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The essays, poems and short stories in this particular anthology are always picked by young people - high school aged. Because of that it's a unique look at what interests them -- but also means that the picks can have a limited appeal. What I found that most of the writing here shared was an intensity and vividness, but also an episodic quality that didn't always satisfy. The short stories seemed to share a tendency to be about a whole life encapsulated, instead of a moment - which kind of flie...
Read harder 2022: Best of —— compilation I was skeptical about fulfilling this challenge so I decided to tackle it early in the year. I enjoyed it far more than I could have anticipated. I love that a committee of high school students chose each of these pieces. I loved the range of writing - from short story to poetry to a fascinating piece on Tonya Harding. For a book with 27 selections to only have one or two that I disliked was amazing to me. I read the 2015 edition of this anthology simply
Can I give it 6 stars? Please?
As others have said, the stories published in bigger publications (NYT magazine, NatGeo, etc) were of a much higher quality. Some others were just plain strange, with writing mistakes that made them hard to finish. But overall an interesting experiment in letting kids choose.
"The Best American Non-requires Reading" is an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and graphic novels that is selected by a committee of high school students. As a high school teacher, I was curious to see what high schoolers would select as the best literature. I found their picks interesting and surprising.Wells Tower's "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?" was eye-opening as it was shocking to read about the account of big-game hunting. Tower is open about his bias (anti-elephant hunting) b...
"The Best American Non-requires Reading" is an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and graphic novels that is selected by a committee of high school students. As a high school teacher, I was curious to see what high schoolers would select as the best literature. I found their picks interesting and surprising.Wells Tower's "Who Wants to Shoot an Elephant?" was eye-opening as it was shocking to read about the account of big-game hunting. Tower is open about his bias (anti-elephant hunting) b...
The Dang-Troys always give me a copy of the latest Best American Nonrequired Reading and I repeatedly feel bad because it takes me so long to finish (I still haven't finished the 2014 edition). I get caught up in other books, but I am always delighted when I finally get around to my nonrequired reading. I continuously learn something new (about body farms in Texas), am inspired (by moments of time passing in Wish You Were Here You Are), or have my imagination captured (by Fear Itself).The story
Every time I see this book in a shop, I want to buy another copy (I already have two-one for home and one for my classroom). First, the writing is fresh and thoughtful. Then, the topics are varied and rich. Though these selections were chosen by teenagers, they have mass appeal. I have read this collection cover to cover and pulled 85% out to share with friends, families, and students. Truly, one of the best anthologies I've ever encountered.
Every year, the pieces included in the Best American Nonrequired Reading are selected by a team of high school students. While the selections are almost always pretty good - and this year's is the strongest entry in this series that I've read - the Nonrequired Reading is almost always dominated by pieces in technicolor, with strong, unsubtle themes. Stories in this edition involve a man overboard at sea; addiction; the decay of corpses; child sexual abuse; domestic violence (x2); PTSD; and the g...
When I first heard that these Nonrequired Reading compilations were determined by the 826 Valencia students, I was immediately intrigued, and I've bought several of the collections (or asked for them for Christmas) for the last decade. This 2015 edition is the one I've read the most from, ever. I don't know if my reading interests are briefer, as the rest of my life is chaotic and I don't have a lot of extra bandwidth to read a long novel, but these selections were also just really good. I was p...