Hey everybody! I was going through my bookshelves and found a few classic books. That gave me the idea of creating a list of 10 books ALL teens should read. The best in order of what I have read are 10, 2, 1, 4, then 3.
10 Books ALL Teens Must Read
This book teaches us the importance of literature and tells us to stand up for what we believe in. One of my favorites!
Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears.
Teaches us how our actions impact other people's lives.My favorite-st book in the universe!
I went to the library right after writing this to get the book. It was life changing. I had a friend that was experiencing the exact thing Hannah did. EVERY EVENT was the the same but different. Sometimes Hannah had it worse, sometimes my friend. It was AMAZING. Sad but AMAZING. This and Number 10 on the list(I won't spoil the name of number 10.) By far my favorite book
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier.
On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Thirteen people she says impacted her decision to leave. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list. While he is reading he hears names of people he knows. Every tape reviles horrible secrets she never told but should have. Other people's secrets. Secrets that ruined her life.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
The story of To Kill a Mockingbird also teaches us about what the Deep South was like during the Great Depression. It also teaches about the horror of racism and judging.
Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside.
4. Romeo and Juliet
This story teaches us more than I can state. One being the effects of holding grudge.
A long feud between the Montague and Capulet families disrupts the city of Verona and causes tragic results for Romeo and Juliet who fall in love, but cannot be together. A secret marriage force the young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly for Juliet is to be wed to another. Juliet takes a sleeping potion that makes her appear to be dead for 42 hours -- in this time Romeo is to be told that she is still alive, however he was not so he illegally purchased a poison so that he could be with Juliet in death. He goes to her tomb and takes the poison. When Juliet awakes she sees this and kills herself with a dagger.
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
This teaches us about prejudice and racism from the south in the 19th century.
This book has been banned in some schools due to racism and language.
(Summary from Shmoop)
When we meet our narrator Huck Finn, he's in Missouri getting "sivilized" ("civilized") by two sisters, an unnamed widow and a woman named Miss Watson. See, Huck Finn came into a bit of money at the end of Tom Sawyer, and now he's supposed to stop being a street urchin and start learning to be a gentleman. But it's hard out there for a street urchin, and he spends most of his time avoiding baths and teaming up with Tom to punk innocent bystanders—like Miss Watson's slave Jim.
When Huck's spidey sense starts a'tingling, he signs over all his money to Judge Thatcher. Just in time: Huck's deadbeat dad shows up and demands the money. Huck's all, "too bad you didn't get here yesterday, dad," and then dad effectively kidnaps Huck and takes him off to live in filthy poverty in a van down by the river. (Only without the "van" part.)
Well, Huck isn't too cool with this, so he (naturally) fakes his own death and hides out on a nearby island, where he meets another runaway: the slave Jim, who's hiding out to avoid being sold down South and separated from his family. After running across a dead body, which Huck doesn't see, they decide to team up and then start out on what just might be the first American road movie, only via the MississippiRiver rather than I-90.
6. Number The Stars
Teaches us about life in the Holocaust.
(I haven't read this book yet)
Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.
7. Lord of the Flies
This book teaches us things aren't always as they seem.
(I haven't read this book yet)
William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
This book teaches us we don't have to be "cool" to be important.
Great book! PG-13 material
Fifteen-year-old Charlie is coping with the suicide of his friend, Michael. To lessen the fear and anxiety of starting high school alone, Charlie starts writing letters to a stranger, someone he heard was nice but has never met in person. (Kind of like when we write letters to Paul Ruddbefore we go to sleep.)
At school, Charlie finds a friend and mentor in his English teacher, Bill. He also overcomes his chronic shyness and approaches a classmate, Patrick, who, along with his step-sister Sam, become two of Charlie's BFFs.
During the course of the school year, Charlie has his first date and his first kiss, he deals with bullies, he experiments with drugs and drinking, and he makes friends, loses them, and gains them back. He creates his own soundtrack through a series of mix tapes full of iconic songs, reads a huge stack of classic books, and gets involved in the Rocky Horror Picture Show audience-participation culture.
Charlie has a relatively stable home life, though, with supportive, if distant, parents to fall back on. Unfortunately, a disturbing family secret that Charlie has repressed for his entire life surfaces at the end of the school year. Charlie has a severe mental breakdown and ends up hospitalized.
