What Books did you have to read in school by grade

[Saint of M]

Just curious what different schools and different countries did for their K-12 reqired reading.

On the top of my mind I can remember:

4th Grade: Island of Blue Dolphins and Mary Reed's Doll
5th Grade: Mr. Popper's Panguines
6th Grade: Walk Two Moons, Phoenix Rising
7th Grade: Lady Called Birdy
8th Grade: The Outsiders
9th Grade: House on Mango Street, Romeo and Juliet
10th Grade: All Quiet on the Western Front, Tale of Gilgemesh, Lord of the Flies
11th Grade: The Adventure's of Hucklebarry Finn, The Scarlet Letter,
12th Grade: Beaowolf, Frankenstine.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Argentina, private school.
I don't remember them by year.

The Lord of the Flies (obviously)
Brave New World
Nineteen Eighty-four
Demian
The Catcher in the Rye
The Hobbit
Great Expectations
Oedipus Rex
Hamlet
One Hundred Years of Solitude
La ciudad y los perros
El Gaucho Martin Fierro
El matadero
Some Borges/Cortazar short stories
Some Poe short stories.
An Agatha Christie of our choice

 

[JoJo]

I don't remember much before upper school (13+ where I live, one of the few parts of England to still have a three tier system), but roughly speaking:

Year 9: Treasure Island

Year 10: Macbeth

Year 11: Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men

For some reason, Depression Era America must have been in the vogue when I went to school, as I also did a module about it in history.

 

[Asita]

I don't remember every year. I do distinctly remember, however, that one year we had to read The Awakening, The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet, Tuesdays with Morrie...

It stuck in my memory precisely because I noticed that a common element to these books was "and then the protagonist(s) died at the end (mostly by suicide, to boot)", so I wryly joked that it was the year that my school was trying to kill us.

 

[09philj]

In primary school we had to read Oxford Reading Tree books until we became competent enough readers to read the top level (which was in about Year 3, when we were about 7) In secondary school we didn't have to read any entire books until we started studying for our GCSE exams in Year 10, when we were 14. Our class read Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls, Romeo and Juliet, an anthology of poetry set by the exam board, and Heroes by Robert Cormier.

 

[twistedmic]

All I can remember having to read in school was Where the Red Fern Grows and Call of the Wild. I may have had to read other books but the 'must read' list has long been lost to the hundreds, if not thousands of other books I've read for fun over the course of my life.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I remember reading A Farewell to Arms in Swedish class and A Clockwork Orange in English class. We did a lot of reading of other books, but most of them are mixed up with all the extra curricular reading I did back then. I distinctly recall those two because I absolutely despised A Farewell to Arms for its plodding pace and because I had wanted to read A Clockwork Orange but had been unable to find it at the local library when my English teacher introduced it.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

For my internet history class. The one I liked was A Concise Survey of Western Civilization: Supremacies and Diversities throughout History. By Brian A. Pavlac.

 

[Trunkage]

Well, I don't definitely don't remember everything.


Younger: Playing Beatty Beau, Tale of Time City (really good), Taronga, Sun and the Stubble (absolutely boring waste of time)


Middle: I actually don't remember much at all


Senior: Great Expectations, Romeo and Juliet, Les Murray (I think was his name) poetry, Brave New World (probably the best book I was forced to read), Lord of the Flies (the absolute worst book I was forced to read)

 

[McElroy]

Some random Finnish novels and then there were Jack London's White Fang and Harmann Hesse's Demian. Usually you would get to choose the novels to write book reports about. I never had to read classic Finnish literature in school.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't remember every book I read in school nor what grade. From what I do remember in elementary school I read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis and Bridge to Terebithia. In High School I remember reading The Wars by Timothy Findly and Fried Green Tomatoes.

 

[Nuuu]

It's hard to remember all the exact ones, especially since I ended up ignoring over-summer reading.

My Elementary School kept it open, just requiring you to read any book and keep a journal of what and how long.
-I do remember my 2nd Grade Teacher reading us "Among The Hidden" during snack time, which in retrospect was an odd choice.
-4th or 5th grade ended up giving me my first summer reading requirement I never knew about and rushed the project for.

Middle School is a bit of a blur since I did a lot of recreational reading. I genuinely can't remember any specific required reading from 6-8th grade, just random projects where you chose your own book or something with a book as a source.

High School reading I remember fairly well, since the books got a lot more interesting and/or were presented in more attention-grabbing ways.
Grade 9-10 gave a big list for us to choose from that we would write reports on:
-I remember choosing to read The Time Machine, and (the sparknotes of) Animal Farm.
-I distinctly remember reading On A Pale Horse and loving it, but I can't remember if it was required or recreational, read sequels anyways.
-Both Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies were great books, and a fair number of other students got really invested in story.
-Hotel Rwanda was supposed to be required reading for a later year, but ended up reading it all during school free time.
-And then we had Macbeth and Beowulf, which our teacher made a lot more interesting than it would've been otherwise, thankfully.

Grade 11-12 I transferred to a really nice public school that was really pushing more unique, college-like classes. By then I stopped reading at home so all book reading was at school: specifically my "What Happened In/to the 60's" class. Boy that class was memorable.
-Summer reading was Catch-22, ended up just sparknoting it.
-We had some slower books, like "The Things We Carried" and "Catcher in the Rye".
-But the good stuff was "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test". You can't forget a name like that!

