About a dozen years ago, I brought the writer Tom Perrotta to the school where I teach. Tom’s novel Little Children had just been published to much acclaim so, in addition to assigning the work to my eleventh graders, I offered to lead a book group with parents. Since I work at an independent school, I’m fortunate enough to have the freedom of teaching contemporary literature in addition to inviting authors to visit my classes. Some fairly controversial works have entered my syllabus, but I was very surprised at some of the parents’ reaction to Little Children. They were agitated by the extramarital affairs in the novel and questioned whether the book should be read by their own (not so little) children. I realized that since this novel was set in a community not unlike ours, it hit a bit too close to home. [Click here to READ THE ENTIRE POST at UnleashingReaders.com]
