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Born
What happens when an English teacher goes into labour during a high school lockdown?
High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant. She’s trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students during a lockdown. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha, who is in peril. Maria, the guidance counselor, is second-guessing her decision to turn him in.
As the lockdown drags on, Elise can no longer deny that she’s going into labour. And she’ll have to rely on the students to get her Shai-Anna and Faduma end up acting as midwives, and the others do what they can.
In the same way the self shatters and sharpens when one is doing the hard work of giving birth, so does the narrative of the novel, with various people in the school picking up the threads of the story.
With infinite empathy for all involved, Born explores the myriad pitfalls and utopian possibilities of the school system, motherhood, and caregiving, and the sometimes fraught, sometimes transcendent nature of the student-teacher relationship.
High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant. She’s trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students during a lockdown. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha, who is in peril. Maria, the guidance counselor, is second-guessing her decision to turn him in.
As the lockdown drags on, Elise can no longer deny that she’s going into labour. And she’ll have to rely on the students to get her Shai-Anna and Faduma end up acting as midwives, and the others do what they can.
In the same way the self shatters and sharpens when one is doing the hard work of giving birth, so does the narrative of the novel, with various people in the school picking up the threads of the story.
With infinite empathy for all involved, Born explores the myriad pitfalls and utopian possibilities of the school system, motherhood, and caregiving, and the sometimes fraught, sometimes transcendent nature of the student-teacher relationship.
216 pages, Paperback
Published June 17, 2025
7 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Heather Birrell
8 books22 followersHeather Birrell is the author of two story collections, Mad Hope (Coach House, 2012) and I know you are but what am I? (Coach House, 2004). Her work has been honoured with the Journey Prize for short fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction, and has been short- listed for both National and Western Magazine Awards. Birrell’s stories have appeared in many North American journals and anthologies, including The New Quarterly and Toronto Noir. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Toronto, where she teaches high school English.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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December 5, 2025My review is in no. 106 of theLiterary Review of Canada's newsletter, Bookworm.
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May 3, 2025
Interesting story of what happens in a classroom full of teenagers when a teacher goes into labor during a lockdown. the students seemed either too capable or too uninterested for their reactions to be real. I guess a book club might have topics to discuss, but unless you've taught HS kids, you might not be able to relate to this story.
November 7, 2025
“Who gets to decide what is a good story?”
Elise, a high school English teacher is giving birth in the middle of a lockdown. Anthony’s mind is swarmed by a stabbing fantasy. Shai Anna becomes a capable midwife because she witnessed her aunt, and a dog, giving birth. Faduma watches Shai Anna keenly. Ryan keeps time. Mark guards the door. Thanh sleeps in the corner. Maria, high school counsellor, manages the guilt after calling the lockdown. Sam speaks from the grave and the collective voice of the entire Grade 12 English class worries about what comes next, for them, for the baby, for the world.
BORN is told in sections CRAMP, BLOOD, BREATHE, GUSH, EXPAND, CONTRACT, PUSH, BORN and in the voices of various people trapped in a high school during a lockdown, while the English teacher gives birth. The situation—and just existing as a teenager—is already fraught with so much tension, it made me think about the fragility of human connectedness. How do our stories play out when we consider that each of sees things differently, each of us is living our own pain, so how can we appreciate others’? What do we mean to one another, does human connection mean anything if our stories will be told in different ways? How will we be seen by others in the larger narrative?
While some characters consider “The many ways we find to betray each other, mostly without meaning to.… Of how love morphs, with misunderstanding, with misfiring, into anger.” Or how their mere existence is “inappropriate when it comes to this earthly realm.” What we all want “is to feel understood…That to feel understood is not to BE understood—but the effect?”
BORN is about human connectedness, a gorgeously presented novel centring several characters in a moment of extreme tension, but at a time (in the world, in OUR world) where our connections to one another are a flimsy tether of doubt, failure and an assumed meaninglessness. But Birrell offers us hope, that no matter what, each of us is an integral part of the story. This novel pulls you along with all that hope, because it is a very good story!
Elise, a high school English teacher is giving birth in the middle of a lockdown. Anthony’s mind is swarmed by a stabbing fantasy. Shai Anna becomes a capable midwife because she witnessed her aunt, and a dog, giving birth. Faduma watches Shai Anna keenly. Ryan keeps time. Mark guards the door. Thanh sleeps in the corner. Maria, high school counsellor, manages the guilt after calling the lockdown. Sam speaks from the grave and the collective voice of the entire Grade 12 English class worries about what comes next, for them, for the baby, for the world.
BORN is told in sections CRAMP, BLOOD, BREATHE, GUSH, EXPAND, CONTRACT, PUSH, BORN and in the voices of various people trapped in a high school during a lockdown, while the English teacher gives birth. The situation—and just existing as a teenager—is already fraught with so much tension, it made me think about the fragility of human connectedness. How do our stories play out when we consider that each of sees things differently, each of us is living our own pain, so how can we appreciate others’? What do we mean to one another, does human connection mean anything if our stories will be told in different ways? How will we be seen by others in the larger narrative?
While some characters consider “The many ways we find to betray each other, mostly without meaning to.… Of how love morphs, with misunderstanding, with misfiring, into anger.” Or how their mere existence is “inappropriate when it comes to this earthly realm.” What we all want “is to feel understood…That to feel understood is not to BE understood—but the effect?”
BORN is about human connectedness, a gorgeously presented novel centring several characters in a moment of extreme tension, but at a time (in the world, in OUR world) where our connections to one another are a flimsy tether of doubt, failure and an assumed meaninglessness. But Birrell offers us hope, that no matter what, each of us is an integral part of the story. This novel pulls you along with all that hope, because it is a very good story!
July 1, 2025
super weird. felt a bit cringy at times. i wish the book had more panic during the situation the kids were in as opposed to the calm that was happening. it didn’t feel realistic at all.
idk if i would reccomend this book but if you want something super strange to read then this is right up your alley
idk if i would reccomend this book but if you want something super strange to read then this is right up your alley
July 14, 2025
Ooof that was not a light read. I do love a story told from many perspectives. An intense and lovely read.
September 24, 2025
my aunt wrote this 🤗🤗
December 6, 2025
That was….. weird. And not very realistic..
Currently reading
December 11, 2025I am excited to read this book by my incredible University of Toronto writing instructor, Heather Birrell!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews