Via Fuse #8: an article on assigned reading for teenagers and how it sucks.
I was interested that she suggested Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris as assigned reading instead. In the Macy's elf essay, Sedaris flunks his drug test! The Christmas elves get it on with another and they're all men! And it's been a while since I read it, but the language can't be clean. Sedaris swears like seven sailors rolled into one.

I LOVE THAT ESSAY WITH A MAD PASSION and would indeed give it to a teenager. And I agree that school reading lists give short shrift to comedies that have as much literary value and complexity as more serious books -- and that kids might like reading more if they could laugh more often.
But I am kinda surprised the author thinks it would pass muster with most parent bodies.

And as Roger Sutton points out, what is up with making it seem like Shirley Jackson's ultrafamous short story, "The Lottery" is a YA problem novel?