Dear Student Who Stole My Book,
Listen – I get it. The book is wicked cool. That’s why I read it in the first place and that’s why I recommended it to all of you as my students. So, I understand why you wanted to take the book and read it. I kept it right there – smack dab on our classroom shelf – for that very reason. I want you all to read good books and I want to recommend good books to you. I’m happy to see them in your hands.
But the problem is, you took it and you never returned it.
I feel sad because, as I said, I really do love that book. (It was also expensive, but that it not the reason I write this letter to you, wherever you are). I read the book once to myself, and then I read it twice to my two older sons, and then I brought it to the classroom for all of you. The story is wonderfully told; the characters richly drawn; and the illustrations are like some magical door to the story itself. The book is a work of art.
I’d like to think that you did not really intend to take the book and keep it. I suspect you were as engrossed with it as I was, and when you had finished it, maybe you read it a second (or even third) time, and then realized: you could not bear to part with it. I doubt that you just plumb lost it, though, because the book is just physically HUGE. There is no way this book gets lost on anyone’s shelves. No way.
I can even understand the impulse to pilfer it. I love books. I love words on the page and the stories that unfold in our minds. I love how writers connect to readers, who connect to characters. When I find a book that stirs something special in me, I want to own that story and keep it close to my heart. I get it.
To be frank, I even remember taking a book from a teacher once (it was a Jules Verne story that sparked something in me that I had not felt before) because I could not imagine NOT having that book in my bedroom, but guilt got the better of me. I slipped the book back unnoticed onto my teacher’s desk on the last day of the school year. Years later, I found a similar edition in a used bookstore. It was as if the story and I were at some unexpected reunion together, so happy was I to have it back in my hands.
You? You didn’t do that. You never returned the book. I’m sad to say that I don’t expect it will happen, either, given that you are now in another grade in an entirely new school. A year has passed. I’ve given up the book for dead.
That said, I still hope the book inspires you – not with guilt (OK, maybe a little) but with the possibilities of what writing can do to move you, to engage you, to push you into action through the words on the page. If that book was powerful enough to move you to steal the book, then maybe another story will be powerful enough for other things – more positive things.
There may yet be a day when I come into my classroom one morning and see the book sitting there, balanced on the corner of my desk. Maybe there will be a little anonymous note attached. Some words of your own making about how sorry you are that you never returned The Invention of Hugo Cabret and how you hope I will forgive you for what you did when you swiped it.
I am all about forgiveness … if I get the book back.
Sincerely,
Mr. Hodgson
Kevin Hodgson teaches sixth grade and lends out books left and right. Most of them come back. He blogs at Kevin’s Meandering Mind (http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/)
I made a podcast version of the post
http://cinch.fm/dogtrax/454806
Kevin
Oh Kevin, I feel your pain. I lost Hugo Cabret last year, had to re-buy. This year it’s Amulet and Bigger than a Breadbox that no one seems to know about when I check the sign out log. The sign out log was enacted this year in response to Hugo C’s disappearance last year.
Worse than all of this, I myself was a book thief. And at a time when I certainly knew better. I borrowed my advisor’s copy of The Collected Works of Shakespeare, you know the one, with the leather binding and onionskin pages. I was choosing a scene for a workshop, but I forgot to return it. Day followed day, week followed week, and I didn’t notice it in my room until I was packing my apartment after graduation. I tucked it into a box, fully intending to mail it back, but of course I didn’t open that box filled with textbooks and plays for many years, by which time, my professor had died. Seriously.
Maybe we all have some book thief stories in us …. Look at this way, if you can lose the guilt, you may remember the impact that professor had on you in a tangible way. I am sure they would be grateful that it has a good home, and not discarded into some used book bin somewhere.
Ha! The letter is strong and the ‘peace’ in the ‘forgiveness’ at the end drives the message solidly home. This is a keeper.
Thanks.
It’s true that I want the book back, and would gladly take it back, but I am also realistic. The book ain’t coming back.
Too true. Yes, the fact that I spend my own money on a lot of the books is one of the reasons I want them back. Yes, I lose at least a few book each year.
I tried the “check out card” method (each child has a card and writes down their books on it, crossing them off when they return). I am currently trying the “database” method. Yet there are always books that leave without making it into the system, right?
I try to hope that their new home will be as a treasured memory, and not lost under a bed or covered with grime, wrinkled, and forgotten at the back of a bookshelf.
No system is perfect. I also have a check-out system of a sort, but I am too busy to keep checking it.
Kevin, I love this! I’m going to read it to my class tomorrow and then say, “OK, now go to your locker and clean out all my books that you haven’t returned yet.”
I think I might do the exact same thing, Beth!
