With school coming to a close for us in New York State, I’m dedicating today’s post to six sensational stories that rely on school as a primary backdrop for the story. This doesn’t include the boarding school stories typically providing the vibe for dark academia books which will come in a future post.

1. Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui: A classroom of students whose quest it is to try to surprise and kill their alien octopus teachers before he destroys the world… good luck.
2. The Superteacher Project by Gordon Korman: How many of your teachers do you think might have been robots??!?!
3. The Pregnancy Project by Gabby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer: A memoir of a girl who faked a pregnancy in her senior year of high school to capture the attitudes of teen pregnancy provides a mirror for us all.
4. Schooled by Gordon Korman: How does a kid go from homeschool to middle school and not make a few mistakes?
5. Invisible by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and Gabriella Espstein: The racism the students experienced being put together in the cafeteria for a service project bonds them in more ways than one.
6. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: Ostracized after Melinda called the cops at a summer party, it’s making her first year of high school miserable, especially when she has to see HIM; luckily her art teacher is helping her lean into her pain.