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Book It ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASSES, at 10:20 am, every NMH student and most of the faculty sat down and did the same thing: They talked about books. A lot of books. To conclude the school’s summer reading program, more than 90 faculty-led groups met in classrooms and offices across campus, each one dissecting a book that participants had read before returning to school. It was a literary smorgasbord that ranged from the classics Dracula and The Old Man and the Sea to newer titles such as Freedom and Swamplandia. “This is a discussion, not a class,” math teacher John Christiansen told his group of six seniors and postgraduates, all of whom had read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Christiansen
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developed the book-group program for this year as a supplement to the English department requirement that students in each class read an assigned book in common and write about it. In past years, students also had to select an additional book from a prescribed list and make a brief presentation about their reading. But “they didn’t get into what interacting with a book is all about,” Christiansen says. “When you experience something, like a book, it’s only when you find out how other people experience the same thing that you can widen your perspective.” So he proposed the book groups: Each faculty member chose a title; students ranked their choices and were assigned a book to read over the summer. Then everyone showed up to talk. Of the faculty who facilitated the discussions, Christiansen says, “We’re not
all English teachers. We’re just people who like to read.” The groups were small, between four and eight students. “I wanted the kids to be able to get through more stuff, to take ownership of the discussion,” Christiansen says. And they did.
On Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
“I was surprised at the amount of emotion I felt: hatred went into forgiveness and sympathy.” —MATTHEW DICKEY ’12
On the title character of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
“He’s kind of a big marshmallow.”
—MADDY STARK ’13
On August and Marlena, two characters in Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
“I wanted to go into the book and slap him, I felt so bad for her.” —CHARLOTTE FREDERICKS ’14
On Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King
“It’s a serious reality check. It makes you feel very fortunate for what you have.” —WHITNEY LORENZE ’14
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NMH Magazine