A Teacher’s Case for Classic Literature

As a high school and middle school English teacher, I’ve read a lot of young adult literature. Yet, when parents ask me to recommend a book for their child, I struggle.

Sure there a number of fun middle grade and young adult novels. I could recommend books to amuse, frighten, shock, and certainly to entertain. In fact, that’s what many parents are looking for. “Is there a book, any book, that will make my child want to read?” But as authors, publishers, and young readers are enjoying a golden age of young adult fiction.  I find myself increasingly troubled by the watering down of our children’s literary diet.

Despite the abundance of novels available for 9-18 year olds, kids today are feasting on a steady supply of literary junk food. That’s not to say that every YA book on the market is junk. In addition to books that are simply entertaining, there are scores of tween and young adult books that are cleverly or beautifully written and that have moral and literary merit. I encourage my students to read these works. But what about the classics?

What about books that have not only stood the test of time, but that have formed and informed generations of readers and writers? No matter how many compelling young adult novels have been written in the last 20 years, we are doing our children a tremendous disservice by continually casting aside the classics in favor of the new and trendy. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening in far too many American homes, classrooms, and libraries.

Getting some kids to read has always been a struggle, but today reading has to compete with television, video games, cellphones, and intense sports and activity schedules. Against the near constant demands and temptations facing our kids, it’s no wonder that The Hunger Games is more appealing to young readers than Anne of Green Gables. Suzanne Collins’s novels are simply easier to read and more readily entertaining than anything than L.M. Montgomery ever wrote. And if there is one thing our kids are used to, it’s easy and entertaining.

However, when it comes to literature, young readers should be challenged — at least sometimes. Great works like Treasure Island, The Swiss Family Robinson, Peter Pan, Tales of King Arthur, and even Shakespeare were once commonly read by children and teens. Unfortunately these books rarely appeal to the modern young reader. The language is often antiquated. The images are richer and descriptions more dense. The characters and settings are unfamiliar. And there are seldom vampires or robot overlords.

Sadly, because adults and young people now tend to bypass more challenging reading in favor of fast-paced page-turners and heavily marketed series, too many young people are missing the many benefits of reading classic literature. The sad truth is that, parents and teachers have allowed, even encouraged, our kids have become lazy, self-indulgent readers.

On the other hand, when we guide our children toward classic literature, we develop who they are as readers and even as people. By giving them great works to read, we don’t merely appeal to their personal taste. We form it. More importantly, we help our children grow, not only intellectually, but through meaningful conversations and heroic example, great literature can help young people grow in virtue as well.

Most parents and teachers want to see our children and students become lifelong, avid readers. Classic literature gives young people a standard by which to judge their future literary choices. By exposing them to the best writing of the past, they will be better able to recognize and read the best writing of today. After all, the great works are considered great, not because of the number of weeks they have spent on a bestseller list or because that are easily turned into blockbuster films, but because they express universal truths about life, and through both plot and artistic expression, they point us to what is good and true and beautiful — the ultimate goal of Catholic education.

There is no literary canon that all children must adhere to. For my own children and students I encourage a mix of classic and modern literature. I want them to read the works of diverse authors, and I want them to read from a variety of genres and time periods. But I know that if they don’t read some of the great works now, it is unlikely they ever will.

One quality of a great book is that it influences other great books. There is a connection between classic works of literature that has inspired and continues to inspire countless lively conversations. I want my children and my students to be able to be a part of those conversations.

Flannery O’Connor once said, “Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning…” I’m afraid if we continue to supply our children only with books we think they will “tolerate,” such lively conversations might soon become a thing of the past.

image: Dmitrij Paskevic on Unsplash

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Laura is a Catholic junior high teacher and a freelance writer. She lives on a buffalo farm in the Arkansas Ozarks where she enjoys cooking and baking, which is also the key to bringing her busy family together. Her work has appeared on The Washington Post, Huffington, Post, Grown and Flown, Aleteia, ChurchPOP, and elsewhere. Find out more about Laura here.

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