The 52 Book Club: 2025 / 2026 Challenge discussion

This category is open to wide interpretation and may not be one you’re able to plan for in advance. This is for a book that isn’t currently being used in teaching curriculum, but you think it should be!

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Bear Town by Fredrik Backman

"Kindred" by Octavia E Butler

Julia, Kindred is a perfect book for this prompt! great choice!

With the Fire on High and The Phantom Tollbooth

Books, Brews & Booze wrote: "With the Fire on High and The Phantom Tollbooth"

Good choices. I actually read the second one in school, but I don't think it's widely read in them.

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

The Book of General Ignorance

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Any Jane Austen or Bronte. They seem to be disappearing from schools

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Go Ask Alice Go Ask Alice

If you're looking for non-fiction, I would 100% recommend Just Mercy : A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic and Respect by Mick West

Loved this book. It explains how people start believing conspiracy theories and gives tactics for talking to friends and loved ones who have fallen down a rabbit hole. I wish more people would read it.

Rachel wrote: "Any Jane Austen or Bronte. They seem to be disappearing from schools"



So true.

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Redwall by Brian Jacques
Both are for youth maybe grades 6-9.

I read Woke: A Young Poet's Call to Justice by Mahogany L. Browne, Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood. 4 Stars

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

Julia wrote: "
"Kindred" by Octavia E Butler"

Unfortunately I already read this last year :( but totally agreed, it is a great book.

Watership Down I don't know if it's read in school but I feel it would be perfect.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. This may be read in school but wasn't when I attended.

Books, Brews & Booze wrote: "With the Fire on High and The Phantom Tollbooth"

I agree so hard with the Phantom Tollbooth. It's on my list to re-read for this challenge! It fits a couple of prompts; this one and #7, an Author with 1 published book :)

Kristen wrote: "Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic and Respect by Mick West

Loved this book. It explains how people start believing conspiracy theories and gives tactic..."

I am adding this to my read for this prompt! Thanks for the suggestion, I was struggling with what to do for this one.

I read A Soldier's Sketchbook: The illustrated First World War diary of R.H. Rabjohn - by John Wilson. It is about an 18-year-old who joined the Canadian military and was sent overseas. His sketches of the war are amazing. This book would be good for history or art.

Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Amazing mysteries. Gives a look into history.

Completion Post:

Just finished reading: "America Is in the Heart" by Carlos Bulosan (★★★★☆), is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Filipino American immigrant poet, fiction writer, short story teller, and activist, Carlos Bulosan. My North American education was rather Euro-centric with the month of February dedicated to Black History. Very little, if any, was spent on East-Asian culture, which is the main reason I thought this book should be read, if not taught.

Bulosan's narrative is an emotionally and esthetically true account of the immigration, spiritual and physical, of the pinoy, the young Filipino with all his village innocence, focused on an America, which, always promised more than it was willing to give. It is the quintessential experience of the pinoy migrant worker in fisheries and fields, up and down the western coast of these United States.

I picked a slightly different approach to the topic that I felt was a book to read in school. This book addresses how people with disabilities are treated by others. This was a great read and I can highly recommend it.

Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw

https://titlesurfingwithtraci.blogspo...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Traci wrote: "I picked a slightly different approach to the topic that I felt was a book to read in school. This book addresses how people with disabilities are treated by others. This was a great read and I can..."

I read "Funny you don't look autistic" this year - it was a great summary of a man with autism who is working as a stand up comedian. Interesting and educational.

For me, “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gets the nod. Its portrayal of the absurdity and brutality of communist Russia is stark, educational, eye-opening, and unforgettable.

Dig by A.S. King
https://cdnbookworm.blogspot.com/2021...
This teen novel has so many things to discuss, it would be a fantastic discussion book in high schools.

Sadie Sprocket Builds a Rocket
It's a kid's book promoting girls in STEM. I got it as an Amazon Prime First Reads book in January, so it's a recent release. It's a picture book, so it wouldn't be added to the curriculum the way a YA book might, but it would be a nice selection for story-time.

Passing by Nella Larsen

This would be a fabulous addition to any high school reading list. It's short enough to fit into any syllabus (I read it in an evening) but filled with enough complexity and ambiguity to form a lesson series. The prose is easily digestible, but the questions less so. There is plenty of allusion to real people and places of the time period (the Harlem Renaissance) and as a book about race, written by a POC woman, it would fill a gap in many reading lists still populated primarily by white men.

Reawakening Our Ancestors' Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing
This is a really interesting look at work being done to revive First Nation culture. It shows how it differs from the standard Western ideals of women.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn would be an excellent addition to school curriculum (and it's epistolary!!!). The vocabulary is excellent, and the themes of government authority and religious zealotry are great for discussion, as is the way the language changes over the book as people had fewer and fewer letters to use and discovered that their communications were being read by the government.

I did The Freedom Writers diary for this!

Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath

Mystery Rider by Miralee Ferrell. I loved the message of accepting people regardless of physical appearance, and of helping people who need it, especially the elderly.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author. So powerful!!!

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn should definitely be read in school. A brutal exposure of the evils of communism.

The Passenger’s by John Marrs
1. things are not always as they appear at first glance
2 are we comfortable trusting technology?

Brianna wrote: "Books, Brews & Booze wrote: "With the Fire on High and The Phantom Tollbooth"

I agree so hard with the Phantom Tollbooth. It's on my list to re-read for this challenge! ..."
I LOVE The Phantom Tollbooth! I still have my copy from when I was 7 or 8 (which was a LONG time ago). Read it to my kids and still loved it, which is the sign of a good kids book — if both generations can get something out of it.

I read How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley. Learned a lot!

The Decameron Project by New York Times

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Completed: November 13, 2021