Books We Read (or Were Read) at School

[Katharine]

What books did people read at school? Did you enjoy them? Did it make you seek out other authors, or did they send you running straight back to the safety of Enid Blyton?

I know I read Huckleberry Finn, and Autobiography of a Supertramp but remember virtually nothing about them. Rogue Male which I hated. MacBeth and Henry IV Part I which I felt they were very boring They clouded my opinion of Shakespeare for a long time which is a shame. I'm sure if we'd studied Romeo and Juliet or Midsummer's Night Dream I'd have found them much easier to study.

Science Fiction Omnibus which I didn't finish reading before I sat my O Level English. The structure of lessons must have been very different back then, as we were expected to have read it in our own time, and didn't analyse the stories in class. The exam paper was one where we could chose 2 or 3 books to answer questions about, so I just hoped that I could answer the others, as I wouldn't have been able to answer the Science Fiction ones. I read about the first 3 stories in that book. I have a vague recollection about one of them being about young people living in a kind of Eden Project dome. I know I found it slightly disturbing, but don't know why - thankfully my brain must have filtered that out.

We also studied various War Poems, which I found rather distressing as well. In fact my general impression of the majority of books we read at school was that they were unpleasant. I think if I didn't have my Enid Blytons to fall back on, they'd probably have put me off reading altogether. I like happy, 'safe' books.

We read Flood Warning, which I don't think I liked very much either, and Lord of the Flies which again I found very disturbing. Why do 'classic' books have to involve so much violence and tragedy?

I did however enjoy The Importance of Being Ernest.

We used to have a 'library lesson' where we read a book from the school library. There were very few (if any) Enid Blyton books, so I started reading a series of books about the adventures of a girl in Scotland. I really quite enjoyed those, but got told by the teacher that I shouldn't read any more, as I needed to try other authors. Thanks to the EB forums, I think I successfully identified these books as being the 'Alison' books by Sheila Stuart, and am slowly re-acquainting myself with these stories.

Thankfully, being forced to read all these books didn't put me off reading, but it didn't encourage me to broaden my horizons, if anything made me cling to favourite authors even more.

In my 20s, for some strange reason, I decided to take A Level English Language/Literature. The books for that were:-

Richard III
French Lieutenant's Woman
Translations
Chaucer's Wife of Bath
Poems by Wordsworth

I found Shakespeare easier to cope with as an adult, although I don't think I'd go so far as to say I enjoyed this play either. Absolutely hated FLW, I still have it collecting dust on my bookshelf, which is sill really, as I have no intention of ever opening it again. I didn't like the subject matter, and I couldn't 'cope' with the 2 endings of the book. I like my books to have a proper beginning, middle and end.

I thought Translations was very good, well written, and very thought provoking, it really opened my eyes to the history in Ireland. I loved Chaucer, and keep meaning to seek out other books. The poems I found disappointing. The only Wordsworth poem I knew before then, was 'Daffodils' which is one of my favourites, but we didn't cover that. The ones we did study seemed rather dreary. The only one I really seem to remember was about someone called Lucy being in her grave. As an adult I could appreciate they were well written, but again I ask the question, why do we have to study misery?

Studying these books as an adult, I found them easier to understand/cope with. I'm reasonably certain that if I gone on to take A level English as a teenager, I'd have struggled with them just as much as I had at O level.

I suppose the only good thing about being forced to read books I didn't like is that it just reinforced for me how much I loved Enid Blyton's books.

[Aussie Sue]

Interesting topic Katherine.
I definitely have fond memories of many of the books I studied at school but I guess the one's below had a real impression on me as I still have my school copy of them on my bookshelf.

- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- The Lady of the Lake by Scott
- King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
- The Old Man & The Sea by Hemingway
- The Invisible Man by H G Wells
- A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- The Coral Island by R M Ballantyne

I look forward to hearing about the books that others enjoyed studying at school.

Aussie Sue

[Katharine]

That sounds quite a good selection of books there. I haven't read any of them, but have a feeling I'd have found them more palatable than the ones I had to read. Still, it's not too late, I shall check out the local library at some point.

[Carlotta King]

Wow Sue that's an amazing selection of books - I wish we had been given those to read when I was at school! I like every single one of those books and have got all of them except Midsummer Night's Dream and Lady Of The Lake.

We studied Macbeth at school and I remember quite enjoying it actually, because it was something a bit different. I didn't always understand all of the writing, but I enjoyed imagining the setting and I liked the story.

I remember us studying Seamus Heaney but I don't remember anything about his writing so obviously that made a lasting impression on me - not!! I think I remember being a bit fed up of reading it!
Like Katharine, we also studied war poems/prose. I don't think I enjoyed those very much either! It probably didn't help that I hated school so reading upsetting and grim things while I wasn't enjoying school anyway probably just made it even worse!

