I read Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War" in eighth grade while on vacation. I had run out of books to read and found myself lost without a book in my hand while waiting to board an airplane on the way to my final destination. So upon browsing the shelves of the airport convenience store loaded with magazines and books with various titles and subject matters, I settled on "The Chocolate War"...and I hated it. I didn't see the point in the book. I didn't understand how it got the reviews on the back cover that it had. I just didn't like it.
Now, upon giving it a second read for class I was open to having a different experience with the book since I was a few years older and have had some experiences I hadn't had when I first read it as well as having a different perspective on life due to those experiences. I will say that giving the book a second read after a long period of time, I'm liking it a lot better and can see the things I couldn't understand then because I hadn't experienced them (like Catholic high school) and that now having had that time to experience them and look back on those experiences I can relate a lot better to the characters then I could as an eighth grader of a Catholic grade school.
Kaylin
I can totally relate to that.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school I had to read "The Old Man and The Sea" for my American Lit. class. I love Earnest Hemingway, but I absolutely hated that book. It was a shorter version of "Moby Dick" for crying out loud! Who does that? How could there be more than one book that had 100 plus pages of fishing? Seriously, it was lame, and I struggled to read that book.
Then over the past summer I was cleaning out my room and I found that book thrown in a corner (probably left from sophomore year of high school). I was not about to throw away an American classic, let alone an Earnest Hemingway novel, so I picked up the book and started reading, it trying to remember why I hated the book so much. I don't know if it was because I had matured since high school or what, but I was so happy I re-read that book. The meaning and metaphors in the book finally meant something to me and I could relate in a way I wasn't able to before.
I should've known it wasn't that bad of a book, after all it was written by my favorite author. I just needed to mature to the point where I could relate to the message the author was trying to say.
Joella Scott
I've also had a similar experience with reading books a second time that I did not care for or understand the first time. This calls into question the emotional maturity we discussed in class a few times. Maybe even some young adults are not emotionally mature enough to fully grasp certain YA books, even if they are the intended audiences (just like the first time a lot of us read adult books in high school and didn't fully understand their complexities). How does a teacher know when a student is "ready" to read a certain book? Is it even possible to cater to each reader's individual needs in a classroom? Just some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThis happens for me a lot, but even re-reading books I've loved before I find myself constantly discovering things I missed before. I think some books just warrant a second reading purely to understand it better, if not as "completely" as possible.
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