The Story Behind the Book

I just spent a wonderful weekend with educators at NCTE and had conversations about pairing fiction and nonfiction books in the classroom. While most of these discussions involved books about the environment an article this morning in Publishers Weekly Daily (PW Daily)reminded me of some other connections. I just had to share this with you all.

A Murder in Massachusetts is the story of the murder that inspired America's first crime novel -- The Scarlet Letter. It reminded me of two other books that have a similar connection -- A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, which weaves the true crime story of Grace Brown, who also inpsired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.

I can already hear the classroom discussions!