Get 'Em While They're Young!

This weekend I was browsing in the local B&N, and just happened to stop and take a look at the books stacked atop the Summer Reading tables.  I was surprised by some of the selections, to say the least (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters?!), yet also delighted in discovering that so many of the books assigned to students this summer qualify as American Gothic.

--There were books about serial killers both fictional:

(The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold)








--And nonfictional:

(The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson)







--A dark and twisted family saga:

(If There Be Thorns/Seeds of Yesterday by V.C. Andrews)








--A classic of Southern Gothic literature:

(To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition by Harper Lee)







--And Southern Gothic plus bloodsuckers:

(Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice)









--A novel of Boarding-School Gothic:

(A Separate Peace by John Knowles)









--A novel of racially-charged crime and punishment (that also riffs on Poe's "The Black Cat"):

(Native Son by Richard Wright)








--Even a book featuring a real-life descent into a labyrinthine underworld:

(The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth)







All in all, quite a macabre curriculum.

Those lucky kids.



Venture back tomorrow, when I'll be reviewing a book that I can confidently say will never be deemed suitable material for a high school English class.