Lit Up: One Reporter, Three Schools, and Twenty-Four Books That Can Change Lives

New Yorker staff writer Denby follows up Great Books, his 1996 account of taking an English class at Columbia University during the curriculum wars, with this energetic and engaged, if less than comprehensive, report on reading among modern-day teenagers. He observes three 10th-grade English classes in three different kinds of high schools: the demanding Beacon School on New York’s Upper West Side; Hillhouse High School, in inner-city New Haven, Conn.; and Mamaroneck High School, in Westchester County. In 2011–2012, Denby sat in on a Beacon class, watching a passionate teacher named Sean Leon lead his class through discussions of classics such as Brave New World, Siddhartha, and Slaughterhouse-Five. During the following academic year, Denby periodically visited Hillhouse and Mamaroneck. At the latter, he meets Margaret Groninger, who teaches contemporary literature and uses “laddering”: letting students select their own reading outside class while also encouraging them to read “better” books. Based on these examples, Denby states that “passionate commitment in teachers” can “pull [teenagers] away from screens and social networking—at least for a while—and pull them into enjoyment of reading.” The sample size of his informal survey is so small, however, that this conclusion, while inspiring and hopeful, comes across as foregone. Agent: Kathy Robbins, the Robbins Office. (Feb.)