I never thought I'd be one to sing the praises of
Young Goodman Brown,
The Canterbury Tales,
Billy Budd, or
any of the classics forced upon me as a freshman in high school. (In my
defense, I was 14, and if you asked me then who I considered to be a
literary genius, my answer would have been Neil Peart.) With age comes
appreciation, and while my tastes still gravitate towards writers who
didn't wear powdered wigs or who worked by the light of an oil lamp,
I'd argue that the classics still help us to understand the world
today. But is classic literature being phased out of the classroom?
Janine Wood thinks so. In this article, she details her challenges in finding a copy of Great Expectations for
her 12-year-old son, a quest that turns interesting as she finds that
very people she encounters have read the book, and even fewer are
remotely interested in it. (Before you ask - no, I haven't either. I
was going to, right after finishing the Tom Clancy book I'm working
on.)
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