Books about Classmates from Amazon.com

Fifty years ago, in the fall of 1957, two thirteen-year-old boys were enrolled at an elite, boys-only New England boarding school. One of them, descended from wealth and eminence, would go on to Yale, then to a career as a navy officer and Vietnam war hero, and finally to the U.S. Senate, from where he would fall just short of the White House. The other was a scholarship student, a misfit giant of a boy from a Pennsylvania farm town who would suffer shameful debasements at the hands of his classmates, then go on to a solitary and largely anonymous life as a salesman of encyclopedias and trailer parts--before dying, alone, twelve months after his classmate's narrow loss on Election Day 2004.

It is around these two figures, John Kerry and a boy known here only as Arthur, the bookends of a class of one hundred boys, that Geoffrey Douglas--himself a member of that boarding-school class--builds this remarkable memoir. His portrait of their lives and the lives of five others in that class--two more Vietnam veterans with vastly divergent stories, a federal judge, a gay New York artist who struggled for years to find his place in the world, and Douglas himself--offers a memorable look back to a generation caught between the expectations of their fathers and the sometimes terrifying pulls of a society driven by war, defiance, and self-doubt.

The class of 1962 was not so different from any other, with its share of swaggerers and shining stars, outcasts and scholarship students. Its distinction was in its timing: at the precise threshold of the cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960s. The world these boys had been trained to enter and to lead, a world very similar to their fathers', would be exploded and recast almost at the moment of their entrance--forcing choices whose consequences were sometimes lifelong.

Douglas's chronicle of those times and choices is both a capsule history of an era and a literary tour de force..
Price: $16.29 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the author of Chasing Che, the remarkable tale of a group of boys at the heart of Cuba's political and social history The Boys from Dolores illuminates the elite island society from which Fidel Castro and his brother Raul emerged.
The Colegio de Dolores was a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago, Cuba's rich and ancient second city, where Fidel and Raul were educated in the 1930s and '40s. Patrick Symmes begins his story here, tracking down dozens of Fidel's schoolmates glimpsed in a single period photograph. And it is through their stories--their time at the Colegio; the catastrophic effects of the revolution on their lives; their fates since--that Symmes opens a door onto a Cuba, and a time in Castro’s life, that have been deliberately obscured from us. Here too is the elusive Raúl Castro, a cipher destined to rule Cuba in Fidel’s place.
We see Castro in his formative youth, an adolescent ruling the classrooms of the Colegio and running in the streets of Santiago. Symmes traces the years in which the revolution was conceived, won, and lost, describing the changes it wrought in Santiago and in the lives of Fidel’s own classmates: we follow them through the maelstrom of the 1960s, as most fight to leave Cuba and a few stay behind. And here, in Santiago today, Symmes finds Castro’s most lasting achievement, the creating and sustaining of a myth-soaked revolutionary idealism amid the harshest realities of daily life.
Wholly original in its approach, The Boys from Dolores is a powerfully evocative, eye-opening portrait of Cuba--and of the Castro brothers--in the twentieth century..
Price: $13.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ayiana and the Hurricane Katrina Classmate is based on the main character Ayiana Cimone Powell. Ayiana is a mature, sensitive, African-American teenager, who helps a classmate affected by Hurricane Katrina transition to some form of stability. GinaMarie uses the characters Annie Marie and Geneva Reece, Gertrude Jefferson, and Katherine Cater as staples to complete the “tangible humanity.” Ayiana and the Hurricane Katrina Classmate is a story that will make children of all ages, from all walks of life, “unselfishly” embrace anyone in need..
Price: $18.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Now teachers can give their students the crucial vocabulary practice they need with this curriculum, which is proven equally effective for English-language learners (ELLs) or students whose first language in English. This program uses an innovative approach to help students build a "toolbox" of skills to decipher unfamiliar words' meanings. Ideal for classrooms with both English- and Spanish-speaking ELLs, the curriculum combines teacher-directed instruction with cooperative group learning and individual activities for vocabulary reinforcement. An age-appropriate, 18-week curriculum used for 30 minutes a day. Includes step-by-step Teacher's Guide..
Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Emily Clarkson has a new teaching position. But when she arrives expecting her employer to be a gentleman, she's shocked to find a brute. He's expecting a somber old maid, not an impertinent girl. And neither expects the passion that soon overtakes them both..
Price: $2.11 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This classic children's story has recently been revised. It is an essential tool for teachers who are dealing with a death in the classroom. Ages 5-10. Explores the many different feelings classmates will have while giving ideas to help remember the student..
Price: $6.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]