Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm happy to have as my guest, Sarah Sweenyanne Bynam.

She is the author most recently of Ms. Hempel Chronicles,

and her first novel, Madeline is Sleeping.

Both of them are published by Harkert, now known as Houghton Mifflin Harkett, thanks to a recent merger.

And the book came as a complete surprise to me because I read that it was about a teacher in a middle school.

And I thought, yes, I do like novels about teachers.

I, you know, the inevitable names come up, Miss Jean Brody or Mr. Chips or various, you know,

the woman in the short story by Charles Baxter, a story called

Griffin, or, you know, all kinds of teachers.

But this is completely different.

What you forget when you're in high school reading about Miss Jean Brody or about Mr. Chips is that they seem

ancient, tottering.

But an actual teacher in a middle school is a young woman who identifies more with her students,

perhaps than with the other teachers, certainly than with

the other older seasoned teachers.

And it feels absolutely mysterious and terrifying to her to find herself at what feels like the rest of her

...