Sentenced to Reading: Teens who spray painted racist graffiti were sentenced to read

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Novel Lessons.  

Photo by Fabiola Peñalba on Unsplash
Packabook Explorers, a site that offers suggestions on fiction from around the world, recently posted an article about a judge in Virginia opting for an unusual sentencing for teenagers who spray painted racist graffiti. For one year, they were ordered to read a book a month and write a report on each one, and they weren’t just any books. The judge drew up a list of 35 books that highlight inequality based on race, religion, or ethnicity. All five kids successfully completed their assignments and two years later none had reoffended. 

You can read the full article here.

Below is the list of 35 books:

1. The Banality of Good and Evil by David R. Blumenthal

2. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates

3. Black Boy by Richard Wright

4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

5. Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

6. The Chosen by Chaim Potok

7. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

8. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

9. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

10. Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas

11. A Dry White Season by Andre P. Brink

12. Exodus by Leon Uris

13. Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides

14. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

15. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

16. A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from Inner City to Ivy League by Ron Suskind

17. I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing by Maya Angelou

18. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

19. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

20. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

21. Mila 18 by Leon Uris

22. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

23. Native Son by Richard Wright

24. Night by Elie Wiesel

25. The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

26. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang

27. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

28. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

29. Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton

30. The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle

31. Trinity by Leon Uris

32. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

33. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

34. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

35. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

            
Annette 

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