In a dream world...

Book rooms are a tricky thing. Luckily I've gotten funding that has allowed me to purchase books for my students but it requires a certain amount of leg work (well internet work and begging work). Here is a list of types of books that if I had my way would be in the book room when I arrived at the school.
1. Books by authors who are still alive. I know it's hard to pick which books will become classics but we have certain authors who are at the top of their game right now, buy their books!
2. Books by authors who aren't white, but who are dead. Generally if the book room does have books by authors who are still alive it'll be a Sherman Alexie or a Toni Morrison as if white authors used to write all the books but recently other races have discovered writing. That's a load of bs.
3. Books that are easy to read and worth reading for 9th graders. The stuff for a good Junior/Senior English class is usually easily sitting on the shelf and Sophomores you can push through that difficult stuff in order to get them used to it, but when a Freshman class first arrives, they need something they can read without thinking reading books is impossible.
4. A play that is not Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, or Shakespeare. Again you'd think there were only three playwrites who exist in the world with no mention of any other options. (Maybe an Antigone or Oedipus is in there).
5. Books of a variety of genres and purposes. Book rooms are mostly fictional sometimes with a bit of nonfiction as long as it's a narrative, but rarely will you see an informational text, a graphic novel, or a collection of articles someone may have written for a newspaper/blog- yet our students are expected to be able to read all of those. (ok so they don't have to read graphic novels, but they are expected to be able to talk coherently about political cartoons which can take many of the same skills)
6. Books of high interest (maybe low in canonical value- gasp!) that aren't just about gangs/ganglife. I get that a lot of students like books like Always Running and get really into them and that's fine, but our kids face a lot of issues beyond just gangs, but it seems that gangs are the only kinds of high interest, grab your attention books in book rooms. What about a Go Ask Alice to talk about drug culture, or a Jumping the Nail to talk about domestic abuse?

Soon I'll be at the donorschoose once again trying to get yet another copy of Maus. And this set will hopefully be the last one I have to go online to ask for.