The Giver

This week Mayor John Tyler Hammons issues a challenge to residents - are you as well read as a high school student?

The Mayor's reading challenge consists of typical books on the high school reading list at Muskogee High School. Kick off for the event will be held at the Muskogee Public Library on Thursday, Sept. 25 at 7:00 p.m.

The first book on the list is The Giver by Lois Lowry, selected because it is the Mayor's favorite book read during his school days. The Giver is a dystopian novel about a society compelled to political correctness through Big Brother-ism. Only one boy, twelve-year-old Jonas, dares to change his society from its colorless sameness.

Some of the books on the list will be new to parents, having been adopted as required reading after they graduated.

Many will have already read most of the books on the list when they were in high school. Why go back and read them again? Because re-reading classics of fiction allows us to notice things that had no meaning for us the first time we read them. With our experience, the intent of the author becomes manifold with greater meaning. What we hated when we were required to read the novels in high school may now become a favorite novel. Or, we may hate it just as much as we did the first time it was assigned!

Either way, reading along with your teen forges a common bond, just like reading along with the Muskogee community forges commonality. It provides topics of conversation and common experience. It shows your child you care enough to read the same books he/she is being "forced" to read and that you are in the literary trenches with him. It shows your child that reading is important and fundamental to living a successful life, no matter how old a person is.

Here is the complete selection for the reading challenge from each high school grade level. Join Mayor Hammons at Muskogee Public Library for the kick off of the reading challenge taking place during the school year from September to May. Books may be read in any order throughout the year.

The Mayor's Choice:
The Giver by Lois Lowry

9th O Pioneers and My Antonia , Willa Cather
Treasure Island , Robert Louis Stevenson
Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee
Romeo and Juliet , William Shakespeare

10th Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Night, Elie Wiesel
Julius Caesar , William Shakespeare


11th The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle
The Crucible, Arthur Miller


12th Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Macbeth, William Shakespeare
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
1984, George Orwell
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

See you at the library!