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Introduction: No one, and particularly nobody who teaches, is unaffected these days by book banning. Perhaps you teach or have taught a book that has been banned--either at your school or in your classroom or someone else's that you've heard about. Maybe a book that you have long loved has shown up on a list. Maybe a book has been pulled from your school library, or perhaps you've tried to teach a book in class and gotten resistance. Or maybe you've just read about the parents and teachers and school boards and communities and, most of all, students and readers, caught up in conversations, fights, and legislation around who gets to read what.
Consider that reading theorists, some of whom we will read this semester, argue that reading is an experience--not unlike travel or living through an event. Not exactly like it, but an experience, still, that changes us and can't be undone. we can't visit, or a person whose life we will never be able to live--widens how we understand the world. That's what makes reading so powerful. Reading about something that we might not otherwise have access to--like a time and place Prompt: Take a look at the list of top ten books most recently banned in various places. If you scroll all the way down, you'll find top ten lists from the past few years. You can also look at banned books from a more historical perspective with this list of books from the past century. Select one of the books that appears on the list. Make sure it is a text hat you care about either as a teacher of that text or a reader. Take some time to write about what that book has meant to you and what you would have lost if that book was not a part of your life or the lives of your students. Once you've posted your response, take time to read and respond to at least two of your colleagues. There is no particular directive for that response, only that it be thoughtful and authentic. HOW TO POST: Click on the link that says "comment" in the upper left by the title. Write in the dialogue box and follow the directions on the screen to post. HOW TO REPLY: Click on the link that says "reply" and, again, write in the dialogue box and follow the directions on the screen to post. NOTE: You'll have to click all the way back to the original blog page to be able to read posts as they come in.
52 Comments
Kaitlynn Davis
2/11/2025 05:05:26 pm
One book that I really enjoyed in the last year or so was the Hand Maid's Tale. It was a really eye opening experience, but also an incredibly thoughtful and creative read. The story was gripping, but it also made me think a lot about the state of women, autonomy, and personal freedoms we have in America today. I think that this book was considered more of a psychological horror back in the day, where as today people consider it more realistic than they might have 50 years ago. With recent push backs against women's rights, its was a grounding and chilling experience. It made me uncomfortable, of course, but part of that was also the "what ifs" that came from reading the novel. A lot of what I learned from the novel was not brand new knowledge to me, but it was a grounding stone in an sea of chaos that is today.
Emily Graham
2/11/2025 05:13:29 pm
Yes! I most likely will never read this because I am too scared, but I am such a huge advocate of it from what I've been told from those who read it. I think banning especially ties into the message of the text and the warning that there are people who want to silence you out there.
Megan LeBlanc
2/11/2025 05:13:36 pm
I <3 Handmaid's Tale. Did you know it was set in MA and inspired by Puritanism here? It's interesting to me that so many folks compare it to Islam when in fact a branch of Christianity was the inspiration!
Taylor McKinney
2/11/2025 05:16:05 pm
I read the Handmaids Tale whenever the TV series came out after the 2nd or 3rd season as I was absolutely enamored by the TV show. I was shocked upon reading the book realising that
Marisa Silk
2/11/2025 05:16:35 pm
Hi Kaitlynn,
Gabrielle Sleeper
2/11/2025 05:07:21 pm
Barnes and Noble lists The Giver by Lois Lowry as a frequently banned book. Seeing this novel on the list was definitely jarring for me, as I dearly love the book. It was probably the first dystopian book that I was exposed to and I adored it at a child. This book made me really think critically about the world around me. It made me think about all the small things in our society that I took for granted, and when I was older, it reminded me of how dangerous and powerful simply having information is. Knowing about the world around us, knowing that things could be better, is a powerful and motivating tool. When the core of this book is surrounding how knowledge is power, it feels poetic watching people try to censor that particular message.
Caitlin Kelly
2/11/2025 05:12:44 pm
One of my all time favorite novels of all time. I think I must have read this book over 20 times when I was younger, and it also opened me up to the entire library of Lois Lowry-Number The Stars comes immediately to mind. This makes me think of multiple pieces of one author's work being banned if one book is deemed "unacceptable" and what a loss this is to kids that finally find "their author."
LT
2/11/2025 05:14:50 pm
Yes. That's totally right: jarring. When you see a book that has meant so much to you and then you realize that someone would have wanted to take that gift--that gift of reading that text--away from you. It's a wild experience. It says so much about how important literacy is--and, thus, literacy instruction.