Great idea, Beth. I may do that also. It is one of the hazards of being a book loving teacher and sharing books. One year, I bought five copies of a book. It just kept disappearing. It was obviously hitting a nerve with students, so I just kept buying it. Luckily, it was paperback and available through book clubs, so it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg! Here’s hoping that one day, your Hugo shows up.
I can say this: I have a short leash on Wonder Struck!
I’d love to know how it goes …
I sent a tweet with the link to my students with a gentle reminder to return the books they’ve borrowed.
I’ll catch the ones who missed it tomorrow.
I know exactly how you feel. I lose books each year to students. I just hope that they are so inspired that they continue to read and recommend books to others.
I tried a database, I tried a checkout log…all the “administration duties” just got in the way of our time spent reading. So now, we just read. They borrow. Mostly the books come back. Sometimes they don’t. Other times, kids and parents bring in books to give to me. I think of it as book karma, and as long as the kids are reading, I’m good with that. Leisel Meminger stole books, and it changed her life. Just sayin’.
Book Karma: I like that. There’s a certain acceptance that comes with that, right?
I never had a checkout because most of the time it doesn’t work anyway, & I think if the student wants the book that much, then he/she should keep it. I do make a big call to parents and students for books with my name at the end of the year. Often enough they’ve said they found them under their beds! One year I came home and found a box of books returned on my doorstep-anonymously. At least they made the effort, years later I think. I guess these are the trials of teachers who love books so much they just must put the good ones into students’ hands. Kevin, I hope you get the book back, but you are probably right, this child has moved on.
I love that visual of the box of books. I don’t think the book thief here was malicious nor intending to rip off Mr. H. But I still miss Hugo.
I love that it was The Book Thief that was stolen. I mean…if you’re going to steal a book…
I’ve lost so many books this way and those that I’ve loaned to never be returned, and at some point you just have to let it go. Carry the story in your heart and let the book carry it on to others.
Actually .. eh .. it was The Invention of Hugo Cabret that got taken. As a writer of the post, I sort of left that as a mystery until the end on purpose (although, later I wondered if folks might get confused). There would be some poetic justice in getting The Book Thief taken, though. I just think that Hugo was such a work of art that someone could not resist it.
I love the sentiment in this post. I have to say, though, that you should wear the loss as a badge of honor. You made a life-changing book available to someone.
Even in the days when my school budget allowed me to add books to my collection, I supplemented feverishly from my own funds. Always knowing that some would eventually fall into the wrong/right hands and need to be replaced.
I never required kids to “sign out” books they read, except when they were already borrowed from a library or from others.
We talked about why that was, early in the year. I administered the guilt in advance by saying that while i fully understand the urge, I also wanted everyone to have a chance to discover that “must have” book for themselves. I asked that anyone who felt compulsively attached speak with me about it, and we’d work at finding a way to get a ‘”keeper” copy into their hands. This led to many powerful individual discussions.
Over the years plenty never came back to roost, but most did. Many times someone who had been years beyond my classroom showed up at my door with one (or more) books, sheepishly asking if I still wanted them on the shelves.
Those visits often led to even better discussions, which I think may have been what they were seeking more than books.
I like how you set the stage early (and often?) for expectations of borrowing class books. Thanks for the advice.
Kevin,
I think I’m going to borrow Beth’s idea and read this post to my 6th graders this week in hopes of finding several of my own “lost” books-On My Honor is one that disappeared last year AND this year!!
Shannon
http://www.extremereadingandwriting.wordpress.com
Good luck!
Oh man, I am that time of the year too. I want to be a big person, someone they can model, but I am so sad that three different children have not returned my copies of Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. EVery week, at least one student asks if I have them in my room library, and I say “I did.” My fondest hope for the end of the year is that someone gives me Hunger Games as a gift. I will put it right back on the shelf!
Though I prefer that books come back, I don’t really mind that much when one goes missing. It’s not an epidemic. It just happens here and there. I had an ARC of Wonderstruck at the beginning of the year. I haven’t seen it since. It might show up as students clean out desks. I think it’s moved out of my room and into other students’ hands. I lose several books each year. It is what it is. I like to think that it went to a good home, maybe a home where there aren’t many books.
I don’t buy many books. Mostly Book Order bonus points. Every few years I’ll get a couple $10 bag-fulls at a big local rummage sale. If I was spending a lot of money on my classroom library, I might feel differently.
What I really wish is this: Just ask me for the book. If there’s a book on my shelf that you love and cherish and want to have, just ask me. You don’t need to take it. I’ll probably give it to you.
I remember when first starting my classroom library that my mentor said, “Yes, you will lose books. Just resign yourself to that fact. And know that, if a student loves a book so much that he needs to keep it, you’ve won a small victory.” I try to remind myself of that every time I agonize over one of my missing titles. But like you, I find it hard to forgive sometimes even though I’m delighted they’re reading. and loving books.