I’m currently teaching at a private ESL academy, where we offer high level reading classes that are basically run like American high school literature courses. The kids are very bright, but the syllabi are a bit weird. The kids are between 6th - 10th grade but they’re all put into the same class regardless of age. This really isn’t a problem when we’re reading stuff like Pride and Prejudice, but this term I’m teaching “Contemporary American Literature” and one of the books is Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
If you haven’t read this book, the plot revolves around a little girl getting raped by her father and the book is full of issues concerning sex and sexuality (mensturation, prostitutes, the act of sex as a power struggle, etc). I wouldn’t really mind talking about this kind of stuff with the older students (although Korean culture being what it is, it’d still probably make them and me squirm) but I definitely do not like discussing these issues with the younger kids. I don’t think they’re mature enough to discuss questions like, “When Cholly gets caught having oral sex, why does he blame the girl rather than the white guys who force him to continue while they watch? How do you think that incident has affected his view of sexuality as an adult?” :dubious:
Anyway I’m thinking of filing a request to have it changed, but I feel like my argument would have more weight if I had something to suggest as a replacement. I want to suggest To Kill A Mockingbird (since I think they picked The Bluest Eye for its racial issues) but for some reason it’s on the “Gender and Genre” syallbus and they don’t like having books overlap. All the other books I’ve read along these lines are mostly Morrison’s, and all of them include stuff that makes them objectionable for kids, so I was hoping to get some more ideas from you Dopers.
I went to Library Thing and searched on “young adult/race relations”. Maybe something on this list would be suitable.
I was gonna recommend A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines or Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner, but I can’t remember whether there were explicit sexual scenes in either of those books.
I’ve had great success using Art Speigelman’s graphic novel “MAUS”–they all think “Oh, sweet, a comic book!” and then find out that 1) it’s a serious novel and 2) good and 3) challenging. Racial and ethic issues are touched on–the main character is a Holocaust survivor and a racist.
First thing to pop into my head was American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Won a Pulitzer, doesn’t have *too *much sex IIRC, just a great read. I don’t know if a young’un would enjoy it, though.
Roth has another book - The Human Stain - that’s about a light black guy passing himself off as white and the complications arising from that, if you’re looking for something regarding race issues.
What about a dystopian novel? It doesn’t exactly deal with a racial issue but are usually complex themes related to class and social structure. The two obvious ones are Animal Farm and Brave New World but if you think those are too much, there’s also The Giver by Lois Lowry.
Maybe something like The House on Mango Street or The Bean Trees might be more relevant. The latter was taught in 9th grade at my old high school, though I hear they’re using The House on Mango Street these days.
Joseph Heller’s **Catch-22 **might fit the bill - Contemporary, American, utilizes a more contemporary writing style, comments on / satirizes a number of American stereotypes…
Invisible Man (no, not the book about a literal invisible man) is perhaps a bit more dense than some others, though certainly more readable than Faulkner. It doesn’t seem to be very widely read but actually was one of my favorites when I was going through the classics reading phase of my youth.
Frederic Exley’s A Fan’s Notes is one of my favorite books of all time. The two follow ups are really good but not as good as the first. It is about alcaholism and being a football fan, and father/son issues and a slue of other stuff.
I really loved Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. My brother, who knows more about this prefers Spook Country by the same author. Gibson used to write sci-fi set in the future. (Johnny Neumonic, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Irdou) but PR is set in the present and Spook Country is actually set in the (recent) past. Not too controversial about these, some mild drug use and violence.
You should also look into Vonnegut.
T.C. Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain is an excellent book for high school aged kids. It’s a story split between a well-to-do and an illegal immigrant couple in California. A bit more “contemporary” than Vonnegut and Heller (not that there is anything wrong with that). I don’t recall any explicit sexual stuff and I know the book is taught at the high school level these days.
Stranger in a Strange Land–shocking for it’s time, relatively tame now, but touches on sex, religion, and sorta touches on race. Plus, it turns a new generation on to Heinlein.
I didn’t really like the book all that much, but The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler touches on a lot of issues without (in my recollection) being really graphic about anything. It had a racial component, but now I can’t remember how explicit the book was in general.
I haven’t read Invisible Man in more than 25 years, and then only once, but one thing that sticks out in my mind is the chapter about the rural man who has sex with his daughter. I don’t recall it being explicit (nothing like The Bluest Eye) but it was creepy nonetheless.
