read in school and actually Am very grateful I read it.
Its “Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” (The good human from Sezuan) by Berthold Brecht.
The story is, that the gods try to fund a good human in the town Sezuan and disguise themselves as humans seeking shelter. No one wants to give them shelter except a prostitute name Shen-Te. As a reward for being a good person they give her gold in return, which she uses to open her own shop. However, her buisness is not very succesfull, since she wants to help as many people as possible which means a big financial burden. To help her out of this she invents her cousin (?) Shui-Ta who is cold and regularly saves the buisness by not helping people and demanding things. This way the buisness stays open and Shen-Te can continue to help her community.
Basically the book is an analogism for why capitalism can not work, since the force to make a profit forces you to fuck over other people and it is not possible to not take part in this system on an individual level. I hated all other books we had to read in school, but I Am quite great I read that one. It also definitely played a role in my path towards becoming a communist.
Another upside of it is, that its rather short and can be easily read in about 2-3h.
Animal farm
Personally one of my favorite books
I’d actually add the bible. A lot of people would be more atheist if they actually read through it. It would also be hilarious to see teenagers struggle with that long ass boring shit
Lmao, are you gonna be tested on the genealogy in Genesis 5
1984
Passion and Reason, by Richard and Bernice Lazarus. It’s a very accessible book about the connections between thoughts and emotions. Understanding what’s covered in it would save a lot of people a ton of confusion and social hardship in life.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Ishmael - Daniel Quinn
“The name of the wind”
It will teach them to deal with frustration and disappointment.
Promethea by Alan Moore
I dunno that adding a book would be helpful. I don’t know that it is, but it feels like media literacy is at a bit of a low right now.
I don’t really know how to teach someone to identify the themes in a book, not this specific book but any book. Do you just read a lot and contrast and compare until you’re doing it subconsciously all the time with all books.
I think the main flaw is our actual way we teach literature in schools. I personally hated reading up until doing a “journal club” in college which was more like a book club that we would all read some assigned peer reviewed journals and then discuss them in an open environment. It made it where you couldn’t really participate unless you read the articles and the professor would facilitate the conversation so we would discuss certain things if no one else naturally brought it up. I don’t think that would really be possible in a 30 person class of high schoolers but if you took a smaller group of maybe 10 kids and instead of them just writing about the book had them talk in a group setting about a book like animal farm and which sections they found interesting or what sorts of parallels they see in modern times I think could engage students much more
The Jakarta Method
The Corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power by Joel Bakan.
