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Welcome Readers!<\/p>\n
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of \u201997. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting \u201clost boys\u201d to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart\u2014who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father\u2019s patient\u2014into the social scene, to disastrous effect.<\/em><\/p>\n Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane\u2019s reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan\u2019s marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men.<\/em> – Farrar, Straus and Giroux<\/p>\n Looking for some other coming of age or bildungsroman? Try any of the following.<\/p>\n As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome Readers! This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on coming of age, also known as bildungsroman. Our main title for April\u00a0is The Topeka School by Ben Lerner.\u00a0Here\u2019s a quick summary from the publisher: Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of \u201997. His mother, Jane,[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,3371,5,1,8],"tags":[9460,9622,9911,266,402,9461,3395,9621],"class_list":["post-55807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-online-book-challenge","category-read-a-likes","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-9460","tag-ben-lerner","tag-bildungsroman","tag-coming-of-age","tag-fiction","tag-genres","tag-online-reading-challenge","tag-the-topeka-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-ew7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55807"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56025,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55807\/revisions\/56025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/the-topeka-school.jpg?resize=200%2C308&ssl=1\")
<\/a>This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on coming of age, also known as bildungsroman. Our main title for April\u00a0is The Topeka School<\/em><\/strong><\/a> by Ben Lerner.\u00a0Here\u2019s a quick summary from the publisher:<\/p>\n\n