I am weeping. Literally- I am sniffling and wiping tears away as I type.

I made the choice a few days ago- after much internal debate- to make Eli Wiesel’s Night the first novel that I bought myself a class set of. My reasons were multifaceted:

1.       Eli Wiesel’s speech, “Hope, Despair and Memory” is in the Common Core text exemplar list for my grade band. This seems promising.

2.     I remember so clearly reading this novel as a freshman. I have vivid memories of flipping the pages of my copy as my teacher read aloud one of the more devastating chapters. I can remember who was sitting around me- it was Caroline, Lauren, and Brett.

3.        I was a mega book nerd as a child…I spent nearly all of my time at the library. The summer after 3^rd grade, (I skipped 2^nd  grade- if that makes a difference) I developed an obsession with Holocaust literature. I read all of the books in the kids section that even remotely dealt with it, then all of the books in the teen section, and then started grabbing a couple of the books from the adult section before my mom was all like “Hey, you’re 8. You can’t read this.”  I was so angry at the time. But thank god she did- I am STILL so emotionally scarred from my 3 month Holocaust literature bender.

I’m not kidding. The only books I checked out that summer were about the Holocaust. And I literally read ALL of them that I could get my hands on. Looking back, I’m wondering what sparked that interest (obsession). My best bet is that I read Number the Stars and experienced that odd feeling where you are SO distraught but still so intrigued that you have to know more so that you can try to understand. Regardless, I was hooked and it was strange. I’m sure my parents had to question if I was emotionally unstable or if I was just a glutton for despair.

Even though I ordered 30 copies on this AMAZING website that I just found, (www.thriftbooks.com) I couldn’t resist picking up a copy when we went into a used bookstore this afternoon. I started reading it aloud to my husband as we drove home and I was quickly reminded how devastating it is. Seriously. I was about 5 pages in and I was weeping as I read. Weeping. This is going to be a longggggggggggg unit.

On the bright side, my students will ALWAYS remember their freshman English teacher weeping as they read Night. Whatever makes it stick :)