What books did you read at school?

[OneUmberJoker]

mice and men and blood brothers

I'm enjoying this thread. Brings back memories. I read a lot as a child

For GCSE we did Romeo and Juliet and an anthology of short stories called Modern Short Stories in English - the only ones I remember are Araby from Dubliners; one by Hemingway which I hated as from memory it was he said, she said for endless dialogue (it put me off Hemingway for years, and I was so surprised how much I loved it him when I read him later) and that Doris Lessing one about the boy who swims through the narrow tunnel on holiday and thinks he is stuck which I also hated as it made me feel really panicky!

Others I remember reading (in no particular order):
Macbeth
Z for Zachariah
Apple Bough by Noel Streatfeild
Journey's End
To Kill a Mockingbird
Far From the Madding Crowd
The Crucible
Pygmalion

The only poem I can remember doing is The Thought Fox.

I hated reading books in class when everyone took turns to read aloud. I'm a pretty fast reader so I would always read ahead (and usually finish the book at home) so it was so boring!

Yes! It’s coming back to me now. I was 12 when I read it. And I remember think this boy is my age and the age everyone is allocated their roles and this is weird.

just remembered we read a lot of short stories from around the world. From a Russian who walked home in the snow with bad shoes, a Jamaican boy who played cricket. And one which really stayed with me a story about an Indian/ British girl who was in an unhappy arranged marriage. It was the ocr anthology at the time. And lots of WW1 poetry

Macbeth
Z for Zachariah - I live in a valley very close to a nuclear power station and I imagine that my valley will be immune from a nuclear apocalypse.
And WW1 poetry - what passing bells etc etc.

Silver chair,
treasure island.
Moonfleet
Cue for Treason
Dick Willoughby
War of the worlds
Of mice and men
To kill a mockingbird
Animal farm
1984
Triffids
Far from the madding crowd
The trumpetr major
Pygmalian
Under milk Wood
Merchant of Venice
Midsummer night's dream
Romeo amd Juliet
Henry IV part 1

I think there r were a lot more

Roger red hat and Jennifer yellow hat bring bad good memories

We did Brave New World - hated it
Animal Farm - hated it
Midsummer Night's Dream - hated it
Macbeth - hated it
Lord of the Flies - hated it

God knows how I got an A in Higher English with that load of old shite.

I read those a primary school.
I remember nothing about them but looking up pictures online I can see the illustrations are adorable.

I think I might have read Z for Zachariah after seeing it mentioned on this thread several times.
I am having a memory of the edition being one of those hardback ones produced for schools and the cover was horrible.
I've just remembered doing a cross-curricular thing with the play Richard III (maybe?).
We studied the play in English lessons and did the play in drama lessons.
I'm guessing my school couldn't find a film version of that for us to watch (see my previous posts on here 😂😂)

Before O level I remember doing My Family and Other Animals. Obviously that was way too jolly so we did The Mayor of Casterbridge and also Z for Zachariah.

I know it's quite hard to write about comedy novels but English lessons , although one of my favourite subjects, weren't exactly an uplifting experience for teenagers.

There's an excellent book by Carol Atherton about the books we read at secondary school and how they could spark discussion about really relevant issues. It's called "Reading Lessons: The books we read at school, the conversations they spark and why they matter." Sounds as if it should be dry but it's not, I couldn't put it down and lots of the books listed on this thread are discussed with a chapter each about the social issues they raise. Review here https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/17/reading-lessons-by-carol-atherton-review-breathing-new-life-into-old-texts

I did advanced higher English (Scotland) and remember studying Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams. Also remember reading Catcher in the Rye, which I still love.

For the first 3 years in Secondary school I had a drama lesson and poetry lesson every week and I remember performing A Midsummer Night's Dream and a play about Robin Hood. We had poetry anthologies and had to learn poems by heart. I still remember many of them. I can't remember the books we read as a class except for Three Men In A Boat and My Family and Other Animals.