Charlie's final letter closes with feelings of hope: getting released from the hospital, forgiving his aunt Helen for what she did to him, finding new friends during sophomore year, and trying his best not to be a wallflower. Charlie hopes to get out of his head and into the real world, participating in life instead of just watching it fly by.
9. The Hiding Place
This teaches us about the Holocaust and the importance of family.
(My sister lost this book or I would have read it)
This is the true story of the Ten Boom family who, during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, upon seeing what was happening to their Jewish neighbors and friends, asked themselves this age old question "If not us,...who; if not now,...when?" They answered it, ultimately at great cost.
The Ten Booms were devoutly Christian and lived a simple life. The patriarch of the family ran a watch shop that had been in his family for a century. Some of the family members, the author among them, worked there, selling and repairing clocks and watches. They also lived in the house in which the shop was located.
When the Nazis occupied their country, the reality of what it meant slowly dawned upon them, as they saw the treatment given to their fellow Dutch citizens of the Jewish faith. Moved by their plight, the author at the age of fifty, together with other members of her family, including their father who was nearly eighty, became active in the Dutch underground.
When it became clear to the Ten Booms that Jews were being targeted for deportation and death, they had a false wall constructed in the author's bedroom, thereby creating a secret room. There, they would hide the terrified Jews who were staying with them, in the event of a Nazi raid upon their home.
Eventually denounced by someone to the Nazis, the Ten Booms were arrested and their home raided and torn apart by the Gestapo, in their search for the Jews they believed to be hiding there. At the time of the raid, the Ten Boom home was filled to capacity with Jews in hiding. So well concealed was the hidden room that had been created by the erection of the false wall, that these poor, terrified Jews managed to escape detection.
The Ten Boom family did not fare so well. It was upon their arrest that they learned first hand of man's inhumanity to man, and their faith was put to a test that they had never dreamt possible. It was faith, however, that sustained the author in what was to be her darkest hour of deepest despair. To find out what happened to the Ten Booms, read this book. It is the story of an incredible family, who had the courage to put their convictions to the test."
The Ten Booms were devoutly Christian and lived a simple life. The patriarch of the family ran a watch shop that had been in his family for a century. Some of the family members, the author among them, worked there, selling and repairing clocks and watches. They also lived in the house in which the shop was located.
When the Nazis occupied their country, the reality of what it meant slowly dawned upon them, as they saw the treatment given to their fellow Dutch citizens of the Jewish faith. Moved by their plight, the author at the age of fifty, together with other members of her family, including their father who was nearly eighty, became active in the Dutch underground.
When it became clear to the Ten Booms that Jews were being targeted for deportation and death, they had a false wall constructed in the author's bedroom, thereby creating a secret room. There, they would hide the terrified Jews who were staying with them, in the event of a Nazi raid upon their home.
Eventually denounced by someone to the Nazis, the Ten Booms were arrested and their home raided and torn apart by the Gestapo, in their search for the Jews they believed to be hiding there. At the time of the raid, the Ten Boom home was filled to capacity with Jews in hiding. So well concealed was the hidden room that had been created by the erection of the false wall, that these poor, terrified Jews managed to escape detection.
The Ten Boom family did not fare so well. It was upon their arrest that they learned first hand of man's inhumanity to man, and their faith was put to a test that they had never dreamt possible. It was faith, however, that sustained the author in what was to be her darkest hour of deepest despair. To find out what happened to the Ten Booms, read this book. It is the story of an incredible family, who had the courage to put their convictions to the test."
10. Tears of a Tiger
This book taught me so much about life I can't put it in words. It teaches us about reality. This book helped me get through a hard time. I would read the whole series. ("Forged by Fire" was really good too!)
Tigers don't cry, or do they? After the death of his longtime friend and fellow Hazelwood Tiger, Andy, the driver of the car, blames himself and cannot get past his guilt and pain. While his other friends have managed to work through their grief and move on, Andy allows death to become the focus of his life. In the months that follow the accident, the lives of Andy and his friends are traced through a series of letters, articles, homework assignments, and dialogues, and it becomes clear that Tigers do indeed need to cry.
