A LESSON BEFORE DYING

A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest J. Gaines - This was the summer reading book assigned to Peter to prepare for Sophomore English. I always read Peter's books if I haven't read them before, so I wasn't sure what to expect except that since it had been an Oprah's Book Club choice, it might be better than some of what I've considered to be very dry high school reading. Told in the first person by Grant Wiggins, the teacher to the children in a one room school house on a plantation in the 1950s, this story is written honestly and with heart, although Grant might not want his reader to think so. This story brought me to tears as no other book has in a long long time. Most of what you need to know about what the book is about, is right there in the title. I'm so happy that Peter read this book, and that he studied it, and hope that it caused him to think about precious life and what it means to become a man, and all the different ways that there are to be a man. I hope that the death penalty is abolished around the world in his lifetime, because what man has the right to take the life of another?