Reaching Back into My Favorite Books

Today, I had a Facebook contest where people guessed the title and author of one of the books in the “Reaching Back” artwork. 41 minutes later, the contest was done; five out six winners were former students of mine! Winners won a shirt/CD package.

Anyways, I thought I’d share the names of the winners, the correct answers, and an anecdote about how each book is important to me. (If you haven’t downloaded the song yet, you still can download it for free here.)

1. Winner: Kati Bethuy: Falling Up by Shel Silverstein

My second date with my wife Natalie was attending a book sale at the local library. I don’t remember if this is one of the books Nat bought that afternoon, but it was one of the books I remember most during our first year of dating. Natalie loves these poems, and while I missed out enjoying them as a child, I enjoyed her reading them to me as an adult.

2. Winner: Mallory Morris: Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

My fellow teaching colleague and good friend Brian Hacker gave me a copy of Teacher Man to read. It’s a wonderful, ranting story about what it was like for Frank to be a teacher, and I can relate to his Frank’s passion for his students.

3. Winner: Johnathan Voich: Nine Stories by JD Salinger

My favorite short story collection is Nine Stories, and “Perfect Day for Bananafish” still kills me. During my second and third year teaching, I became obsessed with J.D. Salinger’s works. I apologize if you were in my American Lit class and stuck listening to me rant about Salinger. (I’m still obsessed, but more reserved about it.)

4. Winner: Breanna Allen: Complete Short Stories by Edgar Allen Poe

My college mentor Dr. Scott Friesner once told me, “I still read E. A. Poe’s works with a dictionary by my side.” That statement gave me courage to face tough works of literature, whether verbose or difficult structures. If my professor had to stop occasionally to ponder the meaning of a word, it was surely OK for me too! Poe is one of those authors that continues to challenge me. My father gave me this very old edition of Poe’s Complete Short Stories.

5. Winner: Ryan Cemazar: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This is my favorite book. I’ve read it during high school, during college, and during every year of my teaching career. It’s a book that has made a large impact on my feelings about home towns, childhood, and courage.

I know this book more than I know anything else, sans guitar. I’ve taught it eight years in a row, and each year, I discovered something new in the story. One of my favorite lessons was having my freshmen students make a 3-D map of the town. We’d read the story and look at the giant map circled by our desks. We’d tell stories of our own childhoods growing up. We’d join Scout and Jem on that long walk home at the end of the novel, and talk about what it means to “kill a mockingbird.”

6. Winner: Aaron Pace: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

TKM is my a favorite novel, but Sherman Alexie is my favorite author. My student teaching mentor, Lori Fulton, introduced me to his works in 2002. The story, “Because My Father…Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star–Spangled Banner‘ at Woodstock” grabbed me immediately.

Alexie’s themes addressing Native American culture, reservation life, poverty, hope, family, writing…have expanded my sheltered world. I’ve read every thing Alexie has published, and I had the privilege of meeting him at a lecture at EMU in 2007. I told him a little bit about my teaching experiences, my struggle to encourage teens to read, and I asked him if it was OK to use some of his stories, but black out the swear words with a sharpie. He said, “Black out away! Whatever it takes to get a story in a teen’s hands in a school! Whatever it takes to get teens reading!”