On the shelf today: A biographical novel-in-verse of a beloved American poet

​Love, Sivvy: A Novel Inspired by the Life, Letters, and Diaries of Young Sylvia Plath by R. L. Toalson

Genre: Biographical novel-in-verse

Age Range: 13-18

Bring Love, Sivvy into your classroom as a...

Book Club Option. Love, Sivvy is a strong addition to two Book Club themes:

• Mental Health Narrative Study: Plath's mental health, including her depression, suicide attempt, and how white women's mental health was viewed in 1950s New England, are front and center in this story. Offer it alongside Chaos Theory by Nic Stone, A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti, Baby and Solo by Lisabeth Posthuma, Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez for a ninth or tenth grade Book Club unit.
• Biography/Memoir Text Structure Study: My second idea is a book club study of biographies/memoirs that are told in a variety of text structures. Love, Sivvy is a novel-in-verse. There are numerous graphic novels to choose from: March (John Lewis's memoir), Almost American Girl by Robin Ha, Change the Game by Colin Kaepernick, or Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Then there are more traditional non-fiction texts, such as The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwaba or Born a Crime: True Stories from a South African Childhood by Trever Noah.

---

Resource of the Week

Book Club Contract

It's a beautiful thing, when small groups of students read and make meaning from a book together. And yet, teachers often wonder how to hold students accountable during a Book Club unit. It's a fair question and my answer is: start the unit by charging each Club to create their own Book Club Contract that will guide how they learn together.

Check it out ⇗

---

Have a good one and learn everything you can,

Hannah