Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

Title: Don't You Dare Read This Mrs. Dunphrey

Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix

Author Study

     This is a book written in journal format by a teenage girl struggling though high school.  For her English class, she is required to keep a journal, making so many entries per week.  The teacher provided the students with the option of writing "Don't Read" at the top of entries they wanted to keep private and no one reading.  Tish lives with her younger brother, Matt, and her mother at the beginning of the story, and she really does have a rough home life.  She keeps most of the entries private, and the teacher respects this decision by not reading them.  This allows Tish to really take advantage of the journal and write about extremely personal things that she doesn't tell anyone else.  She talks about her dad, the many times he left the family or beat them, about her Granma's passing, the zombie-like state her mom is in most of the time, and how she works at a burger shop to help take care of her little brother.  She often expresses the reasons she is not focused in school and does not have time to worry about it, since she has many bigger issues going on in her life.  Once, she accidentally forgets to write "Don't Read" at the top and reveals a little more than she'd like about her family and Granma which starts to worry the teacher.  Tish is upset and instead writes a couple entries for the teacher to read that are extremely fake.

     A lot of the hard times that Tish and her brother go through may be relatable to some kids.  Otherwise, this is a great book to open up the minds of students, to a different perspective on school and the challenges some people have to overcome.  This book reminds me of the movie Freedom Writers because of the whole private journal aspect and newly innocent teachers learning the personal things about students lives.  However, in this book, it appears that Tish is the only one who writes such personal journals, and she doesn't allow Mrs. Dunphrey to read most of them until the end when she is in desperate need of help.  At that time, Mrs. Dunphrey is allowed to read the entire journal, and learns fast the struggles of Tish's life.  She offers Tish and her brother her home to stay in while DCFS works to find a foster home, their parents, or their long lost grandparents.  The story ends when the two kids move to Florida to live with their father's parents whom they never met.  Life starts to get a lot better and even their mother comes back from California to live with them.  Tish is seeing a psychiatrist and ends the book with a letter to Mrs. Dunphrey who really provided her with an outlet and a great help.  Upper elementary students might enjoy this book, particularly girls, to learn about the hardships some students must face on top of school.