Return to Fiction_L Booklists Menu

January 2001
Compiled by Nadine B. Rosendale of Carroll County Public Library, from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.

(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)

Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder

Brimming with the exuberance and innocence of childhood, Among School Children is the intense and affecting chronicle of a Holyoke, Massachusetts, fifth-grade teacher's passionate dedication to the children in her classroom. (Kidder also wrote House & Old Friends.)

And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City High School Students by Miles Corwin

A book that both lifts the heart and afflicts the soul. It is an account of dreams fulfilled, of children from shattered families in a murderous neighborhood who will themselves into a program for gifted students and ultimately into college and the American mainstream. It is also an account of dreams endangered--by a society that thinks the SAT is the sole measure of merit, by a ghetto culture that glorifies self-destruction and academic failure, and even by a pair of teachers whose brilliance is undermined by their own bitter feud.

Christy by Catherine Marshall

When Christy Huddleston leaves a life of privilege and ease to teach in the impoverished Smokey Mountains, her faith is severely tested by her pupils, the love of two men, and the curious customs of the mountain people in her community. Yet she grows to love these people and the simple, fulfilling lifestyle to be found in the heart of God's country.

The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson

This is the true story of the beginning of David Wilkerson's ministry to the gangs of New York City and the conversion of Nicky Cruz, the notorious gang leader.

Dangerous Minds (aka My Posse Don't Do Homework) by Louanne Johnson

A feisty female ex-Marine teaches a class of inner-city high school students about self-respect, courage and success. What had been called "the class from hell" went on to defy everyone's expectations, and proved that Louanne Johnson's unorthodox technique worked.

Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell

Esme Raji Codell has come to teach - and she's not going to let incompetent administrators, abusive parents, gang members, weary teachers, dim-witted principals, angry children, or her own insecurities get in the way. Esme is fresh mouthed yet compassionate; she can be pigheaded and generous, cynical and charming. In this diary, a record of her frustrations, her achievements, and her struggles to maintain her individuality in the face of bureaucracy, she reveals what it takes to be a genuine teacher.

Escalante The Best Teacher in America by Jay Mathews

The story of a high school teacher whose students, underprivileged and Hispanic, have set standards in mathematics all but unequaled in American education. Jaime Escalante is the high school math teacher whose urban high-school math class was the real-life basis for the movie Stand & Deliver.

Flamboyant by Elizabeth Swados

When Chana Landau begins her job as a teacher at Harvey Milk High School, she leaves the protection of her traditional Orthodox Jewish enclave in Brooklyn for a school that embodies everything she has been forbidden to experience. In a hostile classroom filled with sexually "different" teens, street kids, and drug addicts, Chana's one support is Flamboyant, a 15-year-old prostitute and an accomplished writer whose brash exterior hides a secret. Flamboyant is an unforgettable novel of cultural difference, friendship, and faith.

Girls in the Back of the Class by Louanne Johnson

A sequel to the best-selling Dangerous Minds finds instructor Louanne focusing on the girls in her class when she realizes how they have taken a back seat to the more demanding and difficult boys.

To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite

The author's experiences as a teacher in the slums of London.

Good Morning, Miss Dove by Frances Gray Patton

Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton

Full of enthusiasm, young English schoolmaster Mr. Chipping came to teach at Brookfield in 1870. It was a time when dignity and a generosity of spirit still existed, and the dedicated new schoolmaster expressed these beliefs to his rowdy students. Nicknamed Mr. Chips, this gentle and caring man helped shape the lives of generation after generation of boys. He became a legend at Brookfield, as enduring as the institution itself. And sad but grateful faces told the story when the time came for the students at Brookfield to bid their final goodbye to Mr. Chips.

Hardball, A Season in the Projects, by Daniel Coyle

A journalist describes the struggle of a group of youngsters from a Chicago housing project and their white-collar coaches to triumph in Little League baseball, chronicling their journey from the first practice to the championship game.

Holler if You Hear Me: the Education of a Teacher and His Students by Gregory Michie

Greg Michie has written one of the season's most fascinating, albeit under-publicized books. Michie moved to Chicago and became a teacher in an inner city school, where he basically found another world--not a foreign world, as many comfortable suburbanites may think of it, but one different in its innate toughness. There he met and was "educated" by his students as much as he helped educate them. Michie's book is full of passionate writing and is of immediate interest to anyone concerned about children and/or education.