In my GCE years (this was before GCSEs were introduced), as well as Jane Eyre, The Merchant of Venice and poetry by Robert Frost, Edward Thomas and Edwin Muir which were set GCE texts, as a class we also read Sons & Lovers, Saturday Night Sunday Morning, Bonjour Tristesse, A Taste of Honey, The L Shaped Room & Caucasian Chalk Circle. We also had to read books from the school library and write reports about books we read.

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
To Kill a Mockingbird
Romeo and Juliet
Great Expectations
Nicholas Nickleby
The Signal-Man

Probably more but I cant remember. I started secondary in 1995

Actually I have vague recollections about a book called Buddy. He was poor and had to use a carrier bag for his school bag.

Also a Taste of Honey and WWI poetry galore.

Forgot to add we all passed forever by judy blume around. I owned a copy (still got it) and all my friends borrowed it.

The giver sounds really good, off to see if i can get hold of a copy.

I'm old too and was at a grammar school so we read a book more or less every term plus a play and poems.

The ones I remember are

Carrie's War
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm
Tess of the D'Urbevilles
David Copperfield
The Man Within - Grahame Greene
Twentieth Century Short Stories

Plays
Midsummer Nights Dream
Importance of Being Ernest
Macbeth
Julius Caesar
Romeo and Juliet
She Stoops to Conquer
Lady Precious Stream
Roots - Arnold Wesker
Merchant of Venice
Twelfth Night

Just remembered another one

Day of the Triffids

@TonTonMacoute Your school sounds similar to mine - we read and wrote about books and poems in English lessons and performed plays. We also had a "library" lesson every week where we read. I don't even know if schools have libraries anymore. It gave me the habit of reading and a love of literature, poetry and plays that's given me so much pleasure over the years.

Last time I talked to someone doing English Lit at school they were reading Of Mice & Men which must have been on the curriculum for years, and were studying Great Expectations but only the first few chapters with no expectation of reading the whole book. There just didn't seem to be the amount and breadth of reading that I had at school. I feel that they'd got the "fuzzy end of the lollipop"

O’Level The Trumpet Major and Henry IV Part 1. Poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

@MissMarplesNiece the books I listed were only the ones I was studying at school. I was reading plenty of others on top of that on my own.

Interestingly I have never read To Kill A Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye, because we never studied them at school, so I probably should make up for that now.

It must be mind numbingly dull to spend too long studying the same book, and someone told me that their child did Romeo and Juliet for GCSE without ever having seen a production of the whole thing!

This is why I find it hard not to think that education has been gradually but inexorably, 'dumbed down' in the intervening years, and I'm not sure it's to anyone's advantage.

The legion of the eagle
Day of the triffids
Brave new world
The red pony
Ninety eighty four
Macbeth
Julius Caeser

There are probably others but they're the ones I remember

@TonTonMacoute I read a lot at home too. I read the books my sister was studying in her English class - Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, To Kill A Mocking Bird, WWI poetry. My friends and I loved historical romances so we bought and swapped books by Jean Plaidy, Georgette Heyer and dare I say it, Barbara Cartland. It's amazing really that I ever had time for any other school work, lol. I suppose in those days there was less on TV and no social media to distract us.

To Kill a Mocking Bird, Pride and Prejudice, Sons and lovers, The Canterbury Tales, The Winters Tale, Othello, Taming of a Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing, Mansfield Park….

I read absolute shedloads. At primary school in Scotland my precocious wee self was given a different book club leaflet and I remember reading the hobbit aged 7, closely followed by animals of farthing wood, jungle book and watership down. I was then furious at the lack of girls and switched to Pippi longstocking and the entire collection of Enid Blyton.

At secondary I specifically recall us reading a wide range but one ones that stuck for me were

Z for Zachariah
1984
My Family and Other Animals
Canterbury Tales
R & J
Macbeth
Othello
Measure for Measure

College put me off Lit and I failed my English Lit A level because I did v little work and LOATHED Austen's Emma. Loved Catch 22 though.