Girls Can Write Books, Too!: Teaching Purple Hibiscus

While urban schools are in big trouble these days, I beg you not to forget the poor suburbs. We are gaining kids and losing money every year, and it makes finding decent books -- and enough books to teach all of our kids -- harder and harder. I teach around a hundred and fifty sophomores and juniors in Washington State. The majority of my students were not raised to be readers, but that does not mean that they don't enjoy reading. They just need a "hook" into reading, every time. A sample ethnic breakdown of one of my classes looks like this: six Caucasian kids, two Asian American kids, seven African Americans, eight Hispanic students, one Native American, and a Samoan. Some of my students come from relatively wealthy families, but most do not, and some live in apartment complexes that are frankly terrifying. I cannot ask my students to buy books for my class.

Approximately ten bazillion times in the past year, I have heard this line: "Ms. _________, I really love this book. And I DON'T READ. Ever." It's not that my kids don't like to read (even if they think they don't). It's that they need to read the right book, and they need a hard sell. Furthermore, the sophomore curriculum is pretty alienating to the girls -- there are no serious works by female authors. Traditionally, we have taught the book "Things Fall Apart", by Chinua Achebe, to the sophomores at my school. "Things Fall Apart" is a fabulous book, but it is an extremely difficult read (and an even harder sell), especially for high school sophomores who don't come from reading families.

So there I was, trying to figure out what to teach my students. Our school's book room is pretty limited, and our department resources are low. I wanted a book that was beautifully written but not difficult for the purpose of being difficult; I wanted a book by a female author; and I wanted a book that fit into our tenth grade "World Literature" curriculum. "Purple Hibiscus," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, fits the bill in every way possible. Set in modern-day Nigeria, Adichie tells the story of a teenage girl as she struggles to reconcile her love for her humanitarian father with his abuse of her, her mother and her brother. The story is personal enough that my students will be able to connect with it, while still exposing them to a culture that is not their own. And the writing is simply breathtaking. I need enough copies of the book that I can send it home with my students. Having them read it in class is not enough; we would never have the time to *talk* about it. I have around ninety sophomores. A wonderful foundation was generous enough to donate forty copies, which means I still need fifty books. These books will be used this year by other sophomore teachers as well.

I realize that this is a large donation to ask for, but by doing this, you are ensuring that students will have the chance to read a book that they will love, that they will discuss and connect with each other over a work written by a woman from another continent, and that they may reach across cultures to realize that a teenager in Africa is not so very different from a teenager in the United States. This will go above and beyond preparing students for college. It will prepare them for life as a thoughtful citizen of this country.