The class had barely begun when a senior in English started rereading the last page of a class novel, eyes still red from the ending while the rest of the room tried to laugh off the silence. Later that week, students from every grade got the same Google Forms question: “What’s the best book you’ve read for school, and why?” The anonymous responses sounded nothing like a reading log; three titles rose to the top again and again; “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.
The heartbreak pick was “Of Mice and Men,” the book that “broke us in a good way.” More than one student wrote about finishing it alone in their room and just sitting there, not sure what to do next. “Lennie and George’s cycle of hope and despair taught me that I should escape the impossible cycles in my own life,” one sophomore said, a mix of sadness and reflection that clearly stuck. Another student’s advice to next year’s class was simple: “The lessons you take from the book will stick with you for life.” Those comments make it easy to see why this short novel hits hard for ELHS readers.
“The Catcher in the Rye” and “The Great Gatsby” dominated the “actually made me think” and “surprise favorite” sections of the survey. Students wrote about feeling unexpectedly seen by Holden’s anger and confusion, and about how Gatsby’s parties and green light made them think differently about obsession, class, and the American dream. One respondent tried to sum up why these books still work in a school setting: “‘The Catcher in the Rye’ pulls you in and it will make you feel so many emotions with the beautiful writing- one of the few books I actually enjoyed in high school.” For at least a few readers, that one good book was enough to make the next assignment feel less like a chore and more like a chance to feel something real.
