I'm linking up with
That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.
This week is a school-themed freebie. I opted to list out ten schools from books I've read that I'm glad I never had to attend!
1. Bailey School (from the Bailey School Kids series)
Not that it was always bad to have a school staffed by magical creatures, but the kids at the school ended up spending so much mental energy trying to figure out whether each person was actually a vampire, a leprechaun, a ghost, and so on and rarely getting concrete proof, which has to feel like a years-long gaslighting experience.
2. Croydon Academy of the Arts and Sciences (from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer)
The fact that this school seemed terrible may be a result of the entire book being kind of terrible, but it seemed like the teachers were either negligent, rude, or overly harsh, and the social strata among the students was intense.
3. Crunchem Hall Primary School (from Matilda)
Any school run by a headmistress like Miss Trunchbull is one I'd like to avoid!
4. Hailsham (from Never Let Me Go)
It's hard to explain this one without spoilers, but let's just say that the students are part of an experiment that has major implications for their existence, which is a lot of pressure to have hanging over your art projects.
5. Hogwarts (from the Harry Potter series)
I know, the whole idea of learning magic spells and how to fly sounds awesome, but in reality, the chance of dying while attending this school is much too high...
6. Innovations Academy (from Girls with Sharp Sticks)
I'd prefer to go to school to learn actual subjects, rather than how to be obedient and beautiful.
7. The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (from The Mysterious Benedict Society)
Besides the school being a cover-up for evil doings (which the main characters are sent there to uncover), it's like the worst parts of regular school — long, repetitive lectures and constant quizzes that require memorizing the content — and none of the fun parts.
8. Lowood School (from Jane Eyre)
The students at this school for female orphans are overworked, underfed, and discouraged from having a will of their own.
9. St. Jerome's Indian Residential School (from Indian Horse)
Based on the actual residential schools that Native children were forced to attend, the students at this school are not only stripped of their culture in an attempt at forced assimilation, they're also subjected to slavery-like conditions and physical and sexual abuse.
10. Wayside School (from the Wayside School series)
Besides having teachers that can turn you into an apple or read your mind or trap you on an invisible floor doing busy work forever, you may have to walk as many as twenty-nine flights of stairs to get to class, the lunchroom food is inedible, and there are never enough usable balls available at recess.
Which fictional schools would you not want to attend?
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading:
The Sun Is Also a Star,
Womanist Midrash, and
Strange the Dreamer
Five years ago I was reading:
Infinite Jest and
Taken at the Flood
Ten years ago I was reading:
The Art of Racing in the Rain