I miss that class. Got to watch Dr. Strangelove, Apocalypse Now, and Fail-safe too. Was good stuff.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Although I of course am unable to recall most of the books I read during school, I think the book that had the most impact on me was Helen Keller, since I also had complications from scarlet fever when I was a baby and hospitalized for it, I related to her. Luckily I lived in a time of medical advancement as she did not have the benefit of. I sought out and learned sign language as a result of reading that book, which has been very beneficial throughout my life in being able to communicate with the deaf among us.

Others I remember off the top of my head were Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Old Yeller, Mark Twain, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tell Tale Heart, The Hobbit, Catcher in the Rye, Hamlet, King Arthur books but cannot recall which ones as there are so many now, Huckleberry Finn and the The Odyssey.

I don't remember every book I read in school nor what grade. From what I do remember in elementary school I read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis and Bridge to Terebithia. In High School I remember reading The Wars by Timothy Findly and Fried Green Tomatoes.

I loved the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was a kid! I remember I had repeatedly dreamed about being in Narnia. XD

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Goddamn I can't remember the grades anymore but I can the books.

Wizard of Earthsea (Grade 6 I think)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Grade 8?)
Hamlet
King Lear
Some of the Iliad
Some of the Aenid
Beowulf
The Count of Monte Cristo
Romeo and Juliet (I think?)
Two books written by our national hero (Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo) and our country's first ever book Ibong Adarna.
Dante's Inferno

There were quite a few more and a lot of short stories too but I can't recall any of them anymore. I always loved Literature, my best subject throughout grade school and high school.

 

[Hawki]

I don't remember the grades, but I remember some of the works:

PRIMARY SCHOOL

-The Riddle of the Trumpalar

-Danny, the Champion of the World

-Bridge to Terebithia

-Master of the Grove (sort of - our teacher read bits and pieces to us, but it wasn't an assigned text)

SECONDARY SCHOOL

-Romeo & Juliet

-The Tempest

-Henry V

-Julius Ceasar

-Othello

-Lord of the Flies

-Brave New World

-Treasure Island

-Some of The Odyssey

-Wild Cat Falling

-Maestro

-The Outsiders

-To Kill a Mockingbird

-Dulce et Decorum Est

-Heart of Darkness

-Huckleberry Finn

-Of Mice and Men

-The Canterbury Tales (not the original, the 'modern' version)

-The Theban Plays (or at least some of them)

-The Great Gatsby

-The Sword in the Stone

-Animal Farm

We also studied a number of films, including Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now (as a companion piece to Heart of Darkness), and Witness.

Brave New World (probably the best book I was forced to read),

Ditto.

Lord of the Flies (the absolute worst book I was forced to read)

Anti-ditto.

And obviously you weren't forced to read Heart of Darkness.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I don't remember every book I read, nor do I remember all the titles. That said, I'll do my best.

Earliest one I can remember both by title and year is Grade 8, where we read To Kill A Mockingbird. That is a classic book for a reason.

Think it was Grade 9 where I read Lord of the Flies. Pretty decent read. Also read Antigone (for some reason, totally skipping over the original Oedipus and sequel to Oedipus) and Romeo and Juliet (play was decent. The Leo DiCaprio movie...not quite so much. The Baz Luhrman version was much improved).

Grade 11, I read Catcher in the Rye. To this day, I have no idea what appeal that book holds to be considered a classic.

Grade 12, I read Pride and Prejudice. That was a bit of a mistake, as "romance novel" is not exactly my preferred genre, and I had other choices. Listening to my grandmother's recommendation for that over Wuthering Heights was possibly a bad idea.

In college, the only books I can recall reading as a requirement are The Canterbury Tales (decent read, if you put in the time to look up any words you don't understand) and The Dark Knight Returns (yes, that was an actual required reading. Let's just say that teacher took a very creative interpretation of the requirements for assigned novels.)

ETA: Shoot, looking at earlier posts reminded me of one. Also in grade 8, The Outsiders. Fantastic book, and it's a shame that AFAIK, it's the only book S.E. Hinton ever wrote.

 

[Hawki]

Fantastic book, and it's a shame that AFAIK, it's the only book S.E. Hinton ever wrote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._E._Hinton#Works

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, what was with the spear sharpened at both ends in Lord of the Flies? Never quite got that.

 

[Hawki]

Oh, what was with the spear sharpened at both ends in Lord of the Flies? Never quite got that.

The implication is that Jack is going to decapitate Ralph and put his head on it. One end is sharpened to be shoved into the ground, the other end is sharpened so that the head can be impaled.

Least that's the impression I got.

 

[Elfgore]

Freshmen Year: To Kill A Mockingbird and The Notebook.

Sophomore Year: My Sister's Keeper and Inherit the Wind.

Junior: Beowulf, The Kite Runner, 1984, and Johnny Got His Gun.

Senior: The Things They Carried and The Secret Life of Bees

I'm fine with most of these. I'm pretty sure The Notebook was 100% my teachers choice. Boy was it garbage too.