Canadian authors recommend books for inclusion on high-school curricula across the nation
Andrew
Pyper, Weekend Post
Published: Saturday,
September 19, 2009
As
September rolls in and class is back in session, The Afterword has asked
several Canadian authors to answer this question: If you could add one book to
the high school curriculum-- a book that students couldn't graduate without
having read -- what would it be, and why?
...
RAY
ROBERTSON
[Henry]
Thoreau's classic has become a sort of eco-warrior's handbook, but as a
small-town, suburban youth turned young adult set loose in the city, Walden
was, for me, a liberating blast of uncommon common sense about such sundry
non-natural matters as work, fashion, education, solitude and friendship. In a
world where we're increasingly encouraged to be little more than perpetually
diverted, always-obedient consumers, Thoreau's uncompromising individualism
should be made a part of every student's developing consciousness. Thoreau
wrote: "Men labour under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon
ploughed into the soil for compost. It is a fool's life, as they will find when
they get to the end of it, if not before." Every student should be
compelled to recite these three lines from memory before being granted their
diploma. - Ray Robertson's new novel, David (Thomas Allen Publishers, 2009),
will be available later this month.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2010317