Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about your bookshelf…
Tomorrow I have my first teaching job (yes, I’m sharing my non-book bloggy news!) and it’s inspired today’s Musing Monday.
What books did you read while in school? Were there any that you particular liked, or even hated? Did any become lifelong favourites?
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.
I always loved when we came to starting a new novel unit at school – one student would be the person to go collect the books (you, if you were really lucky!), you’d take a book out of the box and then the whole class would walk down to the library to line up and borrow it out. Best part of the year. What can I say? I was always a book nerd (I’m sure you can relate).
The funny thing is, I don’t seem to remember a lot of the books we read – why I have no idea, because it was something I truly enjoyed. I remember that in Year 8 I read Scott Monk’s Boys ‘R’ Us. I didn’t dislike the book, and have evenreread it since, but it wasn’t a book that I loved.
I also remember reading Shakespeare, as you do in school – Othello, Hamlet, The Tempest - but read them far more in uni.
The text I read for Year 12 was Jane Austen’s Emma, which I loved, but love it far more now that I’m not studying it. I also remember stealing my friends Year 12 books to try out that year also (Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi).
The first book I think of, however, when asked about school books was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read in Year 10. I’m sure a lot of people read TKAM in high school, but I can remember thinking that this was the first big book that I’d read in school. It was Year 10 – the first year my school set an Advanced English class – and it was the first time I’d truly discussed a book. It helped that the English teacher that year loved TKAM … well it was probably a toss up as to whether she loved the book or Atticus Finch more. I loved it then and, if possible, love it even more now.