I have been having the hardest time lately, trying to decide which Young Adult book to present in one of my classes. It is literally keeping me up nights. I’ve convinced myself that only a classically taught high school novel is allowed for this assignment and that anything else that hasn’t won some literary marvel award will be sub par project material. So I’ve looked at book award list winners. I’ve searched old high school reading lists online. I’ve even asked my high school swimmers which books they have to read in their English classes at City High. And after all this, all I seem to have is a pile of “typical” high school novels like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Great Gatsby” and “A Brave New World.” While I agree that the classics and those books in the Cannon are worthwhile reads for young adults, I simply do not want to read them again and give the same old tired presentation that I remember in High School.

But is it okay to read something outside the typical, academic realm for a college course? Is it acceptable to pick a book that is a commercial success or a teenage obsession? I don’t know. I feel like if I choose something more along the lines of “Harry Potter” rather than “Lord of the Flies,” I will come off as unintelligent, unsophisticated, definitely not becoming of a future English Teacher. I’m honestly afraid that if I pick a book outside of the expected, I will appear completely unfit to be a Literature teacher.

And yet, despite all these feelings and misgivings, I still want to select something outside the norm. I want to select something that a kid would read on their own as opposed to a novel assigned in English class that they simply Sparknote and never even bother to read. Is that wrong? Will I appear less capable? Less knowledgeable as a future educator of the written work? Will I be sucked into a fiery pit of unintelligible, trashy novels and their movie adaptations?!?! I DON’T KNOW!