Novels About Education for Back to School Season

Book Summary

Born with ocular albinism, Sam Hill is a young boy whose rare red eyes cause problems from the moment his mother enrolls him at the Our Lady of Mercy school. 

Labeled “Hell Boy,” he is bullied not only by his classmates but also given a hard time by the nun who is the principal at his elementary school. Eventually, Sam finds the new best friend he desperately needs in Ernie Cantwell, the only African American boy in his class, and years later in a fiercely individual girl named Mickie.

As an adult, Sam is a respected ophthalmologist moving through life with Ernie and Mickie still by his side. His world is about to be upturned when he’s unexpectedly reunited with the biggest schoolyard bully from his past.

Book Summary

Set at the River Valley School for the Deaf, this novel transports you into the Deaf community. It gives insight into a culture that hearing families rarely get a chance to understand, with compelling characters along the way.

New student Charlie is stuck between the worlds of hearing and Deaf. She’s never been around other deaf people before and is trying to figure out what choices are right and wrong for her.

Meanwhile, the school’s headmistress is a CODA (child of deaf adult) who has her own problems, including a mother with dementia and an unhappy wife.

Book Summary

This dual-timeline novel opens in 2019 at the funeral for BettyKay in a small town in Iowa. BettyKay’s daughters are shocked when Hollywood movie star Kitty Devereaux walks in and places something into their mother’s casket. Over the course of the weekend, BettyKay’s daughters discover a whole other side to their mother as Kitty shares stories of their lifelong friendship, which all began in 1967 at a St. Luke’s Nursing School in the fictional town of Greensboro, Iowa. 

BettyKay grew up on a farm in the Midwest and risked everything to attend nursing school against her parents’ wishes. Her assigned roommate, Kitty, came to Iowa to escape her past in Atlanta but already had her sights set on Hollywood. The two, having little in common, became unlikely friends. Another new student, Jenny, completed their trio. Jenny had aspirations of becoming a doctor, but she knew that the combination of being a woman and being Black meant that the odds were stacked against her in the late 60s. 

The bond these three women formed at their Iowa nursing school would carry them through the years as their lives led them in different directions – from the jungles of Vietnam to the movie sets of Hollywood.

Book Summary

Life in late nineteenth-century Boston is tough, and Aiden and Charles struggle each day to earn enough money to feed themselves (and in Aiden’s case, also his mother and sister). The two adolescent boys survive the wicked Boston streets by forming an alliance. Together, they rob drunken sailors in the brothel district, but things go wrong one night. They accidentally kill their target.

To avoid arrest, the boys flee the city and con their way into the Boston Farm School. In 1889, this school only accepted boys with squeaky-clean pasts (certainly not those with criminal records), which made it the perfect hiding place for Aiden and Charles. But soon, they struggle to keep their stories straight. The pressure damages their friendship and puts their futures at risk.

Book Summary

Adunni is a 14-year-old girl living in poverty in a Nigerian village. She loves school and knows that learning all she can is the key to achieving a better life. But, despite promising to allow Adunni’s schooling to continue after her mother’s death, Adunni’s father makes a decision that ends her education in the village and changes the trajectory of her life.

You’ll be moved to both tears and cheers as Adunni endures and overcomes heartbreaking challenges while remaining focused on her dream of an education.

Book Summary

Nikki is the daughter of Indian immigrants raised in a traditional Sikh community in England. After dropping out of law school, she spends her time in cosmopolitan West London tending bar at a local pub.

When her family is in need of financial assistance, she impulsively agrees to take on a part-time job teaching creative writing at a Punjabi coummity center. It turns out, however, that the women enrolled in the class are primarily Sikh widows hoping to gain basic English fluency.

Though they need to learn beginner skills, these women don’t want to be taught using resources designed for young children. When one of the widows find a book sexy stories in English and shares it with her classmates, Nikki realizes that despite beneath their modest white dupattas, these women are filled with both memories and fantasies. In hopes of liberating them, Nikki helps the widows to unleash their creativity and express their untold stories.

Soon more women join the class and they all must be careful not to attract the attention of the Brotherhood – a group of conservative young men who act as the community’s self-appointed “moral police.”

When the gossip among the women reveals shocking insights into the death of a modern young wife in the community, it sparks a scandal that puts them all in danger.

