Dear The Vanguard,

 We in the English Department read the recent Vanguard editorial “Read at your own risk” with some amount of confusion.

 To start, two of the three books that the editorial mentioned in its critique (“The Mayor of Casterbridge” and “Sacred Hunger”) are not on the BB&N summer reading list. We are curious whether the writers had an outdated list?

 Our goal with the English summer reading list is to present a wide variety of works that we believe will engage and excite students – and also stretch them as learners and readers. We take issue with the idea that these are mutually exclusive goals or that certain books that deal with “heavy” topics should be struck from the list. To take just one example, the third book mentioned by the editorial – “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden” – tells the semi-autobiographical story of the author’s struggle with schizophrenia, ultimately ending on a note of persistence and resilience. We believe this book could serve as an affirmation for someone who has struggled with their own mental health – or as an eye-opening window into this experience for someone who hasn’t.

 Over the past two years, the English Department has worked to revamp our summer reading list to include a greater diversity of authors, genres and time periods and to make it more searchable with a list of tags and themes. While it is a continually updating work in progress, we believe that there is now a wealth of engaging and challenging works that can serve as powerful windows into new worlds and mirrors of students’ own. While we aren’t interested in striking books from the list that we feel could be productively challenging, we would welcome student input on additional books or authors that could merit inclusion. We also welcome the writers’ questions about how best to make use of the summer reading once students are back at school. Our doors are always open in our offices.

Sincerely,

Mr. Crihfield