Marva Collins' Way by Marva Collins

Marva Collins offers a beacon of hope in the midst of America's educational crises. Collins recounts her successful teaching strategies and offers inspirational advice on how to motivate children to fulfill their potential. This updated edition contains a new epilogue for parents and teachers.

Music of the Heart by Roberta Guaspari with Larkin Warren

A book and a movie - I believe the book was written after the movie was made.

Nobody Don't Love Nobody: Lessons on Love from the School with No Name by Stacey Bess

This is a book about a middle-class teacher who takes a job teaching homeless kids in Salt Lake City. She talks about the kids individually, the problems they had to face being homeless and the joys when she made a breakthrough. It was a lesson on hope and defiance of the odds.

One Child by Torey Hayden

A dedicated teacher shares her success story with Sheila, an autistic child abandoned by her mother and abused by an alcoholic father, who was declared a hopeless case in spite of her genius intellect. (most anything by Torey Hayden Murphy's Boy, Somebody Else's Kids, etc.)

Ordinary Resurrections, by Jonathan Kozol

Non-fiction, very inspiring with a lot of personal stories, very much like fiction - focuses on St. Anne's School in the South Bronx. Jonathan Kozol has written many books on this topic, beginning with "Death at an Early Age," which focused on Boston.

Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

It all started with the social studies teacher's extra-credit assignment: come up with a plan to change the world for the better, and do it. Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney began by doing something good for three people. But instead of paying him back, he asked them to "pay it forward" by doing a favor for three more people, who in turn would help three others, and so on, each act a link in a chain of human kindness. And no one -- not his teacher, his mom, or anyone in his small California town -- could ever have dreamed of how far Trevor's plan would go. (The hero is the boy, but the teacher did inspire him.)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks

The story of an eccentric Edinburgh teacher who inspires cultlike reverence in her young students, the novel was Spark's best-known work. The novel explores themes of innocence, betrayal, and cold rationality opposed to unchecked emotionalism. The story of Miss Brodie's ultimate downfall is told from the unsympathetic perspective of one of her students.

Push by Sapphire

This is about a last chance kind of program for urban high schoolers. The narrator is a teenage girl who has survived pregnancy, poverty, and abuse. She can barely read, but is challenged by a teacher who asks all the students to keep a journal. The changes we see in this character over the course of the book are certainly inspiring.

Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students and Their High School by Samuel G. Freedman

Small Victories is the story of one incredibly dedicated teacher and the struggles she and her students face both inside the classroom and out; a book with important lessons for anyone concerned about the quality and state of education in America today.

Teacher by Sylvia Ashton Warner

Ashton-Warner was a careful observer of the young Maori children she taught. She knew that what she had been trained to do in a college teacher-training program wasn't working, so she really looked to see what the children cared about, and invented ways to teach them based upon their deep interests and respecting their culture, different from her own. She, a left-handed artist, was different from the mainstream, and wanted to be appreciated...and she carried this and other knowledge from her personal life into her teaching. Ashton-Warner wasn't a woman of perfection, but she made a contribution that lasts...This book has changed the lives of many, many teachers.

'Tis by Frank McCourt

The author of Angela's Ashes tells his story as an impoverished immigrant who becomes an inspirational teacher in the New York City High Schools.

To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield

This best-selling novel that inspired a legendary "Masterpiece Theater" presentation invokes a vivid panorama of English life and history.

Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

Up the Down Staircase is the funny and touching story of a committed, idealistic teacher whose dash with school bureaucracy is a timeless lesson for students, teachers, parents--anyone concerned about public education. Bel Kaufman lets her characters speak for themselves through memos, letters, directives from the principal, comments by students, notes between teachers, and papers from desk drawers and wastebaskets, evoking a vivid picture of teachers fighting the good fight against all that stands in the way of good teaching.

The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy

First-person account of the year spent by the author teaching black children on an impoverished island off the South Carolina coast.

The Freedom Writer's Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell. Foreword by Zlata Filipovic.

Gruwell introduces her inner city students to the diaries of Zlata and Anne Frank, and the students begin writing their own diaries.

www.webrary.org/rs:flbklists/Inspire.html
First published on the Web: 1/31/2001
Last updated: 1/31/2001