Megan LeBlanc
2/11/2025 05:15:13 pm
The 8th graders LOVE The Giver! It's such a cool book in my opinion because it focuses on a future where people lose what makes them human - who are we if not an amalgamation of all of our experiences, good and bad? I had a lot of conversations with kids last year and the year before about how one should value all their experiences because you grow and learn from ALL of them, not just the good ones.
Ryan Juliano
2/11/2025 05:17:56 pm
Funny enough, I hated The Giver when I read it as a student. But everything you say about is spot on. Knowledge is power and having access to information is important, which are both concepts that students should be able to understand and discuss.
Catarina Morrissette
2/11/2025 05:19:45 pm
I have not read the book, but it sounds like an amazing book especially if you have non readers telling you that they love the book. However, its books like this that I am curious as to why they are banning them, simply because of the political implications? I would have to read it myself to see more into it. But censoring powerful messages is not right.
Caitlin Kelly
2/11/2025 05:09:36 pm
The novel from the Barnes and Noble website of banned books that impacts me the most is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I teach this book in my tenth grade English class, both at the honors and the CP level. I had to work fairly hard to get this into our Grade 10 curriculum, and I was *very* excited to have this contemporary novel replace our unit on The Crucible. However, the reason this book appearing on a banned list impacts me so much isn't really about me at all-it's about the kids that I teach.
Gabrielle Sleeper
2/11/2025 05:16:37 pm
I love The Hate U Give!! It's such a loaded book, but you're right, it really brings out the passion in students. There's definitely merit in teaching the classics, don't get me wrong, but I am so much more interested in finding the things that the students care about. They are not going to be life long readers if they are only exposed to difficult (and sometimes, quite frankly, boring) works. They are not going to absorb the lessons if they cannot connect to them. We should spend more time cultivating their love of reading and connecting to them as individuals, which is much easier when we read contemporary books. From there, once we have buy-in, we can build the bridge to getting them into the classics.
LT
2/11/2025 05:17:49 pm
This is a really beautiful and powerful post to me. The part that really gets me is how you talk about how it is a brave act to have difficult discussions, but this book made your students want to do that difficult work. Reading is a brave act. It's an act of rebellion and revolution. I really believe that. Which, of course, is why people want to ban books.
Devon Melo
2/11/2025 05:18:30 pm
Caitlin - What was the process like for adding The Hate You Give into your curriculum? I applaud you for this. I have only heard good things about this text, but unfortunately haven't read it. I will after this review haha. I feel similar with teaching The Poet X right now with my Honors :)
Megan Johnson
2/11/2025 05:24:11 pm
Caitlin, it was so nice to hear how this unit seems to promote a stronger sense of connection and empathy in your classroom. You address a very important point that I feel we haven't brought up yet in class; yes characters can be intimidating and sources of tension for book bans to some people, yet you show the positive aspect of characters in YA novels or texts in general. Characters can serve as important placeholders for students to navigate, discuss, and explore their identities; it is more low stakes to discuss a character with peers than to discuss your self!
Taylor McKinney
2/11/2025 05:26:51 pm
We don't have THUG at my school, but we do have the second book in the same universe On The Come Up, and I agree it's also a major hit with the kids. I use it as a floor to talk about poetry rap, and the kids really enjoy it. I just had a former student visit the other day saying it was his favorite book, and that he had actually read it when we were reading.
Ryan Juliano
2/11/2025 05:10:05 pm
It is not surprising to see the first Harry Potter book listed as a banned book. Despite JK Rowling’s personal views, it is a story about discovering yourself and finding a world where you fit in. I was hardly younger than Harry when I first started his story and grew up alongside the students at Hogwarts. In those stories I saw other kids/teens dealing with kind/teen things like school, relationships, and family dynamics. Regardless of the magic elements, it was a story that was easy to see myself in over the span of years when it was being told. A large chunk of my reading life would be gone without Harry Potter, as would many discussions had with others about those stories. It was perhaps the first communal reading experience I had outside of a classroom, which I think is an incredibly important thing to have.
Kaitlynn Davis
2/11/2025 05:15:06 pm
This also confuses me, as Harry Potter seems a very run of the mill coming of age story that is incredibly popular and has a lot of love behind it. Aside from JKR's pretty abhorrent takes, its so interesting when I see schools ban it. At a glance, it seems like a very non-offensive book, but I suppose when you consider that there is magic in the world that is something to consider. Though, I was never a Harry Potter kid growing up (for the books, I loved the movies) it was major part of my childhood simply because it had a huge impact on culture.
