Author: Tim O’Brien
Publisher & Date: Mariner Books Classics, 13 Oct 2009
Page Count: 233 pages
ISBN: 978-0618706419
Age/Reading Level: 10-18/Grades 5-12
Representation:
Other Information: Although the Lexile and ATOS scores for the book place it as appropriate for younger grade school students (ages 9-12), most teachers and parents agree that the subject matter is more appropriate for older grade students (ages 12-18).
Book Information
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.
Challenges & Bans
This title has been challenged over concerns about its language, violence, brutality of war, and sexual content.
Specific Challenges*:
Awards & Accolades
Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, Chicago Tribune Heartland Award, Pulitzer Prize (finalist), National Book Critics Circle Award (finalist)
