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So I find part of my summer taken up with doing some summer reading for my college U.S. History class. We have to, after reading two books of our own choice from a list, write a 6-page book critique on each of the books we chose. While reading through The Red Badge of Courage and Storming Heaven, I find myself wondering one thing: have any of you ever read a book, that you were required to read in school, that actually made you become interested in the story? If you have, what was the book, if you can remember?

Life of Pi is a fantastic book. I read it freshman year of high school which was a good time because children are starting to question things that their parents told them about religion and come to their own conclusions. 

I read Lord of the Flies for my senior English class. Kids alone on an island reverting to barbarism is pretty entertaining. We had to do some group project for it, and mine ended up making a video recreating the scene where Simon hallucinates talking to the pig's head on a stick with a little stuffed toy we tore the top off of and put fake blood on.

Well, I'm required to read Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie this year. I read that book in fifth grade, I believe. Still is great to read for the tenth or fifteenth time.

I've read many school-assigned books that I liked. Examples would be Jane Erye, Lord of the Flies, Zen in the Art of Writing (though this one's non-fiction), and Animal Farm.

There's only been two books where I /haven't/ gotten interested in the story. Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven, and Animal Farm.

In my senior year of high school, I read Machiavelli's The Prince. I loved it.

He was so incredibly intelligent. I mean, look at this quote from him, "Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are."

As for college, I didn't enjoy anything that was required reading. Though I did like it when professors allowed us to choose our own reading topics/novels. My degree is in education, so one of my courses was all about investigating children's literature and forming lesson plans from it. I found tons of great reads that I never knew about as a kid. One in particular was, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The illustrations were so detailed and imaginative.

I liked As I Lay Dying well enough.  Hated Grapes of Wrath, though.  Teacher said generally if ppl liked one, they hated the other.  Don't know if it's true, though.  

I loved Grapes of Wrath, but I've never read As I Lay Dying. I'll have to pick it up and test that theory out.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorites.  I found As I Lay Dying on Google Drive.  I'd prefer to read it as an actual book, but since there is no library near me I'll have to settle for the pdf.  After I've read it, I'll let you know...

All Quiet On The Western Front. I read the book in 8th grade, not high school, but I still feel like putting it here. I hated English class due to the teacher (most of my detentions from that year were assigned by him), and a lot of the short stories we read in between books didn't interest me, but there was something about that book that I liked so much. I even stole my copy so I could keep it and read it.

Also not from high school, but my class read The Ear, The Eye and The Arm in fifth grade and I remember that I really liked it. I don't remember a lot about it though.

Lol.

Okay, he wasn't that bad, but he was still a prick.