High schools need Black authors' books

Before I begin my Young Adult Literature course, I send questionnaires to upper-division undergrads and graduate students to assess their high school reading experiences. What they tell me is shocking: nearly nothing by Black writers or other authors of color and nearly no books from this century. Instead, they’ve read “Lord of the Flies,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “Great Expectations,” “The Crucible,” “Of Mice and Men,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “1984,” “The Great Gatsby,” et al. Sound familiar? Most of us read those books when we were in school. And some mentioned non-classics such as “The Outsiders,” “The Giver,” and “Night.”

What’s missing from these assigned books? Not one student mentioned works by Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglass, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Richard Wright or August Wilson. And there were no books by contemporary Black writers such as Kwame Alexander, Jesmyn Ward, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson or Jason Reynolds.

I realize that English Language arts teachers are often limited to books they teach. Books are ordered by the district or department, and teachers use those in the book room. The best teachers add short works by Black authors. Schools need to rethink the books they assign students to read.

Michael LoMonico,

Stony Brook

Editor’s note: The writer, who taught high school English for 33 years and at Stony Brook University for 10 years, is an adjunct lecturer at Stony Brook University.

The new sounds of baseball games

That sound, the crack of a baseball bat as the Yankees’ Gary Sanchez hits a mammoth home run. First, he watches the ball’s flight and then, as he approaches first base, a second noise is clearly audible. The sound of the ball landing forcibly on the steel bleachers past centerfield. This is not a typical sound of the game. Watching baseball is pleasurable. The new sounds and non-sounds in the solitary stadiums are not in balance with the game’s tradition. I now understand what a loud silence is.

Steven Taub,

Melville