What books did you read at school?

Lord of the Flies I also hated. And to make it worse we red it in what would now be year 9 and then two more years for O Level.

I'm not sure if teachers had any say in which books we read but if they did who thought any pupil in a girls' school wants to read about boys going gradually more insane and more violent?

Shakespeare we did A midsummer night's dream.

Across the barricades wasn't an official reading book but it was in the library and I think we all read it.

I'd read When Hitler stole Pink rabbit at junior school but the sequels were, again, in the library.

I read a lot at home, lots of science fiction. The town library would do a sale every so often and I would come home with a carrier bag of books.

Thomas Hardy. Hated it.
midsummer nights dream
Romeo and Juliet
Across the barricades. Loved that read the rest of the series.
Roll of thunder hear my cry, also excellent.

Ah, i have fond memories of passing round are you there God it's me Margaret in year 7 and then forever when we were in year 11.

I take it you don’t mean the ones we secretly passed around for the rude bits! ‘Forever Amber’ - so very tame by current standards!

Books we had to read, which I actually enjoyed at 14 or 15, included Cranford and Northanger Abbey.

No set books in the Dutch system. I read loads, consequences of 4 language A levels, but my top 5 in terms of enjoyment (across everything except German, I hated German literature): De komst van Joachim Stiller, Phedre, Le Diable et le Bon Dieu, Slaughterhouse 5.

No translations allowed, but we could range widely, so English literature included American stuff, and French included novels from writers from former colonies. I ended up having to read about 45 novels/plays over 2 years.

Romeo and Juliet
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Gregory's Girl
Across the Barricades

Tom's Midnight Garden in year eight. The first book that captured most of the class

Lots and lots, but for O level, The nuns priests tale, Chaucer, in its original old English, The mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy, HenryIV part 1, distinctly remember reading Of mice and men, Grapes of Wrath, Wuthering Heights

It was all interpretive dance in the dance lessons (it was a separate lesson to PE).
I hated it. All that waving your arms around being a tree 😁
I recently saw a tiktok video of teenagers in Scotland performing traditional Scottish dancing and I thought to myself "I wish we had done more traditional dance like that".
I hated school discos too.
Dance is not for me !

@Needmorelego Did you do interpretive dance at school as one of your PE lessons? I did and I can't hear Antra's Dance from Peer Gynt without wanting to start dancing around "feeling it from the centre", lol.

for the exam:
Juno and the Paycock, Sean O'Casey
Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse
Lark Rise, Flora Thompson

for the coursework:
Lord of the Flies, obvs
The Crucible
The Chrysalids
Of Mice and Men
TKAMB
there was a list in three sections but I can't remember what they were. Macbeth was on it but my group didn't look at that one. Seamus Heaney for poetry. And some war poets of course. We had to do 12 essays. Or was that language? Language was all coursework so maybe that was the 12, and lit may have been 8. Anyone recognise the first part of this list and able to suggest a few more? Things Fall Apart may have been on it too but again my group didn't do that one.

In [KS3] we studied the Taming of the Shrew and Animal Farm. Oh yes, Kes. In [Y7] we read through Over Sea Under Stone in class but I don't think we actually discussed it much.

In first year juniors we had Charlie and the Chocolate Factory read to us. And A Gift From Winklesea (Helen Cresswell) which owing to the similarity to my surname meant I was still occasionally being called Winklesea nearly a decade later

Oh yes, we did this one as well, absolutely loved it

I did English Lit A level in the late 80s. One of the books we studied was A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipal. I only remember he ate a lot of bananas which affected his bowel movements but I’m sure it had deeper meaning than that. Perhaps it’s time to reread.

We read round 'Twelfth Night', not for an exam, though. I was cast as Feste, the clown, which I thought was a bit of an insult at the time, but maybe it wasn't.
So I knew the story, and later in life I hired the video of the production which starred Toby Stephens as Orsino, languishing in the bath with Viola(?) sitting beside him as his servant, pretending to be a male who didn't fancy his knickers off. Hey ho.

I remember being forced to read Romeo and Juliet then All Quiet on the Western Front for English Standard Grade. Just about put me off reading for life. Hated both of them.

I wasn't sure if that was the poem so I just googled.
As soon as I saw the word "albatross" I was "oh yeah....that was it".
I have no memory of the actual dance.

GCSE was Macbeth and Of Mice & Men.
A Levels covered Othello, A Millers Tale (Chaucer), 1984, Handmaids Tale and The Colour Purple.
Enjoyed all of them aside from Shakespeare.

Bad luck on whoever played the albatross!

Oh Midwich Cuckoos too! How could I forget.

Not a book but one thing I have really fond memories of was studying the poem The Highwayman.
The music video for Fleetwood Mac's song "Everywhere" is basically a little film based on the poem.
We got to watch a Top of the Pops recording of the video (so cool) and then we all had to re write the poem as a story.

O level. Cider With Rosie
Twelfth Night
A level. Sons and Lovers
Juno and the Paycock
King Lear
Richard Ii
All I can remember from the 1970s..

I think we did a thing in dance lessons based on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Lots of waving our arms around in a weird interpretative way and made masks in art class to go with it.
I hated it at the time but looking back it sounds quite fun.

What yer did you go o leveks/gcses

Brideshead Revisited is a much loved and often reread favourite of mine, but I'd forgotten that I first read it at school. It must have been in those 'read around the class' lessons which I found so boring. I used to read ahead, so I never knew where we were up to when it was my turn.
I suppose it was an easy lesson for the teacher, with no preparation, and it ensured that everyone had read at least some of the book. I wonder if they still do that in schools now? It was more interesting when it was a play reading!

For GCSEs-
romeo and Juliet
ptang yang kipperbang
billy liar
great expectations
to kill a mockingbird

all five I can remember clearly