A question for all you readers....

[Mosbonian]

Has anyone read or have their children read the series of books "The Black Book: Diary of A Teenage Stud"?

They are reading this in my son's school....I have heard good and bad things about it. Anyone got any input?

mmaddog
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[Braincase]

It says 9 and up in the review. Was that age or inches?

[NewChief]

I haven't heard of the book, and my students and I read a lot of modern Young Adult (and adult) fiction that people would probably find questionable.

That being said, they read the books as books of choice, not as mandated books that the whole class reads. Parents know that their kids are going to be exposed to and read a ton of books (my students goal for a year is 25 books), and that I can't possibly monitor or censor what each student reads. Therefore, it's their job to keep up with what their kid is reading and decide whether it's appropriate.

Anyway, I don't want to turncoat on this teacher without knowing the full story, but I don't think I'd choose that book as a mandatory read for 9th graders. If you're going to bring it up with your child's teacher, I'd highly recommend that you read the book yourself before doing so. We've had parents bringing censorship lists of 30 books or so that they want removed from our libraries, and it's pretty obvious that the parents haven't even read the books they want removed. It's much more effective if you've read the book, and you can address specific passages and issues you have with the book rather than just speaking in terms of, "I heard the book has oral sex in it."

For those bemoaning the classics, I hear you. Unfortunately with the diverse classrooms we now face, unless you're teaching AP, you have to make a choice between creating students that like to read or creating students that have read some "classics" because very, very few kids develop a love (or ability) to read from being forced to read classics.