Books paired with required reading
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The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S Lewis & His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. I’ve always thought how interesting the comparison between these two books are. Philip Pullman has spoken about his dislike for some of C. S Lewis’s choices in the Narnia books, and His Dark Materials has being seen as the anti-Narnia.
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll & Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver. I think the differences and similarities between these two books would be so interesting, especially as they are aimed at the same age group but written over a hundred years apart.
- The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien & A Song of Ice & Fire by George R R Martin. A comparison of two of the most well known fantasy series ever. It would be so cool to compare the relative innocence of LOTR to the violence and sexual nature of SOIF, but also to see where the two series are similar and if Martin was inspired a lot by Tolkien.
- The Fairy-tale of Cinderella & Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I love fairy tales, and I love fairy-tale retellings and I am always interested in what the retelling kept and changed from the original!
Required Reading
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I am going to completely agree with Jamie from The Broke and The Bookish and go with either The Book Thief/ Between Shades of Grey. Both are beautiful heartbreaking books that need to be read!
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower – I would’ve killed to read this in school! Such a great book!
- Anything and everything by Roald Dahl – a kid asked me who he was the other day?? Roald’s books were a favourite of my childhood and they should definitely be required reading.
- Wonder by R J Palacio – I read this on holiday and LOVED it. It would be great in a discussion – there are just so many points – disability, looks, etc.
- A great dystopian series like The Hunger Games or Divergent. I lot of people don’t know what dystopian is (I didn’t until I read THG!) and its a society that is so different from ours – there is so much you could talk about!
That is it for this weeks Top Ten, I hope you enjoyed it.
Laura
Laura Noakes 
Seeing Between Shades of Gray on so many lists this morning has just about pushed me over the edge…toward reading this book next. Thanks!
Here are my thoughts on the Best Required Reading!
its AMAZING! You’ll love it!
We totally had Roald Dahl as required reading! That was way way back in primary school though 😛
aahh I’m so jealous!
The Hunger Games would be a good addition, but the George Martin (Game of Throne) series, might be a hard sell – but worth it 🙂
yeah I’ve just thought how crazily inappropriate some of the content would be! Whoops!
What a fun list! Comparing Cinder to the real story would be great to do in class. And yes, the book thief should be required! An all-time favorite ❤
Thanks! ahh a fellow the book thief lover – yay!
I think comparing the fairytale Cinderella to Cinder would be great 😀 Fabulous choices.
Thank you so much!
We’ve chosen a lot of similar books! I’d love to study LotR with GoT, especially since Martin was inspired by Tolkien.
Happy Tuesday!
My TTT
great minds think alike!
Great pairings! And I agree – Roald Dahl should absolutely be required reading!!
Thank you – and I know – what a genius!!