I remember borrowing quite a few of the old 'Point Horror' books from the school library when I was about 13/14 years old, as that's what everyone seemed to be reading, and I did enjoy quite a few of those. Also a book called 'Class Trip' by an author called Bebe Faas Rice, which is your standard 'school camping trip in the wilds' type thriller where the students get picked off one by one, and there is a real twist in it, it's actually a really good book, and you couldn't find it in the shops so I remember ordering it to come in to WHSmith to collect, and I've still got it now!

At home all I read was Enid. After all the grim and boring works from school, it was so lovely to come home and curl up with a good old adventure story or a girls' school story.

At junior school I remember things like 101 Dalmations, The Sheep-Pig, Roald Dahl's books, Stig Of The Dump. I must have read tons more but I can't remember any of them, I expect if more people post some of their childhood books some may jog my memory!

[Katharine]

I'd forgotten primary school books. I can only remember a couple. One was about 2 boys taking their little boat across for the Dunkirk evacuation - they didn't come back I'm not sure if that was a book though, or just a short story we had to read for some reason. Upsetting though.

I also remember reading a book about a stork making a nest on a roof out of a cart wheel. I think I quite liked that one. The only book I remember a teacher reading to us was Emil and the Detectives which I absolutely loved. I managed to get a copy a couple of years ago, and was a bit nervous about reading it after so many years, in case it wasn't as good as I thought it had been. Fortunately it was every bit as good as I'd remembered, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another book I read at junior school, which I have a much loved copy of now, was The Secret Cave, I don't know if it was just a book I read from the school library, but I did like that one.

[Aussie Sue]

We studied Macbeth at school and I remember quite enjoying it actually, because it was something a bit different. I didn't always understand all of the writing, but I enjoyed imagining the setting and I liked the story.

Carlotta, I really enjoyed Macbeth when my son studied it at school, I don't know whether I may have found it a bit heavy if I had done it at school myself, although my son really loved it.

It is interesting how different our school experiences can be.

Aussie Sue

[Lucky Star]

I have forgotten most of them to be honest; probably because I was forced to read them. However I remember the following;

The Wind in the Willows
Great Expectations
The Charwoman's Daughter
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
The Devil's Advocate

To be honest those were the ones I enjoyed, the others have faded away. We had several collections of short stories and poems by various authors in which I always found many enjoyable pieces though those never seemed to be the ones the class studied. I particularly remember The Lumber Room by Hector Hugh Munroe. I loved that story.

[Carlotta King]

Just remembered Olga Da Polga as well!

Katharine, have you ever read these? Olga is a guinea pig so I thought you might enjoy them, as you like guinea pigs!
They are by Michael Bond (Paddington bear).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_da_Polga" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Aussie Sue]

Lucky Star, like you I only remembered the ones I really liked.

Yours is a great list, all books I enjoy.

Aussie Sue

[Eddie Muir]

Some of my school books are listed below. Some of them were read by a teacher and some were class readers.

Milly-Molly-Mandy
Worzel Gummidge
The Wind in the Willows
Treasure Island
The Jungle Book
The Magic Walking Stick
The Water Babies
The Family at Red-Roofs
Five on a Treasure Island
A Child's Garden of Verses
The Call of the Wild
Oliver Twist
Under the Greenwood Tree
Great Expectations
Animal Farm

plus the following Shakespeare plays:

Henry IV Part 1
Twelfth Night
The Merchant of Venice
Julius Caesar

[Jack400]

The Coral Island by R.M Ballantyne , interesting and exciting.
The Silver Sword- can't remember the author. It was (I believe) a true story from WW2.
Jack

[John Pickup]

We read the Silver Sword at school, it was by Ian Serralier and a very fine book it was. To be honest , I can only vaguely remember the books set for us at school as it was a very long time ago. One I do recall being read to us in the last year of primary school was The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis. This was the first I came across the Narnia books, I have read them all since.

[Poppy]

Toro-Toro - Michael Morpurgo
The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton
The Railway Children - E.Nesbit
Jayne Ayre (easy edition) - Charlotte Brönte
Flat Stanley - ?

We read quite a few extracts in Primary. I was reminded of one from the Silver Sword when I recently read it; the roof top escape bit. We read bits from A Christmas Carol, War Horse, and more. We read lots of Greek myths and a few short stories.

[Jack400]

We read the Silver Sword at school, it was by Ian Serralier and a very fine book it was.

Oh, thanks I have wondered for a while who the author was.
Jack

[sixret]

I read Great Expectations and Tales of Two Cities(children edition) at school for English Literature. Love them both!