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This year for Honours English 10, students are required, over the summer, to read The Chosen by Chaim Potok and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. And do not mistake me here, for both are of relatively good stand-alone quality. However, they are hardly proper reading material for an honours-level class beyond seventh or eighth grade, and I have taken it upon myself to inform my teacher of such.

The Secret Life of Bees is undoubtedly the better of the two as far as raw material is concerned. The book lends itself to the traumas of a runaway girl and her black nanny some time after the abolition of slavery. This runaway has nothing more to go on than a picture of a black [virgin] Mary and a picture of her now-deceased mother with the name of a town pencilled on the back. With this sparing information, the girl, nanny in tow, makes a point of visiting said town, where she then discovers that the black Mary picture is the logo used by local bee-keepers to market their honey. Coincidentally enough, the girl's mother had spent some time with these very keepers when she was a child. In time, she overcomes her past traumas, confronts her abusive father, and makes herself a permanent part of the bee-keepers' household.

Ultimately an incredibly disappointing story with few plot twists, static characters, and a bland storyline. As if to add insult to the injury of reading such a sub-par book, in Borders book stores, one may find it filed under the 'Women's' section. In itself, this is a harmless enough trait, however, given to the light that the book is written, it becomes a terrifying blow to the credibility of English courses as well as to personal dignity.

The Chosen, I am pleased to say, offers a much deeper level of comprehension and is a higher lever piece of literature. Were it not for the fact that it could stand to loose almost 200 pages (being only a 300-page book, paperback), it would certainly be worth a second look. After reading it fully, I must say that Potok could have easily dropped all but the first fifty pages, the last forty, and ten obscure passages throughout the rest of the body without damaging the book in the slightest. One would even be so bold as to assert that the first fifty pages ought only be included as they serve to set the background of the story and are otherwise bland, drawn out, and detrimental to the novel's image.

Using only the "abridged" version that I created above, allow me to give you a synopsis of the book:

A Yeshiva student, Reuven (roughly translating to Robert), plays baseball for his Jewish parochial school's team. By a chance of fate, this team was to play that coached by Reb. Saunders, the leading Rabbi of a sect of Russian Hasidic Jews. During the game, the Rabbi's son, Danny Saunders, hits a ball pitched by Reuven straight back at him, breaking his glasses and hospitalizing him. Danny then comes to apologize to Reuven and, after some prompting from his (Reuven's) father, the two strike up a friendship that lasts them through college.

Some time during high school, Danny takes an immense interest in psychology, often sneaking off to the library to read forbidden secular books on the subject. Later, in college, he majors in experimental psychology and plans to go into the field after graduation. However, this presents a problem as the leadership of his father's sect would be transferred to him upon his father's death or retirement. In desperation, Danny turns to Reuven for help, putting off telling his father for as long as possible. Eventually, Reb. Saunders calls both Danny and Reuven to his study and explains that he is content with his son's decision, though he may remain tortured by Danny's genius ('A mind without a soul', as Reb. Saunders puts it.).

Undoubtedly, any teacher in a high school English class would find that to be an adequate synopsis, at the very least, and it is only utilizing sparing pages from the original text. And, after a good amount of deliberation, I have decided to take this up with whosoever my English teacher happens to be this coming year. Without question it will earn me no merit with her, and quite possibly a detention depending on how delicately I phrase my objections, but it is something that I feel must be addressed.

A high school English course, regardless of whether it is honours, regular, or basic, should concern itself with literature of a much higher standard than this that has been presented to us. Such a class should concern itself with Fowler and Gowers, among other authorities, for proper English usage, and with Shakespeare, Homer, Huxley, Bradbury, and Orwell for outstanding literature. The class should not expend its efforts analysing such mediocre and sub-par works as those cited above and to do so is nothing short of a personal attack and an unacceptable atrocity.

Ah, no problem. Apparently, we will be delving into the books' symbolism ( stare fun, fun). They could have at least had us read Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut--it's chocked full of symbolism and is actually an advanced text.