When you’re a child, teachers can seem almost mythical. They control when you can talk, when you can go to the bathroom, whether your work deserves to pass or fail, and even where you sit. A stern look from across the classroom could stop you in your tracks, and the thought of getting sent to the principal’s office felt like the end of the world. To a kid, teachers can seem all-powerful.
Then you grow up.
As adults, we realize teachers aren’t superheroes or supervillains; they’re people. Wonderful people, in many cases, who work hard for their students. But they’re also capable of making mistakes, holding grudges, bending the rules, playing favorites, or letting ambition, ego, or prejudice get the better of them. That realization changes the way we read stories about schools.
In children’s books, the scary teacher is often larger than life; characters like Dolores Umbridge, Ms. Trunchbull, or Miss Minchin may come to mind. In adult fiction, however, the classroom can become the setting for secrets, manipulation, obsession, and even crime. The authority that once felt unquestionable becomes something far more interesting to examine. After all, adults know that the people standing at the front of the classroom are just as complicated as everyone else.
This back-to-school season, we’re recognizing some of fiction’s most messed up teachers—not because they represent the profession as a whole, but because they remind us that authority figures can be fascinatingly flawed. From petty tyrants and unethical professors to coaches with truly sinister motives, these characters prove that sometimes the most terrifying lesson one can face in the classroom isn’t on the syllabus.
Here are a few of DKPL’s fictional teachers who are nominated for the ‘Most Likely to Be Fired’ superlative:
One Perfect Lie by Lisa Scottoline
A handsome stranger moves to the small Pennsylvania town of Central Valley, and his name is Chris Brennan. He’s applying for a job as a teacher and varsity baseball coach at the local high school, and he looks perfect, on paper. But his name is an alias, his resume is false, and everything about him is a lie. And he has a secret plan – for which he needs a pawn on the baseball team.
Baby Doll by Hollie Overton
You’ve been held captive in one room, mentally and physically abused every day, since you were sixteen years old. Then, one night, you realize your captor has left the door to your cell unlocked. For the first time in eight years, you’re free. This is about what happens next …
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
Relegated to the status of schoolteacher and friendly neighbor after abandoning her dreams of becoming an artist, Nora advocates on behalf of a charismatic Lebanese student and is drawn into the child’s family until his artist mother’s careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal.
Half His Age by Jenette McCurdy
Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
The Favorites by Rosemary Hennigan
From the moment she discovered her sister’s secret relationship with charismatic professor Jay Crane, Jessie Mooney has been convinced that he’s to blame for the events leading to her death. Haunted by their last email exchange– You know what you did– she enrolls in graduate school and competes her way into Crane’s famous “Law and Literature” class, setting into motion a plan to get close to him so she can expose who he really is.
Pet by Catherine Chidgey
Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine’s sense that something isn’t quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this gripping story of deception and the corrosive power of guilt takes a yet darker turn. Justine must decide where her loyalties lie.
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda
Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise? When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past.
For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing
Teddy Crutcher has just won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud–though no one has seen her in a while. But Teddy can’t be bothered with any of the rumors and the recent string of murders on campus. His main focus is on these kids. Sure, his methods can be a little unorthodox and maybe just a few of them don’t actually deserve a bright a future. But someone’s got push these kids to their full potential. It’s really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost.
The classroom is built on trust, making it the perfect setting for stories about manipulation, ambition, and abuse of power. A terrible teacher can become an unforgettable antagonist (or a fascinatingly flawed protagonist) because teachers shape the way students see the world, for better or worse. Fortunately, the educators in this list exist only on the page. However, they’re a reminder that some of the most compelling villains don’t carry swords or cast spells: they simply stand at the front of the classroom.
These books and more are featured on a display in the Adult Services department. We invite you to come create, collaborate, and grow with us at DeKalb Public Library! If you have questions about our building, services, materials, displays, or any suggestions, please reach out to us at [email protected] or 815-756-9568 ext. 2150, or stop by and see us during our open hours. Happy back to school season!