Hip-hip hooray! I am now officially caught up on this challenge (or, at least, will be by the end of this post)! And what's more: today + this post = the half-way mark! Crazy how fast this month is going...
Day 15: What is a book you think should be on a high school or college reading list?
I'm interpreting this question to mean "What book do you think everyone ought to have read by the end of high school or college?" There is, of course, a l-o-n-g list of classics and not-classics-but-they-should-be that could be mentioned here, but having just read this book and found it quite thought-provoking, I feel inspired to answer:
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child is a "chewing book" for sure. Wittily-written as a satire, Anthony Esolen details for his readers 10 simple steps with which to destroy any child's imagination - and when he says "imagination" he means the ability to grasp or think about anything beyond one's immediate environment and experiences: things spiritual, philosophical, or - horrors of horrors - original. I really think it's a book everyone who will ever have any interaction with children in their lives (which is...everyone) should read!
Esolen's steps include:
"Keep Your Children Indoors as Much as Possible," "Replace the Fairy Tale with Political Cliches and Fads," "Cut All Heroes Down to Size," "Level Distinctions between Man and Woman," "Deny the Transcendent," and "Cast Aspersions upon the Heroic and Patriotic," which is where I get this excerpt from:
"In such texts it doesn't matter, for instance, that George Washington and John Adams and the rest of the founding father bequeathed to the world a new way of life - in Lincoln's ringing words at Gettysburg, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Nor that they did so in the teeth of opposition from their foreign overlords and loyalists at home. Washington's indomitable courage we overlook, but we do note that he was only a fair tactician, and that he held slaves. Meanwhile, we make much of Abigail Adams, not because she exerted any great influence upon the events of the day, but because she makes a convenient mascot for our contemporary team...."
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Add it to your list! It's a worth-while book to read!
1 comment:
Anything by G.K. Chesterton!
(And that book is on my reading list, but, unfortunately, my reading list is very far down on my priority list right now!)
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