best wishes
JOHN SLOAN (Retired Lt Col US Army and professor of Russian history)
Springfield VA
Books that I would recommend other juniors and seniors to read would have to be Homer's The Odyssey, J.K Rowling's Harry Potter, and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. These books are full of action, suspense and page turning events. Without these books, my life would be very dull and I would never be interested in books. In Homer's the Odyssey, Harry Potter and Into Thin Air, the main character goes through life threatening situations and through miracles, wit and endurance, has survived the impossible. These books will get any book-bored teen interested to reading more books.
MICHAEL CANARE
Waldorf, Md.
For mid to older teens:
Warchild, by Karin Lowachee - Coming of age for an orphaned child in the
distant future that teaches that what is perceived as right should be
weighed and measured from both sides.
The Killing Fields (Author not remembered.) A more modern holocaust; the
Khmer Rouge empty the cities of Cambodia and execute any having education or
the ability to lead the country into peace and prosperity. The long term
effects can be observed today, as doctors and teachers are still scarce in
that country, and poverty runs rampant.
MIKE DUMAS
I read We the Living, Ayn Rand in high school literature. I didn't like Rand's other books nearly as well. The character, Kira, moved me so much. This book has remained one of the few (and I read a lot) that have touched me and spoken to me.
[NO NAME ATTACHED]
Our three books are -
-The Stranger, Camus
-The Sacred Depths of Nature - Ursula Goodenough
- The Whole Shebang - Timothy Ferris
The Reasons -- We would have benefited from a better understanding of the uncertainties of life and a better understanding of the wonderful mysteries within us, and within which we are encased. Nobody can exist sensibly to-day without an appreciation of human mysteries and of scientific descriptions of nature. To come to these at an early age will assist all in dealing with the ever changing world.
Camus looks at alienation and uncertainties of the world, events that relate to everyone's experiences. Useful to know this early.
Ursula Goodenough, renowned cell biologist, relates the scientific world to the mystery of personal existence in a way that we wish had come to us earlier. She notes that immortality exists in the unchanging replication of simple cells but the genetic cells have a more profound sort of immortality.
Reading Sir James Jeans, The Expanding Universe' in the 1930s gave me a sense of wonder about the universe. Ferris does much the same but includes aspects that Jeans did not know about. A wonderful mind stimulation.
[NO NAME ATTACHED]
"The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham.
I read it when I was in my early teens, and that was just the right age for me to start understanding the author's theme: that people are both the same and different, and that we fear differences, especially when they give someone else and advantage.
"Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence
I read this in my teens, as part of my high school reading list.I was too young to understand that the emotional fragility of the male characters wasn't part of the plot, but was integral to all males. This is really a book that needs to be read only after you have experienced enough of life to relate to the situations of the characters.
"Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett.
I read this only a year ago, when I was 50 (and it was first published). It is a book that would have the most impact when read by young adults, if only because it explains that we all have our "inner demons" that can drive us to violent behaviour, and what makes us civilised is our ability (and willingness) to keep these demons under control.
NEVILLE J. ANGOVE
Dear Book World,
During my teen years, when my emotions ran the spectrum, sometimes quite down, I wish my reading assignments had more therapeutic in terms of providing hope. As an adult, I've been inspired and comforted reading about characters---real or imagined--who face adversity with heartbreaking hope and dignity.
As the mom of two teens, I'm also keenly aware that lengthy books are often intimidating and may actually sour kids to reading. That's a shame. Kids who like to think but don't want to be weighed down by hundreds of pages have an alternative in these relatively slim books brimming with hope:
Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl
Darkness Visible, William Styron
Fair and Tender Ladies, Lee Smith
If you can list 3 others:
The Road from Coorain, Jill Kerr Conway
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler
Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
CAROL LESSANS
Silver Spring, MD
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Burndive by Karin Lowachee
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge
Odor of Sanctity by Frank Yerby
The Christian Agnostic by Leslie D. Weatherhead
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
NANCY J. PROCTOR
Recommendation for nonfiction: "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol
My reaction to this book is the following poem:
There was a door in our house,
I had never opened.
It was upstairs,
Out of the way.
Curious,
I pulled the door open.
It was dark inside.
Very dark.
The light from the hallway where I stood,
was absorbed into the blackness, like sunshine into tar.
A heavy scent of despair permeated the air within.
The taste of hopelessness coated my tongue.
I heard fearful and alarming sounds. Dangerous sounds.
But I stood fast until I could see.
When at last my eyes adjusted to the dark,
You will not believe what I saw.
Amidst the despair, the hopelessness, and the danger,
I saw,
Children.
There are Children living in darkness behind that door.
"My" door.
Children of the ghetto,
Live right here in my house.
So close, in their world apart,
Right next to my happy life.
Who has abandoned these children?
Me?
We?
Us?
Then only
Me,