Sadie Petta
2/11/2025 05:17:55 pm
It's a shame that the magical aspects of Harry Potter, which are the most fun, but not the most important, make it so controversial. Like you said, it taught and encouraged kids to find themselves and prove to them that they will find their space and will "fit in." I was a peer advisor for a special education class in high school and the teacher would read a chapter of Harry Potter to the students everyday and they loved it. She broke the students into 4 groups based on the houses and they did little competitions weekly. It inspired them to engage with a text and they loved it.
Gus Haflin
2/11/2025 05:18:19 pm
The "communal reading experience" resonates! The thrill we have of reading these stories is equalled by the thrill of enjoying them with folks around us. I'm for individualized taste but mourn the loss of common cultural touchpoints. Nothing bonds people like realizing you both love the same stories; a proliferation of stories and ease of access (both good things!!!) does affect how much commonality we have.
Emily Graham
2/11/2025 05:18:23 pm
JK Rowling actually has a quote (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it exactly) but the essence was that everyone is a reader, you just have to find the right book. I find this funny (but in a more serious way not) because what if those books that could possibly spark the love of reading in a child is banned because it made some random adult on the other side of the country uncomfy? What if the book was going to help them not feel alone with their sexuality or their struggle with anxiety? Just because Harry Potter is magical doesn't mean that he doesn't deal with a lot of similar coming-of-age challenges that all kids face. Its what makes it so appealing in the first place.
Megan LeBlanc
2/11/2025 05:10:55 pm
1984 is one of my favorite books of all time, and it is also one of the most heavily banned and censored books of today. I read it more recently - when I was prepping to student teach, I observed a class that taught dystopian lit. Coincidentally, I worked at a restaurant with a student in that class and he had me for our work secret Santa. He gifted me a copy of 1984 and Animal Farm. I remember reading it and thinking it was SO bland and boring... then, (spoiler!) when the couple was taken in by the government and broken to the point of betrayal. Since then, I have been OBSESSED with the novel. I recommend it to everyone, and I desperately want to teach it. Dystopian lit is one of the most important genres in my opinion because we can see commonalities and warnings for our modern day. If students lose access to these books, I fear that they won't be able to identify when a government or authority is operating in a way that is dangerous.
Sadie Petta
2/11/2025 05:24:09 pm
I had the same reaction to 1984 at the beginning until I really got into it! On my old car I had a bumper sticker that said "make Orwell fiction again." So many dystopian novels are being banned, which in our current political climate is a shame. I think they are more important than ever before and the censorship of books is LITERALLY dystopian. Ironic.
Gabrielle Sleeper
2/11/2025 05:24:27 pm
Megan,
Emily Graham
2/11/2025 05:11:02 pm
A book that stands out to me on B&N's banned book list is Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was not my favorite book that I read in high school, nor is it something I would probably go back to read for fun today. It was, however, a very important book for me in many facets: my growing as a critical thinker, a critical reader, writer, broadening my perspective, and more. I grew up in a very white town and in order to gain a better perspective my teacher had us ready a lot of criticism and conversation around the novel before even beginning: the use of the n-word, children's culture, public opinion of the text historically. It becomes very apparent in a room full of white people that you need some perspective other than your own. We read it in AP Lang so we were also reading as writers, analyzing rhetorical choices Twain made as well as considering the book in the context of when it was written and public opinion of it then, when my parents read it growing up, and then myself reading it. I really came to appreciate how much that text made me grow in so many different ways and would have missed out on so many important conversations that were crucial to my development as an English student and person in general had the text not been an option.
Devon Melo
2/11/2025 05:14:51 pm
Emily - I definitely resonate with your point about growing up in a white town and having a very limited perspective about the world around me. I also found a similar experience in my AP language class too (more so than my AP lit) with first learning about the power of rhetoric strategy and practicing this in essays/texts. That concept was very mind-boggling for me as an adolescent, and like you said definitely something I continue to appreciate.
LT
2/11/2025 05:22:48 pm
Huck Finn is one of those books that, if yiou are an English major, and if you. go on to graduate study, you will read many times over. I think a lot about how I changed as a reader the three different times I read the book. As a kid I read my father's copy and was not interested. In High school it was an assignment and I am not even sure I re-read it. In college I read it for the first time with a critical eye and I remember thinking it was such a sad book--what happens to Jim at the end. But I didn't think about Huck then. It wasn't until I read it in my MA that I thought about how said Huck's story is too. He has no place in this world--he can't fit where he was and has to "light out to the territories" to try and find a place where his radical ideas of equality will be okay--and yet he himself is not okay with it. I'll stop. But the jot of returning to a text over and over and uncovering new things to learn (in this case what enslaving people does to the enslaver) is precious. Banning books is the antithessis of discovery and learning.
