Read or Die

The students in Ms. Russell’s classes have never read an entire book, and they can’t relate to Harry Potter and his magic wand. Abel is twenty-eight days behind everyone else, and she needs to get enough books inside him to get his lungs to work again, mend his shattered heart, and kick the shit out of apathy. I look forward to the day I see yellow caution tape stretched around my students’ neighborhoods, the chalk outline of apathy on the ground, crushed by the weight of a thousand books. No educator, no real educator, likes the kid who escapes his consequences, and the eighth-grade team is going to make sure Abel pays for his apathy unless he can turn it around, change his grades, change his attitude, and change his relationships with his teachers. But I don’t have 180 days anymore. He’s only given me 152.