There's a job going hereabouts. This book list is their spine, or ethos around which they want you to promote literature in the younger community. These are the titles you maybe talk about in the interview. First look I find it a little cautious, conservative, feminine perhaps. What do you think? Fifty books anyway, for fun oh and 550 quid for three months of a writer's time hehehe bastards... http://www.worldbookday.com/writes-of-passage/
Somewhat biased toward current, politically-correct works, but there's some good stuff there. I'd like to know the ages of their nominators. "Writes of passage" - good pun.
There are some really good books on that list (and others that are not so good). I'll admit that I smiled when I saw Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Feeling pompous now, it's a sweet list. And a nice job. You have to demonstrate writer ability or submit 1000 words and then sit alongside people in libraries and encourage them to express 'every which way.' It's an opening, an opportunity type venture that you can stick on the cv...one can only apply or sneer, either way...
A bunch of (mainly) crappy looking books preparing most children for a (mainly) crappy looking future. That being said, probably going to read A Street Cat Named Bob.
It pains me a little to see books like 'Divergent' next to 'Jane Eyre' and 'Hitchhikers's Guide', but I'm glad 'Adrian Mole' made it. It is missing some Dumas, though.
Doesn't it! It gets you right in the brain. Also, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Catcher in the Rye, those are very sophisticated books best left for when you are an adult. One (Eyre) requires a bit of worldliness, Heights requires an understanding of gothic tropes, and Rye requires a knowledge of trauma to properly understand it. Otherwise you'll think something idiotic like Holden Caulfield is a counter-cultural icon, or he needs to get a grip and grow up, or something. And Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is not a book I would recommend children read. Also, Life of Pi is a rather odd choice because it is staggeringly pretentious.
I consider myself very lucky that I read Jane Eyre for the first time in my 30s. It is the book most dear to my heart and definitely, life experience makes you see so much more in it. Same with The Count of Monte Cristo. I see the abridged version as suitable for kids, but the full version blossoms in the eyes of an adult reader. Wuthering heights is the only one I read as a kid and didn't like it and now the only Wuthering Heights I get excited about is Kate Bush song. I cried like a baby watching Life of Pi, and I liked the movie, but I never read the book. Another behemoth I never fully finished even though I know the abridged story well is Les Miserables. That book gnawed at my soul, I just couldn't take it.
I read Jane Eyre as an adult too, and it is one of my favourites too. I just love Jane, and her struggle feels very real, something I don't think a teenager is equipped to sympathize with. I know there are some teenagers who have faced more of the evils of the world than I have, but Jane Eyre is very much a novel of introspection in many ways, and as a teen you've not really had enough time to reflect on your experiences. I did not care for Life of Pi I must admit, but you are no doubt right about Les Mis. I read an abridged version as a child and I don't think it had much effect on me - I'm sure if I read it now I would get a lot more out of it.
