Teach Me

by R.A. Nelson

Overview

Teach Me invites readers inside an experience that fascinates everyone—an affair between a teacher and student—and gives an up-close-and-personal answer to the question: How does this happen?

The hardcover edition of Teach Me was a Booksense Fall 2006 Kid’s Pick, a TeenReads.com Best Book of 2005, and a selection for the 2006 NYPL Books for the Teen Age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440635571
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	03/22/2007
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	342 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

R.A. Nelson lives in Madison, Alabama.  Teach Me was awarded the Dona Vaughn SCBWI Work-in-Progress grant.

Read an Excerpt

The Physics of Falling

Welcome to my head.

Let's hit the ground running. I will get you up to speed. We need a short learning curve here. Those are things my Dad likes to say. He works for NASA. He spends his days figuring out problems like this: If an object weighing 8.75 ounces traveling 10,000 miles per hour strikes the earth, how big a hole does it create?

Answer: One exactly the size of my heart.

Call me Nine.

Everybody does. When I was three I couldn't pronounce Carolina; it came out Caronina. My math-crazy father thought that was cute and shortened it to Nine.

Right now I'm sitting with my parents in Mom's Victorian Room surrounded by drapes with tassels, photographs of long-decomposed relatives. And on today's menu:

I've broken my mother's heart. All because at this penultimate moment in my 18-year-old life, two weeks before Senior Prom, I'm just not interested.

"But you're so smart, Nine," Mom sputters.

Exactement, I want to say. Don't you know that boys don't like smart girls? But men-

I look out the window so they can't see my eyes.

My teacher, Mr. Mann, said the same thing the day the craziness started that knocked my heart out of its orbit.

Two hours later, behind the Wal-Mart Rule the World Super Center, he kissed me.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Nelson’s vivid, hypnotic prose never falters . . . (Horn Book)

Standout debut novel . . .(VOYA)

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Teach Me

"There has been an earthquake in my life," says Carolina "Nine" Livingston, inviting you inside an experience that fascinates everyone—an affair between a teacher and a student—and giving an up close-and-personal answer to the question: How does this happen?

A novel about a love so intense that the person you're with becomes your world, Teach Me is a book that makes you question, makes you think, and most of all makes you feel.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Do you know anyone who has had a crush on a teacher? If so, what did he or she do about it?
   
• Have you or anyone you know ever had your heart broken as badly as Nine? If so, how did you or the other person handle the heartbreak?
   
• Do you know anyone who's dated someone much older, or had any other kind of relationship that people would say is wrong? If so, how did it turn out?
   
• Have you ever had a secret so deep you felt you had to keep it from even your best friend?
   
• Do you think Mr. Mann meant to have a relationship with Nine from the very beginning?
   
• Does Mr. Mann truly love Nine?
   
• Is what happens between Nine and Mr. Mann wrong, even after Nine turns eighteen and is legally an adult? If so, why?
   
• What is about Mr. Mann that makes Nine fall so hard for him?
   
• What do you think of the way Nine reacts after Mr. Mann ends their relationship? Is she justified or does she go too far?

Editorial Reviews

Nelson's debut is worthy of acclaim if for no other reason than it offers a bird's-eye view of the forbidden and fascinating relationship between a high-school student and her teacher, a subject previously unexplored to this depth in YA literature. This unflinchingly honest portrayal of how an innocent relationship can become an illicit one, begins when 17-year-old Nine invites readers into her intimate narrative with the opening line, "Welcome to my head." Nine details how her crush on Mr. Mann deepens as the attention he gives her becomes a little too familiar, and how it's not long before their relationship is consummated. It's easy to see how these two intelligent, emotional characters who share a love for Emily Dickinson could also share an attraction, but the circumstances forecast impending heartbreak. Ultimately, this is a doomed love story complete with the usual trappings of passion and betrayal, but made more gripping because it mirrors real-life cases such as Mary Kay Letourneau's taboo affair with her then 12-year-old student. Contemporary and compelling. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews

Nelson’s vivid, hypnotic prose never falters . . . (Horn Book)

Standout debut novel . . .(VOYA)

From the Publisher