Calgary Public Library

Reading with Patrick, a teacher, a student, and a life-changing friendship, Michelle Kuo

eng

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Reading with Patrick

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993624256

Michelle Kuo

a teacher, a student, and a life-changing friendship

A memoir of race, inequality, and the power of literature told through the life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer bursting with optimism and drive. But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still disabled by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and personal awakening. Convinced she can make a difference in the lives of her teenaged students, Michelle Kuo puts her heart into her work, using quiet reading time and guided writing to foster a sense of self in students left behind by a broken school system. Though Michelle loses some students to gun violence and truancy, she is inspired by students such as Patrick. Fifteen and in the eighth grade, Patrick begins to thrive under Michelle's exacting attention. However, after two years of teaching, Michelle feels pressure from her parents and the draw of opportunities outside the Delta, and leaves Arkansas to attend law school. Then, on the eve of law-school graduation, she learns that Patrick has been jailed for murder. Feeling that she had left the Delta prematurely, and determined to fix her mistake, Michelle returns to Helena and resumes Patrick's education--even as he sits in a jail cell awaiting trial. Every day for the next seven months they pore over classic novels, poems, and works of history. Little by little, Patrick grows into a confident, expressive writer and a dedicated reader galvanized by the works of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, W. S. Merwin, and others. In her time reading with Patrick, Michelle is herself transformed, contending with the legacy of racism and the question of what constitutes a "good" life, and what the privileged owe to those with bleaker prospects. Reading with Patrick is an inspirational story of friendship, a coming-of-age story for both a young teacher and a student, a deeply resonant meditation on education, race, and justice in the rural South, and a love letter to literature and its power to transcend social barriers.Advance praise for Reading with Patrick"This book is special and could not be more right on time. It's an absorbing, tender, and surprisingly honest examination of race and privilege in America that helps articulate what is often lost, seemingly intentionally, in national debates over criminal justice and education: the inner life and imagination of a young person."--Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore "Every American should read Michelle Kuo's remarkable memoir. Honest, generous, humble, and wise, Reading with Patrick will endure as a defining story for our times, and, abidingly, a testament to the power of language and of books."--Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs "Riveting . . . an essential addition to our national conversation about institutional racism."--Elliott Holt, author of You Are One of Them "Kuo takes on the subjects of race, privilege, and the debt that the human community owes to its most disadvantaged members with a bracing intelligence, honesty, and self-scrutiny."--Darcy Frey, Harvard University Senior Lecturer on English, author of The Last Shot

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