BOOKLIFE PRIZE REVIEW IS IN!

Title: Rescue the Teacher, Save the Child!

Author: Paula Baack

Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience: Adult

Word Count: 72,537

Assessment:

Idea/Concept: Although Rescue the Teacher, Save the Child! sits somewhat uneasily between memoir and guidebook, the author ultimately presents a highly informed, insightful look into the state of education in America and the toxic work environments many educators face.

Prose: This book is well-written and organized, while the author’s prose conveys her passion for teaching and her frustration toward the many impediments facing teachers and students today.  

Originality: As a devoted educator, Baack backs up her findings with her own unique experiential evidence, while broadening the scope of the book to focus on the collective experiences of teachers and students in America. 

Execution: Baack’s own experiences offer credibility and immediacy to the sections that are more pointedly informational. While the focus of the book is more on how to rescue teachers than on how to save students, Baack’s ideas are inspired and potentially broadly beneficial. Her clearly-referenced religious overtones sometime interfere with the more actionable advice, but not significantly. She does not proselytize, but, rather, espouses values that many of us, religious or not, still hold.

Blurb: Baack makes an urgent plea to teachers, administrators, parents, and students to work collaboratively to improve the American education system to some of its former high standards. 

I am so pleased as a first time author. Thank you BookLife!