Devon Melo
2/11/2025 05:11:07 pm
Two that I read in high school that have always stuck with me are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Kite Runner. Perks because it was one of the first texts that I read as a young adult where I began to recognize mental health struggles within my family as a kid (a convo that was never talked about in my house) and that text helped normalize that subject. The Kite Runner - UGH love this text. I love the brotherhood between Amir and Hassan, the time skip, and descriptions by Hosseini. Coming from a place of privilege, this was the text that made me recognize what that meant. I owe that awareness to this book. I think it's an excellent text to teach in a majority white district, (and I do teach it now with seniors) for students to be exposed to Afghanistan, their history, culture, and empathize with the extreme inhumane treatment of their people today.
Caitlin Kelly
2/11/2025 05:17:49 pm
Hi Devon,
Taylor McKinney
2/11/2025 05:11:30 pm
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was the #3 book on the list of top books banned this year. This book is particularly close to my heart because it showed me that the relationships I had and built in highschool can and were meaningful. The impact Charlie's friends had on him during a particularly rough time in his life was something I could deeply connect with. Not exactly the same as Charlie, but going into high school was a rough time for me, and reading Charlie's experience while again, not the same issues, made me realise that everyone is going through something, and you survive best in friendship. I fully believe if I had not read this book during my freshman year of high school, I would have struggled more with the drastic changes in my life. I also thank this book for the impactfulness of music on one's emotional well being. I remember reading the end of the book, and Charlie’s favorite song by the Smiths was mentioned, and downloading on Lime-Wire or Kazaa this song, and listening to it while I finished the book, and I landed on the last line of the page simultaneously with the ending of the song and felt a sense of completion that was unmatched to any other literary experience. Now when I read I always seek out any songs mentioned by name and listen to them when mentioned as it can make a huge impact on the reading experience.
Marisa Silk
2/11/2025 05:20:20 pm
Hi Taylor,
Devon Melo
2/11/2025 05:22:24 pm
Taylor - I felt the same when rereading this a few years back/rewatching the movie! A lot of the explicit content went over my head in my first read through. I love how this book is still relevant almost 20 years after its publication. Charlie's authenticity is something that all students should read.
LT
2/11/2025 05:24:14 pm
Thanks for really thinking about and writing about what you would have lost if this book was not in your life.
Marisa Silk
2/11/2025 05:12:21 pm
One of the texts on the banned books list is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This is one of my favorite dystopian texts as it holds up to this day around women's reproductive rights, right to free speech, economic freedom, and more. It is a text that is a societal warning, and allows empathy to grow.
Megan Johnson
2/11/2025 05:19:56 pm
Marisa--I taught Handmaid's Tale in 2019! I had a student give me his copy with a note inside, thanking me for incorporating a text that he felt really helped him cope with a very traumatic event in his life. His response, and your perspective here seems to align quite nicely. It is important to expose students to real life issues so that their worldviews are expanded.
Ryan Juliano
2/11/2025 05:21:31 pm
The Handmaid's Tale feels evermore apt with year that goes by. It is increasing relevant as the fight for women's rights continues, which makes me want to say, "makes you wonder why it is banned," but we know why the folks who want it banned are trying to take it off the shelves. Students absolutely deserve exposure to the book's concepts and the older high schoolers are more than capable of handling them.