Book Summary

Every Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian’s restaurant for a cooking class. Each of them are searching for more than just food technique, they also need a new recipe for life. From a young mother to a widower, the students have unique backgrounds and different challenges in life.

The aromas, flavors, and texture of Lillian’s food slowly transform the lives of her students. As the characters begin to intertwine, the depth of what can be created in the kitchen is revealed.

Book Summary

This juicy contemporary drama focuses on four families that have been friends since their children were born. However, secrets and resentments were buried along the way.

Early in the book, we are introduced to each of these families as they discuss a new, exclusive school that will be opening in the town of Crystal, Colorado (which many readers will recognize as a slightly fictionalized version of Boulder, CO). What starts as good intentions is quickly derailed by very questionable actions as they each fight to get their kids into the new school. These ambitious parents will go to any length to secure a spot for their children. Along the way, secrets and lies will resurface in explosive ways.

This novel explores issues of talent versus privilege, achievement versus potential, and the pursuit of prestige at any cost.

Book Summary

Class Mom is a light and entertaining novel about the life of a 40-something mom in a large suburb southwest of Kansas City. She also has two daughters in college, as well as a son in kindergarten.

If you’ve ever done a little eye-rolling when dealing with other parents at your child’s school, this is the book for you. Former rockstar groupie Jen is bamboozled into being the class mom for her daughter’s kindergarten class. Her emails recruiting other parent volunteers are full of the things you wish you could say, but hopefully wouldn’t.

Book Summary

This novel tells the intertwined tale of three moms whose children attend the same primary school in suburban Sydney.

Forty-year-old Madeline is funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is beautiful, but the illusion of perfection comes at a price. Single mom Jane is new to town and has a mysterious past. She’s so young that other moms mistake her for a nanny.

The three women at the heart of this story are very different, but a schoolyard scandal threatens to expose each of their lies.

Book Summary

Jack Parker became a stay-at-home dad after his career went up in smoke (he accidentally burned down his office building). His daughter has just started school, and Jack finally feels like he’s gotten the hang of parenting. Things are going smoothly until his high school nemesis, Chad, moves to town.

When Jack learns that Chad is running for a seat on the school board, it brings up memories of their old high school rivalry. Jack decides to run against Chad, but parent politics prove more cutthroat than he ever imagined.

Book Summary

Samantha is a school librarian who loves her job at her current school and who has a bold zest for life…but she hasn’t always been that way. Duncan, the new school principal is very regimented and unwilling to stray from the rules…but he hasn’t always been that way.

Sam and Duncan have met before. They worked together at another school years ago, back when they were both very different people. When Duncan takes over as the new principal at Sam’s school, she’s shocked to discover that the fun-loving guy she remembers has turned into a completely different person – one she’s afraid will ruin everything she loves about her loving and welcoming school community.

As things spiral out of control, Sam and Duncan are forced to get real with one another and reveal the traumas from their pasts to save the school – and themselves.

Book Summary

Twenty-four year old Ella Durran earned a Rhodes Scholarship, allowing her to fulfill her lifelong dream of studying literature at Oxford University. At the same time, she’s also been offered a position working for the political campaign of a rising political star. She works out an arrangement to work remotely from England, with the plan to return to Washington D.C. at the end of her Oxford year.

Things get off to a rough start on her first day when she has a run-in with a smart-mouthed local. And things get even worse when she discovers that the same man – Jamie Davenport – is also the professor of her English literature course.

During a night out with her classmates filled with drinks and poetry, she discovers an unexpected connection with Jamie. Her classmates warn her about his reputation, but she can’t help how she feels.

The two begin their relationship understanding the timeline – Ella is set to leave as soon as the semester ends. But things quickly become more complicated and Ella is forced to decide what her heart really wants.

Book Summary

Clara and Teddy first met at summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both were homeschooled and found a connection through a shared love of literature and music. Over the years their friendship grew into love, but they had a falling out ten years ago and haven’t spoken since.

Now Clara a history professor at a private liberal arts college in Maryland – her dream job – and she’s finally up for tenure. Her world is turned upside down when Theodore is brought on for the fall semester as a visiting scholar in her department.

He may have once been her best friend, but Professor Harrison seems like a total stranger to Clara. However, as the two spend evenings working on a shared project over drinks at a college bar, Clara quickly realizes how easily she could fall for him all over again.

