The Literature Teacher's Book of Lists

I am a speech-language pathologist. I treat language disorders and this is a great reference book.

This book is very useful for anyone who has children in middle and high school grades. It suggests the books that they might need for any type of research and for their own knowledge if they intend on going on to college. The lists for pre college book suggestions was especially useful for my daughter in high school.

Americans seem fascinated by a top ten list of any category, so it is no surprise that someone has put together a top ten list for literature. Jodie Strouf in her THE LITERATURE TEACHER'S BOOK OF LISTS has attempted to encapsulate the broad swath of human endeavour that we call literature. Though the title suggests that the target audience is limited to teachers of literature, clearly anyone with even a modicum of interest in things literary can benefit. Strouf's chapter headings tell a great deal about how she organizes the rather bulky spectrum that most well-educated readers already know. Typical headers include (1) Literature: An Introduction (2)Books For All Ages (3)Genres For All Tastes (4)Poetry (5)Drama (6)Themes (7) Literary Periods (8)Potpourri (9) Endings & References. The value of Strouf's text is considerable in that many general readers would like to have a handy one page reference that gives a plot summary of a dozen words or less for all of Shakespeare's plays. Or perhaps you might need to know which famous works have been banned as being overly salacious (The 1969 version of the AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY puts in a surprise appearance). Or even which novels have physical disabilities as an underlying theme. As I read this list of lists, I could see that there is nearly an infinity of uses for it. A high school teacher might use it to plan a curriculum of guided reading. A college teacher could photocopy relevant categories of minutiae that correspond with an undergraduate course in Lit 101. The well-educated layman could even derive pleasure in finding a tidy order in the disorder of written ideas that stretches back to antiquity. There are not many reference books that one could read as opposed to look up some arcane point. THE LITERATURE TEACHER'S BOOK OF LISTS is one such treasured example.