Annabel brushes hair behind her ear as she settles into her seat. “I don’t think the others like our book choices.”
Three of the girls stopped showing up almost two months ago. Apparently staring at Mr. Nichols wasn’t worth the effort of reading and talking about the books.
After break, we discussed Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, which one of the girls protested because of its content. Both Mr. Nichols and Annabel defended my choice by arguing it should be discussed regardless of what happens to the characters.
Nobody wants to read about reality.
Mr. Nichols had asked Little Mermaid why she thought so, which she scoffed at. She doesn’t want to talk about books or why she doesn’t like reading them. But I know the answer she won’t verbalize.
People are afraid of the truth. They don’t want to accept that bad things happen to good people every single day. People struggle. People die. It’s life.
Little Mermaid called me morbid.
I called her naïve.
Mr. Nichols told us to be respectful.
The more we talked about the book, the more heated it got. It stopped being about the content and about why authors write about realistic topics.
Fiction is the perfect platform to talk about the things nobody wants to have conversations of in real life. When you’re reading a
bout a character’s struggles, you find ways to relate from a distance. It doesn’t always hurt as much, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt at all.
Chronic illness is real.
Death is real.
People don’t like to read about those things because they know it could happen to them. Distance or not, you put yourself in the shoes of every character you read.
Denial doesn’t make the fear go away.
It expands it.
Feeds it.
Makes it impossible to fight.
Annabel pulls out her book choice, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and wiggles until she’s settled comfortably in her chair.
I give her a small smile. “The others don’t like living in a world that’s beyond creepy vampires that watch women sleep and kids that get put in an arena to slaughter each other. They’ll get over it.”
She giggles. “We’re doing them a favor, if you think about. Hitting them with reality before reality can.”
I grin back at her.
Mr. Nichols walks in and smiles at us. We’re the only two in here so far, but a couple girls are lingering at the computers across the room. They’re giggling and joking and probably looking up something they shouldn’t be online. I see people do it all the time, hacking through the firewall the school places on social media sites.
“Ready for another group read?” he asks, setting his messenger bag down on the table in front of his chair.
Annabel rolls her eyes. “Do you mean argue with the girls about tasteful literature? Yes. I’m prepared.”
Amusement flickers across Nichols face, but he doesn’t buy into the remark. “I’ve considered adding this book to the curriculum for next year. I’d like to see what discussion we come up with based on first opinions.”
Annabel makes a face. “It’s the kind of book you’d need students to do research on. It isn’t like Emery’s book last month. Atwood uses political influence in this.”
Nichols sits down, taking out his own copy that has multicolored tabs marking the pages. Something tells me he’s already done extensive research on the book, especially if he’s interested in teaching it.
Annabel must realize the same thing, because she looks apologetic. “Why would you want to teach this anyway? It gets a lot of backlash and most students will just watch the television show instead of reading it.”