An underground reader is really someone who I imagine is much like I was when I was a student. I was a good student. I was a good student in English class, but our teacher would teach The Scarlet Letter for two months. I would read the book in, you know, a week or two and then I would spend the rest of the unit pulling my James Michener novel out of my desk and reading it. I wasn’t a disruption, and the teacher knew I knew the material so she would just let me.
And there was that growing disconnect between a reading life at school and a reading life at home. And I think with those particular students we have to be mindful that many of them may become readers in spite of school.
