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Five Stories Told Out of (Private) School
As a voracious reader, I’ve found that there are scores of books set on private school campuses. Some of these books deal with serious subjects and come pretty close to describing what life is really like at a private school. Then there are the other books.
In this second category, the books regale with stories and events that might be ever-so-slightly based in fact, but mostly are fictitious and just plain fun. (I must admit, however, that a couple of times I have been surprised at how closely some of the more outlandish stories and events seem to resemble real life!)
If you are interested in reading funny, fictitious, and far-fetched stories about life in private schools, here are five you might consider. Just remember – they’re novels. Fiction. Not true. Enjoy!
Academy X: A Novel by Andrew Trees Welcome to Academy X, an ethical wonderland in which up is down, right is wrong, and parents and students will stop at nothing (including lying, plagiarizing, and even seduction to name a few) in order to get into the Ivy League. Caught in the middle is John Spencer, a bumbling but lovable English teacher struggling through the final weeks of his spring semester. But keeping focused on a Jane Austen seminar proves problematic when his crush on the school librarian as well as a pending promotion threaten to divert his attention. Things become even more complicated when the college counselor asks John to lie (or at least exaggerate) in a recommendation letter for the very student who he’s just discovered is a plagiarizer. Things only get worse for John, who discovers that no price is too high to achieve a coveted admission to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton—even if that includes his own disgrace. |
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Admissions by Nancy Lieberman This sharply observed and bitingly funny novel exposes the over-the-top absurdity of New York City`s elite private school admissions circus. For Manhattan’s most affluent parents, the Tuesday after Labor Day marks the beginning of the city’s most competitive and vicious blood sport: the start of the private school admissions process. But for Helen Drager, mother of Zoe, it shouldn’t be such an ordeal. After all, Helen’s best friend Sara is an admissions officer at Zoe’s current K-8. But Sara’s position becomes precarious, and Helen soon finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mounting lunacy generated by the fierce competition. |
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The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn This is an amusing story of what happens when a New Yorker loses her job, her husband, and her ritzy Park Avenue pad and is forced to carve out a new niche for herself and her two private school-educated daughters. After transferring the girls to public school and renting a shabby-chic (at best) flat upstairs from a knicherie, Ivy Ames takes her billionaire friend Faith’s advice and starts a consulting business to help privileged pre-schoolers get into the city’s premier kindergartens. Light on substance yet heavy on laughs. |
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Private Lives of Private School Moms: A Novel by Julie Heath Is it possible to raise grounded, well-adjusted children in an exclusive private school world where scandals and the outrageous acts of other parents surpass the imagination? That’s the challenge faced by four immensely appealing women, diverse in cultural backgrounds and personalities, yet strong in character, who’ve bonded together over this common goal. Follow the hilarious complications of some of the misguided parents chronologically through the Kindergarten school year at the prestigious Archimedes School, an institution built on the banks of Spa Creek in scenic Annapolis, Maryland. |
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Schooled by Anisha Lakhani Here’s Anna, a newbie teacher with Ivy credentials whose passion for the low-paying teaching profession is cause for celebration at the upper-crust Langdon school, where as the exotic-looking newcomer, she is mistakenly identified as a coveted minority hire. With low pay and even lower expectations from teachers and parents, Anna realizes there’s no way she can survive—until she learns about lucrative after-school tutoring gigs. And just like that, Anna’s ideals go out the window. In a hilarious out-of-control spiral into obsession with all-things designer, expensive and showy, Anna transforms into someone who believes money can buy everything and everyone. There is redemption, of course, in the form of a teacher who bucks the system, and Anna discovers some of her students are pretty wonderful. |
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