LT
2/11/2025 05:12:22 pm
There are a lot of books on this list that I've taught (The Poet X, The Handmaid's Tale, 19 Minutes (which is not even a book I liked), I mean, so many. And then there are the books that I've read or been forced to read in school. I feel like my entire school reading life were banned books and I didn't even know it (Native Son, Huck Finn, 1984, Animal Farm). But the book that I want to write about is The Diary of Anne Frank. I read that book when I was just about the same age as Anne when she entered the annex. I didn't know how it ended when I started it. I can't believe that I didn't know that--how could anyone not know that, but I didn't. I was deeply attached to Anne because 1) I also kept a diary. I even gave my diary a name, like Anne does. 2) I wanted to be a writer. So did Anne. I remember feeling like Anne was my friend. That Anne and I were alike. That she was teaching me things about life. She seemed so wordly and grown up to me. As I came to more fully know the story, I was beside myself with grief. I kept getting hung up on the fact that if she had only lived a week longer she might have lived. The camps were liberated. I also felt deeply that her sister died before her. My sister and I were and are incredibly close. Even now, just writing this, I get this feeling about losing my sister and living on in the nightmare of a concentration camp. And as I've gotten older, the loss of Anne Frank continues to have a deep hold on me. Anne was roughly the age of my parents. If she had lived she would have become a famous writer. I am sure of it. I would have read her books and continued to want to be like her. But none of that happend because she was slaughtered with her entire family except her father because somebody told the Nazis where she was hiding. As horrible as it is to have read that book when I was young, if I had not read it I would not understand what genocide really means, I would not understand it in quite the terms I feel like I understand it now. I know that my world view is colored at the idea that Anne Frank should have lived. Should be a living writer. It also, on a very practical level, made me learn about history. Anne Frank is dissapearing from curriculums everywhere. Nobody reads it anymore. And that breaks my heart. And it scares me. Where will people learn about how hate can beget infrastructure that begets genocide?
Gus Haflin
2/11/2025 05:14:57 pm
Your last question is haunting; books like this help those drawn to narrative or fiction develop a kinship with history. I'm troubled.
Catarina Morrissette
2/11/2025 05:12:27 pm
I have not read any of the books on the top ten most recently banned list, or at least I do not recall reading them and I am not a teacher. But I do still have thoughts on them as a parent based on their summaries. Book banning is a fine line, some books should be banned to children at certain ages. Maybe the age range for young adults is too large of a gap, it should be changed. However, from the list of the ten most recently banned books, Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher sits close to home and I do not think it should be banned. (I watched the Netflix series.) Young adults/ children are bullied in school, I hear this almost every week through my son, who is in sixth grade. I would want him to read what happens if you push someone past breaking point, actions have consequences. I also understand that the book mentions something along the lines of sexual assault which is another fine line, many parents do not want their children reading about it, but it is the reality of the world we live in. We can’t keep hiding these things from our children, all we can do is teach them about it so that it does not happen. These are things that children are experiencing on a daily basis, why are we not allowing them to read about it, to show them that they are not alone?
Megan Johnson
2/11/2025 05:17:28 pm
I read this book when I was younger! I agree with your perspective that the topic of bullying is a very real, horrific, aspect of adolescent's lives; books should reflect these topics to help children learn to handle and cope with them.
Taylor McKinney
2/11/2025 05:20:37 pm
I haven't read the book either, but I did watch the TV series, and I feel the takeaways from the TV series (and I have to assume the book) out weigh the merits of banning. I'd rather learn the consequences of bullying from a novel instead of watching one of my friends leave 13 suicide notes for each person who wronged them. Being able to see really real bullying outcomes in a controlled environment (a book, you can always walk away, you can stop reading entirely, you can check in with a trusted adult if you are struggling) would be a much better way to learn about these hard topics than being exposed the first time in a very real way.
Gus Haflin
2/11/2025 05:12:51 pm
I absolutely love Sandra Cisneros's House on Mango Street. When people ask me what my favorite book to teach is, I usually reply with this bildungsroman. It was published in 1983 and was probably the first text that my school adopted in the interest of ensuring that our American Literature curriculum consists of more than old, dead, white dudes. Esperanza's thoughts and experiences have yielded more meaningful responses from my students than nearly any other singular text.
Megan LeBlanc
2/11/2025 05:20:40 pm
I read this book in undergrad and loved it so much! I think diversifying our content in schools is important, and not just diversifying the authors but also the style of writing. Vignettes were NOT something I thought I would enjoy, but I found it to make reading a lot more bite-sized and accessible. I wrote many pretend lesson plans using the novel, and would love to use it in real life. I completely agree with you that banning this from schools would result in students missing out significantly - it's always great to see students reading something about a person that they can't necessarily relate to, but they CAN relate to the situations the characters find themselves in. I think I need to go back and re-read this book ASAP.
Catarina Morrissette
2/11/2025 05:25:08 pm
I'm glad your school picked a more diverse book, and is heading in that direction. I love books that children can learn from and connect with, it makes reading that much more enjoyable.
Sadie Petta
2/11/2025 05:26:37 pm
I almost chose to write about House on Mango Street. It's a gorgeous story and I loved writing vignettes in high school. My partner read it for the first time this summer and I got to relive the story with him. Reading it almost 10 years later it still hits just as hard. It's a shame that this book is being taken from students.
