On Judging Books and Covers

Well, this is a first.  You think you know about teaching, and then you learn about teaching.

In the last week of school, I received a humbling deluge of end-of-year gifts from my students, including every thoughtful thing you might imagine.  Sometimes they have help from their parents, and sometimes they have gone foraging at home to find something special.  My favorites include a heart made of legos, a tarnished necklace with a broken clasp from someone’s jewelry box, and a sparkly tube of (not new) lip gloss.  I could go on and on about the imagery and symbolism of all of these things, and I likely have in another essay.

This is not that essay.

This year, a student gave me a beautiful book, and I’m telling you, the cover was extravagant.  Embossed, swirling with gold, and strewn with a satin bookmark.  A collector’s edition, it said on the front.

Inside, I found page after page of erotic, violent, literary porn. 

The kind that makes you clutch your pearls. 

The kind that makes you slam the book shut and remember where you are: which is a classroom of ten-year-olds.

In everyone’s defense, I teach a very diverse community, and this child and their family do not speak English.  They picked the most beautiful book they could find, knowing I value all of the above.

If I were a visiting student in China, Russia, India, or Greece, I might also have to choose the book by its cover, and who knows what I might inadvertently purchase, sign, and give.

So… I won’t be tucking this particular title into the shelves of my classroom library.