Thematic Study
In a theme study students read books that were originally published in three different time periods but which have a common theme. They analyze commonalities and differences.
These themes have been approved for the Three Books Project. If you have an idea for another title or theme, please come and talk to me about it. The same title may appear in more than one theme.
|Growing Up| |Deception| |Ethnic Identity| |Traveling Through America| | |War| |Women|
Theme: Growing Up
Read one early, one middle, and one recent title. In what ways is growing up the same for everyone, and in what ways have issues changed over the years?
Note: If you have an idea for a book you'd like to see added to this list, please suggest it to me.
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- Freckles or A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter
- My Antonia by Willa Cather
- Penrod by Booth Tarkington
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles
- A Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter
- The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
- Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
- Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolph Anaya
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and Broadway Bound by Neil Simon (three plays = one novel)
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
- A Death in the Family by James Agee
- Good-bye, Columbus by Philip Roth
- The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (nonfiction)
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
- Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford
- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
- When the Legends Die by Hal Borland
Early
Middle
Recent