Hamber Teachers Share Their Top Reads
Erika Chung
Whether it be through social media forums or fiction fandoms, book recommendations have always been a quintessential point of discussion amongst reading fanatics. It is much more interesting to hear about book recommendations from people everyone knows, so who better to ask than Hamber’s very own English teachers?
As the ELL Department Head at Hamber, Ms. D. Gomes is a reader who enjoys historical fiction, mystery novels and cookbooks, but she is up to trying something different. She has found that between working full time and raising a family of three kids, finding time to read has gotten quite sporadic. She takes full advantage of any time that she is able to read and receives recommendations from her book club and others. Gomes finds that she enjoys novels the most when she can “connect with a character very quickly” or when the novels are set in places she would like to visit someday. Her recent favourite novels are: Pachinko, Fifty Words for Rain, and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Gomes’s favourite authors are Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton.
Ms. S. Lemmon, Hamber’s very own teacher-librarian, enjoys reading books from all genres. However, her favourites include historical fiction, mystery, and coming of age. With two children under five, Lemmon has also found it slightly challenging to find the time to sit down and read, so she has pivoted to reading both physical books and audiobooks. To Lemmon, appealing books are those with “an engaging plot and a compelling story that leaves you thinking about the book long after you’ve finished reading”. She enjoys mystery/thrillers that are “twisty” and “give you an ‘a-ha!’ moment that you didn’t see coming.”
As for book recommendations, Lemmon is a big fan of Goodreads and she also “follows #booktok, watches for award winners, and reads book reviews on various websites”. She has also noticed an uptick in students discovering books through social media platforms like Tiktok and she is happy to purchase any books for Hamber’s LLC based on any suggestions or requests!
When asked about book recommendations, Lemmon suggested the Scythe trilogy by Neal Shusterman. She stated it was “the best dystopian trilogy I have read in a long time, with a unique and captivating storyline” and characters she sincerely cared about.
Ms. M. Poon, an English teacher, yearbook advisor, and Head of Hamber’s Challenge-Studio Program, is part of a book club. Everyone in the book club takes turns giving recommendations, and when it’s her turn, she enjoys themes of magical realism. Poon prefers plot-driven books over character-driven books...even without action, there has to be “some purpose to the story”. Books that Poon found meaningful and would recommend include A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
Ms. B. Panesar is not only an English teacher, but the Head of the English Department at Hamber. She gets her recommendations from “all over”, often paying attention to what students are reading. Panesar has a passion for 20th century literature and the classics. She really enjoys reading and teaching historical fiction, and the character struggles within the eras. She spoke about the “human condition”, and how “we need to be able to get into the souls of the characters... how they bear themselves, and we can work with that.”
Since the classics are generally very long books, Panesar likes to save all her reading for an uninterrupted stretch of time. Waiting until the holidays ensures that she doesn’t have to stop and leave it, and the flow of the story isn’t broken.