Sadie Petta
2/11/2025 05:13:54 pm
A book on this list that means a lot to me and that I think is extremely important is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I first read this book as summer reading before my senior year of high school. We kind of brushed over it when the school year started. My teacher just showed the movie and that was about all the in-class time we spent on it. I remember being devastated because this book made me cry so much that summer. It was also one of the first books that I read that took place in another country, and definitely the first book I read that takes place in Afghanistan. Two years ago I did my student teaching at the school that I currently teach at. I got to choose between 4 texts to teach, and The Kite Runner was one of them. I chose it to be able to give to students what I felt was missing from my educational experience with it. I taught this book to freshmen, which was a challenge, but I’ve had those same students who are juniors now come tell me it’s still the most important book they’ve read. It has since been moved to the twelfth grade curriculum. This book exposes students to a different country, culture, and lifestyle that they likely would not have otherwise. I teach in a primarily white school so for most of them, it was a new experience, but I also had two Muslim students who loved to share about their own experiences with the religion. It was the only novel taught that year that wasn’t by a white male author. I had the students view maps of Amir and Baba’s trek to Pakistan, we looked at how mountainous the land was, we discussed the Sunni and Shia conflict, we talked about Russia and the Taliban’s influence on the country, we talked about power and oppression, and more. During one of our discussions, a student announced his realization: the plot and conflicts of this book would not exist if oppressive systems didn’t exist. The district I teach in is quite conservative for MA, so discussing oppression and inequality about a country that seems removed from them, opened up a space to examine these ideas without much pushback. Not only do I have students telling me that this is the most important book they’ve read, but they have also said that ninth graders should still read it because even though it was difficult, it helped them to grow and think about the world differently. A few have told me they are more empathetic, insightful, and into the news because of it.
Megan LeBlanc
2/11/2025 05:24:18 pm
I've never read The Kite Runner, but this makes me want to read it! It sounds like it's only become more relevant as time as passed. I find that my school doesn't really dive into novels that deal with differences in religion or location often - a lot of American/European novels. When I taught 8th grade, we taught Night and I loved it. A friend wanted to include Refugee with Night so the kids could see more than the struggles that are most often taught about - a lot of children of color do not get their stories shared and it's truly shameful.
Megan Johnson
2/11/2025 05:14:11 pm
Perks of Being A Wallflower was a life changing novel for me in high school. Perks was inspiring to me because the main character’s voice was so prominent, and so unlike other books I’ve read. I hadn’t read a novel where I felt like the protagonist directly addressed me, and in doing so actually understood me. (Many books try this tactic, but come off cheesy.) Additionally, I was struck by how Chbosky realistically displayed mental illness; his capturing of adolescent mental struggle was poignant. In fact, I can remember sharing this book with a friend, and feeling so excited to discuss the novel with her; however, when she returned it to me, she simply said “I don’t get it.” It made me think about myself, and how my introspective, thoughtful attitude was similar to Charlie. The long term effect of a novel like that is that I felt that the book mirrored true life, and in some, certainly smaller-scale ways, mirrored my life as well. Even if my friend couldn’t recognize mental struggle, I felt that it became more “real” as the books I read displayed them bravely. Not having this book in my library would doubtlessly have held me back as an adolescent, but also would hinder my understanding of my students and their struggles. When I teach Catcher in the Rye (which was apparently Chbosky’s inspiration!), I end up quoting Perks in lessons about Catcher as I recall how that novel and its narration resonated with me so deeply when I was younger.
Gus Haflin
2/11/2025 05:20:21 pm
I adore the research papers some students will undertake to connect Catcher and Perks...they're always enjoyable and the kiddos' spark of joy when they realize just how intertextual these stories are brings me much the same.
Taylor McKinney
2/11/2025 05:22:53 pm
When I teach Catcher, (unfortunately I no longer teach Juniors) I would pair it with Perks. The parallels are uncanny, and the students who maybe didn't connect with Catcher, end up connecting with Perks since it's more modernized (although now it's almost 30 years old...)
Marisa Silk
2/11/2025 05:24:01 pm
I also deeply love this text, Megan. I also didn't know that Catcher in the Rye was his direct inspiration (I definitely saw the parallels, but didn't know for sure they were related - very cool fact!). I think a unit pairing Perks and Catcher would be so fascinating with examining how mental illness was discussed and depicted in these different periods. Leave a Reply. |
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