Reading With Patrick: A Teacher, a Student and the Life-Changing Power of Books

Description

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 who was jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta. As a young English teacher keen to make a difference in the world, Michelle Kuo took a job at a tough school in the Mississippi Delta, sharing books and poetry with a young African-American teenager named Patrick and his classmates. For the first time, these kids began to engage with ideas and dreams beyond their small town, and to gain an insight into themselves that they had never had before. Two years later, Michelle left to go to law school; but Patrick began to lose his way, killing a man and facing a lengthy jail sentence. And that's when Michelle decided that her work was not done, and began to visit Patrick once a week, and soon every day, to read with him again. Finely written in the very best tradition of American long-form narrative, Reading with Patrick is a story of hope, redemption and the power of books to transform - and even to save - a life.

Michelle Kuo taught English at an alternative school in the Arkansas Delta for two years. After teaching, she attended Harvard Law School as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and worked at a nonprofit for undocumented immigrants in Oakland, California, on a Skadden Fellowship, with a focus on tenants' and workers' rights. She also clerked for a federal appeals court judge in the Ninth Circuit. Currently she teaches courses on race, law, and society at the American University of Paris.

Reading with Patrick [is] Michelle Kuo's rich memoir of her literary friendship with a student in a small town in the Mississippi Delta * TLS * Remarkable . . . 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 Emperor's Children and The Woman Upstairs 'Honest, thoughtful, and humane, Kuo's book is not only a testament to a remarkable friendship, but a must-read for anyone interested in social justice and race in America. Thoughtfully provocative reading.' * Kirkus Reviews * This book is special and could not be more right on time. An absorbing, tender, and surprisingly honest examination of race and privilege. -- Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore Riveting . . . An empathetic story of connection: between a dedicated teacher and her student, between history and our current times, and between literature and life. It is hard to imagine a more inspiring testament to the transformative power of reading. -- Elliot Holt, author of You Are One of Them A gorgeous, urgent and heartbreaking memoir. -- Darcy Frey, author of The Last Shot I delighted in this book and read it in a single weekend. Reading with Patrick is a significant work that could swell the ranks of highly motivated and qualified teachers-people who understand they are not just transferring information but transforming lives -- Bill Moyers [A] tender memoir. * O, the Oprah Magazine *