Book Summary

Sophie had it all – a dream job as the head athletic trainer for the Red Sox, a handsome boyfriend, and a great life in Boston. But when she loses all three (along with the World Series), she is desperate for another job.

She takes a position as a trainer at an arts-focused boarding school in New Hampshire. She’s completely out of her element. To these high school students, a “play” is A Chorus Line, but when she hears “play,” she only thinks of a walk-off homer. Sophie is used to working with pro athletes, but she soon discovers that these students also have big-time talent and equally big-time problems.

After moving to the campus, she’s forced to live with three male roommates in a closet-sized bedroom. To make matters more complicated, one of the men is a very handsome grump.

Book Summary

Kate is in the middle of an important meeting when she gets the frustrating call that her daughter has been caught cheating at her exclusive school.

When she arrives to pick Amelia up, the school is surrounded by emergency vehicles, and Kate learns that her daughter jumped to her death. At least that is what she believes until an anonymous text tells her that Amelia didn’t jump.

This suspense/mystery is a great insight into the increasing role of social media during the 2010s and the damage that comes along with it.

Book Summary

In the 1950s, Idlewild Hall was the place for girls deemed troublemakers – those who were too smart for their own good and unwanted. Rumors swirl through the small town that the boarding school is haunted. After four roommates bond over their whispered fears, one of them disappears.

Six decades later, in 2014, journalist Fiona Sheridan learns that an anonymous benefactor is restoring Idlewild Hall. She can’t stop thinking about the night twenty years earlier when her older sister was found dead in a field near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. Then, a shocking discovery during renovations links her sister’s death to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past.

Book Summary

This classic novel is set at Hampden College, a small, elite Vermont liberal arts school. Richard, an out-of-state student from California, gets pulled into a close-knit community of the classics department.

Narrator Richard tells the events that led to the death of a fellow student. He recounts the influence that a professor exerted over a group of undergrads, and the dark path of secrets and corruption that the students went down, changing all of their lives forever.

Author Donna Tartt spent her undergrad years at Bennington College in Vermont, which is speculated to be the influence for the fictional Hampden College.

Book Summary

The Newcomers follows twenty-two immigrant teenagers throughout the 2015-2016 school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado. Ranging in age from fourteen to nineteen, most of these students came directly from refugee camps in countries plagued by war, famine, or drought.

The book follows the student’s English language education with their dedicated and creative teacher, Mr. Williams. As they get a grasp of the languages, their individual histories unfold and add faces, names, and stories to those seeking asylum.

Book Summary

In this memoir, Tara Westover shares the story of her upbringing in rural Idaho. Born to survivalist parents, she grew up stewing herbs for her midwife healer mother and worked in her father’s junkyard. Her father forbade doctors and hospitals, even when she and her brothers suffered serious injuries.

She was also kept from any formal education. Although she didn’t step foot in a classroom for the first time until the age of 17, Tara worked hard to educate herself in mathematics and grammar. She was ultimately able to gain admission to BYU, where she studied history and learned about major world events, like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, for the first time. From there, she went on to opportunities at Harvard and Cambridge.

This coming-of-age memoir details how she struggled to lift herself up and dealt with the struggle between family loyalty and the grief that comes with severing those ties in search of something more.

Book Summary

This non-fiction book is part memoir and part literary true crime. It takes us deep inside the landmark sexual assault investigation into the University of Colorado football program through the eyes of the private investigator who helped crack the case open.

When Erika Krouse was assigned to investigate the sexual assault of a college student who was attacked by football players and recruits at a party the year before, she knows she should turn the case down because her own personal experience with sexual violence makes it feel too personal… but that’s exactly why she takes the job. Over the next five years, as the investigation grew into a national scandal and historic civil rights case, she had to struggle to win the case without losing herself too deep into it.

Book Summary

In this memoir, Liz Murray shares the story of her challenging upbringing as a child of drug-addicted parents.

Liz was frequently taunted for her dirty clothes and lice-infested hair. She began skipping classes and eventually landed in a girls’ home before living on the streets at the age of 15. She finally decided to take control of her destiny and went back to high school. She finished in just two years while studying in subway stations and riding trains all night for warmth and shelter. Against all odds, she won a scholarship and found her way to the Ivy League.