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1984 for me. This was back in the early 80’s so the book was a bit of a deal at the time. So very very glad I was introduced to this book at such a young age. Disturbing, but a good preparation for the world I was going to be living in as an adult.
It wasn’t a short story, but a book that told a story in poems. The mc struggled with writing poetry and then he watched his dog get hit by a car and that made his poetry good or some shit. A room full of 5th graders wept. Book is called Love that Dog
We also read Old Yeller and cried collectively.
My 5th grade teacher loved that reoccurring theme, I guess? Dude was weird as hell.
Well “love that dog” made me cry a little just now, so thanks for that.
You’re welcome. I haven’t read it in years because it’s so sad. I have a copy sitting on my shelf because it’s genuinely a good book, but I haven’t cracked it open.
When I was a kid the lady who ran a daycare out of her home that I attended would play the old yeller movie for us and it was probably our favorite film. I learned later from my mom that the secret is she conveniently ends the film before the ending so it’s just a happy story about a good doggie
Man, what is it about teachers assigning books about dogs dying?
Not in english, but we read Anne Frank’s Diary in grade 8, Andorra by Max Frisch in grade 9 or 10.
But the most disturbing was “Der Sandmann” in grade 11 and “Der gelbe Vogel” (originally “Alan and Naomi”) in grade 9.
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A&P by John Updike
- “Gentlemen, your verdict” by Michael Bruce - trolley problem on a submarine (attention: weird vertical formatting)
- “Just Lather, That’s All” by Hernando Téllez" - a barber during a civil war
The second one actually gave me half of a mental breakdown, but not because it was too violent for me.
One analysis that I read made the exact opposite conclusion that I made, and it showed me this: in the subject of English, two diametrically opposed points can both be equally correct! Nothing is fixed! Reality is mutable!Also The Lottery, The Veldt, Harrison Bergeron (which others have already mentioned)
Harrison Bergeron
A separate peace was a book we got in highschool where a kid possibly has homosexual feelings for another and throws him out of a tree which shatters his leg and eventually kills him.
o k then…
Huuuuuge paraphrase there but the book is insane and while the kid with the broken leg is away the one who knocked him out of the tree starts wearing the one with the broken leg’s clothes and all kinds of weird shit
Yup. Real fuckin weird one. I’m sure there was a point but I never got it.
Been looking for this book for a long time, maybe someone here can help? It was in french, no idea if it was ever translated. The whole story is a guy in room alone with his dad, the dad is in a coma and expected to die (I believe the familly decided to unplug him). The guy is bitching to his dad, telling him how much he hates him for being an abusive asshole or something. It was really crude and emotonial. At the end, instead of dying when he’s unplugged, the dad wakes up. Maybe it was not a novel, but a part of a book, and maybe the title had the work Duck in it.
And then my dad woke up and savagely beat me with jumper cables
The one that sticks with me is called “the cold equations”, and it’s about a pilot flying a ship through space and discovering he has a young girl stowing away on board. Since he only has enough fuel to get to his destination if the ship weighs a very specific amount, he has to decide whether or not to jettison the girl out the airlock. I remember liking it, but I’ve never forgotten how emotional it was to read.
Does he eject her?
!Yes. She goes willingly after learning her brother is on the colony that the pilot is sent to bring supplies to. The pilot allows her one last video call to him before she is jettisoned.!<
If she’s onboard and the ship is running that tight with fuel, then they already missed.
Oh believe me, even though I thought it was a good read, I have a lot of criticism for the story. God forbid literally any kind of emergency happens and additional fuel is needed to avoid catastrophe. I get wanting to maximize space for supplies, but the risk far outweighs the benefits of operating on such tight margins.
Sometimes teachers field stories like this to foster critical thought and encourage insightful book reports. It’s stimulating material even with a flawed premise, and that’s the point.
My teachers always seemed to be the type that had these stories in the curriculum, but weren’t the type to follow up with the thinky-thinky bits. This had rather predictable results.
Space OSHA really fucked up on regulating this vessel.
Nah, in the future we’ll have Space Force and no OSHA
Seems like if jettisoning weight was the issue dumping some of the less essential supplies would work just as well…
The ship was built as simply as possible and fueled with the precise amount needed for it’s weight, there was nothing else to jettison besides the young woman. The plot was intentionally structured around an impossible scenario because the editor of the magazine the story originally appeared in wanted to subvert the common engineer action hero saves the day with a clever idea trope that was common when it was written. The heavily contrived scenario is the weak point by most people’s estimation, but overall the writing is well done and characterizations are very good.
The story bugs a lot of people due to the total lack of any safety margin for such an important mission as delivering emergency medical supplies. A guy named Don Sakers even wrote a rebuttal called The Cold Solution that was meant to point out a few things the original story overlooked without the idea of a bare minimum ship being changed.
Zapped while zipping…
Touching Spirit Bear
I vividly remember passage describing in great detail of the main character nearly and slowly dying on the island. he was covered with mosquitos and the book dives headfirst into describing in great detail of this guy chewing into a live mouse/rat and then swallowing it.
Top of mind for this subject: Flowers for Algernon.
Of Mice and Men might qualify, but weighs in at 100 pages. I’m not sure what the threshold is for “short.”
On my own time in High-school, I read: I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream.
A Rose for Emily.
It was about some old lady hermit. She had some relationship with the town and after she died they went into her house. >!Emily had been sleeping next to the corpse of her dead husband for probably decades!<.
There’s a story called “Time Safari” that ends in a dude just straight up killing another dude. This was in a kid’s literature book.
Also I think Casque of Amontillado is funny.
I remember that. Either Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov.
Hunting party goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs right.
Huh I never realized how weird of a story that is to tell to kids
Don’t even get me started on a tall tale heart or that one story about this dude fantasizing about escaping while getting hanged
I thought that was called a Sound of Thunder. Because the last line went “there was a sound of thunder, then silence.” Or something to that effect, heavily implying that the time safari employee killed the hunter who stepped off the trail and on to a butterfly.
I also remember that one of the results of stepping on the butterfly was that all English words were spelled fonetically (typo intentional), a “mistake” I would happily go back in time to commit.
I also remember this short story, the death of the butterfly also changed the results of an election.
A Modest Proposal was quite memorable
