Great Books for High School Kids

Just wanted to quickly share a resource you might find useful for those teens lurking about your kitchen right now, eating their way through the fridge.  This resource has not much to do with eating or lurking, but it does target the ever-perplexing teenage thought process and how to perhaps propel it in a good direction.

Great Books by Rick Ayers and Amy Crawford

I admire people who take the bull by the horns and make things happen.  Mr. Ayers and Ms. Crawford couldn't find what they were looking for on the market, so they consulted with colleagues and created what they wanted for kids.  I also straighten up when I see the words "against the grain".  

Here's the blurb from Amazon describing the book:

"Teachers Rick Ayers and Amy Crawford always wanted to find a guide to the vast world of great books for teenagers-one that didn't talk down or moralize. When they couldn't find one, they set out to create it. 

An early prototype offered at Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley, California, was an instant success. Great Books for High School Kids is the culmination of their efforts.

Collecting recommendations and essays from colleagues and advisers around the country, this is a rollicking, thoughtful, against-the-grain guide that challenges stodgy notions of what great books are and what kids are ready for.

The book starts with seven essays by high school teachers about exciting, exemplary experiences they have had reading books with students in the classroom-from Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon to Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy.

Augmented by an index of more than seventy subjects, the book also has an annotated list of hundreds of Recommended Great Books. The recommendations are playful and irreverent, ambitious and entertaining, and they go way beyond traditional reading lists. From classics to the unexpected, from literary novels to nonfiction, some drama, and even a little poetry, these are all books that teenagers have read with pleasure and can read on their own.

Great Books for High School Kids is an invitation and a sourcebook for inspiring passionate, lifelong readers-a book that could seriously change the lives of teachers, of families, and of kids."

I just plunked it in the Amazon cart, used for a penny.