Ms. Hempel Chronicles [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2008

Ms. Beatrice Hempel, teacher of seventh grade, is new—new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her idiosyncratic father. Grappling awkwardly with her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work. Is it acceptable to introduce swear words into the English curriculum, enlist students to write their own report cards, or bring up personal experiences while teaching a sex-education class?  Sarah Shun-lien Bynum finds characters at their most vulnerable, then explores those precarious moments in sharp, graceful prose. From this most innovative of young writers comes another journey down the rabbit hole to the wonderland of middle school, memory, daydreaming, and the extraordinary business of growing up.

(20080827)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A National Book Award finalist in 2004, Bynum returns with an intricate and absorbing collection of eight interconnected stories about Beatrice Hempel, a middle school English teacher. Ms. Hempel is the sort of teacher students adore, and despite feeling disenchanted with her job, she regards her students as intelligent, insightful and sometimes fascinating. Bynum seamlessly weaves stories of the teacher's childhood with the present—reminiscences about Beatrice's now deceased father and her relationship with her younger brother, Calvin—while simultaneously fleshing out the lives of Beatrice's impressionable students (they are in awe of the crassness of This Boy's Life). Though there isn't much in the way of plot, Bynum's sympathy for her protagonist runs deep, and even the slightest of events comes across as achingly real and, sometimes, even profound. Bynum writes with great acuity, and the emotional undercurrents in this sharp take on coming-of-age and growing up will move readers in unexpected ways. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

Bynum’s second novel provides a narrative voice as unique and engaging as that in her award-winning debut, Madeleine Is Sleeping (2004). Here we meet a twentysomething middle-school teacher full of both hope and insecurity on the brink of confident adulthood—an age Bynum renders as poignant as that of her students. Rather than focus on the major events of Ms. Hempel’s current life, including a broken engagement and the death of her father, Bynum instead uses these as a net to cradle smaller, more telling moments—a troublemaker buried in sand on class “beach day,” a magic routine at the talent show, dancing with colleagues at happy hour. Bynum dares to put much stock in these small moments and in the dreamy perspective of her heroine, and the result is charming without being quirky. This tightly composed novel favors character over a traditional narrative, with one particularly wonderful chapter looking back on a teenage Ms. Hempel, locked in her room, listening to pirate radio, and having aimless conversations with prank callers. The attention to detail is spectacular. --Annie Tully

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (September 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151014965
• ASIN: B002KE4604
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here is Heart, November 11, 2008

By 

Jesse Archer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ms. Hempel Chronicles (Hardcover)

I would never have read this book had it not fallen into my hands at the urging of a friend. First of all, what is with that awful, awful cover? And the title? Again, awful.

How many lessons must I (and publishers, for shame) learn about judging a book by its cover? As a writer, I cannot recommend this book enough. Ms Hempel is a thoroughly engaging protagonist full of doubt, wonder, humor, and above all heart. This is a book about life and its author a master. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's words are carefully chosen - so carefully chosen as to flow effortlessly for the reader.

The sentiment here is not heavy handed; she doesn't beat you over the head. The book is written matter-of-fact, devoid of the chick-flicky weepiness that I so despise. So why did I find myself weeping at the end of this wonderful work of art? I suppose it's because I, as with her former students, remain deeply haunted by Ms. Hempel.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humanities teacher approved!, September 16, 2008

By 

om - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ms. Hempel Chronicles (Hardcover)

I read "Yurt" in the New Yorker, was anxious for more, and The Ms Hempel Chronicles delivered. As a teacher of adolescents, I was struck at how Bynum nailed the emotional dynamic of the classroom, relationships between teachers and students, the internal struggles of the characters to become who they are and will be. Despite the very different setting and cast of characters from those I know in my own classroom, the relationships and realizations of Ms Hempel seemed uncannily familiar to me. Also - the descriptive style is hilarious as well as dead on. I'm planning on passing it along to my middle school colleagues.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ordinary sublime, September 16, 2008

By 

Dr. Dee Dee von Reebies (Decatur, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ms. Hempel Chronicles (Hardcover)

Ms. Hempel the schoolteacher lives, works, and loves with both feet firmly planted in the realm of the mundane, but her gently persistent sense of wonderment about life leads to the discovery of the marvelous in the very crevices and folds of the day-to-day. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's masterful storytelling navigates these twists and turns of nine-to-five city life in a way that (sometimes in the space of a single page!) bears the heart of her reader from ho-hum to melancholy to raptures and back. We meet Ms. Hempel's family, friends, students, colleagues, and love interests, but the novel is really about the profound experience of normal days: finding the remarkable in the unremarkable, the sublime in the routine, a sudden burst of the soul against the tick-tock of the clock. As in life, the plot's movement yields to the force of the heroine's day-in and day-out, but also, quite unexpectedly, draws us into the subtle undercurrent of her intimate journey toward spiritual plenitude. Like her poetic given name, Beatrice, tucked away from everyday view, Ms. Hempel's soul-searching makes gentle cameo appearances at the surface of her daily grind. The novel's power lies in this perfect tension between schoolmarm and muse. Their counterpoint reverberates like a soft heartbeat lending a timeless and organic harmony to the din of our ordinary days.