27 Books That High School Teachers are Reading Right Now

Lucas Maxwell

Contributor

Lucas Maxwell has been working with youth in libraries for over fifteen years. Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, he's been a high school librarian in London, UK for over a decade. In 2017 he won the UK's School Librarian of the Year award and in 2022 he was named the UK Literacy Association's Reading For Pleasure Teacher Champion. He loves Dungeons & Dragons and is the author of Let's Roll: A Guide for Setting up Tabletop Roleplaying Games in Your School or Public Library. You can follow him on Twitter and on his blog.

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I manage a high school Library and am always trying to spread the joy of reading to the students. I love to find great books for the teens, it’s a lot of fun and very rewarding.

I also enjoy finding books for teachers. Teachers have little-to-no time to come to the library on a leisurely basis. That’s why it’s important to put books in their hands whenever I get a chance. I do this through staff-focused events, word of mouth, and that brief moment when you meet them in the staff room to grab something from the fridge.

It’s a lot of fun to talk about books with the teachers, as a lot of them just want to talk about something other than marking or classwork for a few minutes when they have a break. Almost every teacher in our school has a poster on their door telling us what they are currently reading. Some of the teachers update theirs regularly, others don’t. Still, we have a strong reading culture at our school and I love to hear what teachers from all departments are reading.

I decided to meet as many teachers as I could during a day when I had a few minutes to spare. I met with 25 teachers and asked them what they were currently reading. Here are the results, enjoy!

Ms. F (English): Call My By Your Name by André Aciman; Mrs. D (Human Resources): The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel; Mr. E (Modern Foreign Languages): A World to Win by Tony Cliff; Ms. S (English): The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Mrs. W (English): Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls; Mr. O (English): Hereward: The Immortals by James Wilde; Ms. M (Media Studies): The Sellout by Paul Beatty; Mrs. K (English): Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Mrs. B (Art): The Giver by Lois Lowry; Mrs. P (Music): My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher; Mr. G (Media): Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin; Mr. G (Drama): Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

Mr. N (Media): Hatchet by Gary Paulsen; Mr. C (P.E.): Scythe by Neal Shusterman; Ms. H (Science): Wed Wabbit by Lissa Evans; Mr. M (History): In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

Mrs. W (Music): We Are Okay by Nina LaCour; Ms. W (English): Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D Schmidt; Mrs. A (Special Educational Needs Dept): See You in the Cosmos, Carl Sagan by Jack Cheng; Mrs. M (Dance): Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Ms. H (English): The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; Ms. F (English): The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman; Ms. H (English): The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; Ms. S (Library Assistant): I Am Thunder by Muhammad Khan

Mr. M (Librarian!): The Girl in the Broken Mirror by Savita Kalhan; Mr. B (Business): Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy; Ms. P. (Dance): Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi