Theatre and drama are very much part of our every day lives. These four plays: Belonging by Mirirai Moyo, When I Meet my Mother by Kathleen McCreery, In the Continuum by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter, and Power Failure by Jide Afoylan reveal the dynamism and variety of theatre. They also reveal that from Zimbabwe to Brazil, Nigeria to the USA, societies despite their diversity share many common problems and challenges. Annotated for schools with questions and notes by Rory Kilalea, teachers and students will find this a richly accessible text.

When Mr George loses his job teaching English at a private secondary school in Bulawayo, his pension payout, after forty years of full-time service, bought him two jam doughnuts and a soft tomato. When he backs his uninsured white Ford Escort into a brand new Mercedes Benz, the out-of-court settlement sees him giving up his house to the complainant, Beauticious Nyamayakanuna, and becoming her domestic servant. Through the prism of this engaging post-colonial role reversal, and spiced with Georges lessons on Shakespeare, John Eppel draws down the curtain on one particular white man in Africa. But before its time to go, George will delight us with the antics of his literature classes; his various arrests all timed to coincide with the police chiefs need for help with essays on Hamlet and A Grain of Wheat; his keen eye for flora and fauna; and the long trek back through the hundred years of his familys Zimbabwean past, as he returns an abandoned child to her home. Eppel has satirized the racial politics of southern Africa in many of his previous novels. In Absent: The English Teacher he turns his gaze inwards for a generous and richly rewarding parody of the land of his birth.

When seventeen-year-old Paige dies in a freak fall from the roof during Physics class, her spirit is bound to the grounds of her high school. At least she has company: her fellow ghosts Evan and Brooke, who also died there. But when Paige hears the rumor that her death wasn't an accident—that she supposedly jumped on purpose—she can't bear it. Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get to the most popular girl in school and stop the rumors once and for all.

Suggests activities to be used at home to accompany the reading of Miss Nelson is missing by Harry Allard in the classroom.

In early 2001, Kari Grady Grossman and her husband adopted a little boy from Cambodia, and in turn adopted his country, discovering a personal connection to a little known and long-suffering people. Feeling the need to give back to the beautiful, struggling country of their son's birth, they decided to have a school built in his honor in the rural countryside. But the building was just the beginning. “Teacher Absent Often” is a frequent phrase uttered by students and their parents to describe the dismal state of Cambodia's education system. In Teacher Absent Often (Youth Edition), Kari weaves fascinating stories of learning to empower one poor, marginalized, illiterate community to sustain a school for their children. She reveals something every developed world do-gooder should know—how to help people in the way they want to be helped, not the way we think they should be helped. To read Teacher Absent Often is to feel the call to action.

"A collection of ten short stories that all take place in the same day about kids walking home from school"--

I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had is television, screen and stage star Tony Danza’s absorbing account of a year spent teaching tenth-grade English at Northeast High -- Philadelphia’s largest high school with 3600 students. Entering Northeast’s crowded halls in September of 2009, Tony found his way to a classroom filled with twenty-six students who were determined not to cut him any slack. They cared nothing about “Mr. Danza’s” showbiz credentials, and they immediately put him on the hot seat. Featuring indelible portraits of students and teachers alike, I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had reveals just how hard it is to keep today’s technologically savvy – and often alienated -- students engaged, how impressively committed most teachers are, and the outsized role counseling plays in a teacher’s day, given the psychological burdens many students carry. The book also makes vivid how a modern high school works, showing Tony in a myriad of roles – from lecturing on To Kill a Mockingbird to “coaching” the football team to organizing a talent show to leading far-flung field trips to hosting teacher gripe sessions. A surprisingly poignant account, I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny but is mostly filled with hard-won wisdom and feel-good tears.