Summer Reading

I couldn't believe it when the teacher passed out the Summer Reading List for kids who'll be in 10th grade next year. (So, they’re mostly 15 year olds.)

Two books are atrocious choices:

Catcher in the Rye?!?!
Are you kidding me?
The woes of a 1950s prep-school boy did not touch me when I was a teen in the 1970s.
I can't imagine they are any more relatable to the students I've met. Less, for most. Far, far less.

You could say students need to stretch.
Uh, maybe? But, stretch to understand that white boys have mental health problems too? Wouldn't be my first choice for this group.
(I can't imagine the white boy students I've met relating to Holden either though. Actually, there were zero white boys in the English class of 14 students I’ve been assisting this semester. And two white girls.)

(And to assign this for young readers to read alone over the summer?
Way to turn them off.)

If that's what you want--coming of age in a John Updike world––I'd go with A Separate Peace, by John Knowles.

And The Secret Life of Bees?
Not a bad book overall--Auntie Vi loved it--(and in fact, I think it's more for older adults--not because it's hard, but because it's from an older culture)-- but have the teachers heard of the Magic Negro trope? This book is it: traumatized white girl and her Black nanny (!) are healed by Magic Black Women.

A lot of the students are themselves Black or brown... Are you implying this should be their role--to heal the wounded psyche of their white friends?
What about their own healing?

Also, if you're asking young people to read alone, on their own time, I'd choose more gripping stories.

Two are keepers:

Frankenstein. Okay, the ancestor of a trope that is very much alive --the creature and the creator...

Kindred.  Pretty cool, Octavia Butler was a pioneering sci-fi writer, and Black. But a lot of BIPOC have said they're tired of being defined by historical trauma. I'd look for something that's not about slavery, actually...

What would I add/substitute?
(***Please add your ideas in the comments!)

1. Murderbot! Of course, my favorite.
(To read alongside or instead of Frankenstein)
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells.

A created creature like Frankenstein, but with no gender or sexuality, and of indeterminate/mixed race, and a snarky sense of humor [this is half the students] must set aside its obsession with media fandom [get off your phone!] and make its own way to hard-won but somewhat unwelcome self-determination.
In other words, it's a teenager growing up.

2. Carrie, by Stephen King.
Instead of Catcher in the Rye.
Tentatively, because I haven't read this since I was young––(I checked it out of the school library yesterday to see if it's still okay)––but my instinct says something from the point of view of a wronged teenager, like Holden Caulfield, but from the underclass---here, a loser teen girl who takes revenge on her bullies.

3. There, There, by Tommy Orange
An adult book, but rated reading level Grade 9 and up. Twelve loosely connected characters, all Native (all? I think) make their various ways to a pow wow in Oakland.
Very dark, but teenage years--and real life--can be/often is this dark.

Or, the happier Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.
(Alexie got named in #MeToo, but this book is not sexist or exploitative.) About a Native teenager on the rez making his way in a white high school---and NOT being the Magic Indian Healer!

4. I haven't read much YA lit, so I can't choose, but here's a list of good-looking Empowering Young Adult Books by Black Authors.
www.readbrightly.com/black-young-adult-books

5. Something Latinx.
I haven't read this, but a copy got donated to the thrift store and it looked good and gets great reviews:
I Am not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, by Erika L. Sánchez.
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So many more options!
Please suggest books you think teens would like to read----or that you liked to read when you were a teen!

Like, I'd still recommend Jane Eyre...