Top Ten Tuesday Thirty Four – Top Ten Books That Feature A School Setting

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/ meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This weeks topic is one I was a little bit nervous about at first, as I always struggle to choose a topic for these back to school freebies!  However, this year I decided to talk about some of my favourite books featuring a school setting, whether that be a traditional high school, a boarding school, or some other more unusual school setting.  Fortunately, once I settled on this topic, I quickly found that I had so many books that I wanted to discuss this week, and so it didn’t take long before I had an almost complete top ten.

So here are eight of my favourite books that feature a school setting!

Although this story is so much more than your typical high school contemporary, both characters struggle with their academic lives is something that made me fall even more in love with this story than I already was.  Furthermore, it was at school where Julian and Adam both first met each other and reunited all those years later, and so I am more than thankfully for the school in this novel just for doing that!

This book features one school that I would certainly not want to attend, with this boarding school habouring many dark secrets within its walls.  Despite that, I loved exploring all of the mysteries and truth behind Hailsham boarding school through the many adventures and discoveries made by our main characters.

One of my many favourite things about this book was its university setting, as we follow Cath navigate her first year there, and away from home, throughout this book, so I just had to include it on this list.  So many YA contemporaries take place in high school or have protagonists of that age that it was really refreshing to read about a slightly older main character trying to find her place in a new setting completely outside of her comfort zone.

There was no way this YA classic and one of my all time favourite books was not going to make this list, as throughout this story we see Charlie navigate high school and all of the many new experiences and relationships it brings with it.

I could not talk about some of my favourite books with school settings without mentioning everyone’s favourite school of witchcraft and wizardry!  I’m sure all of us at one point or another have dreamed of getting our Hogwarts letter through the post and attending this magical school along with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Like A List of Cages, this book deals with much bigger topics than your typical YA contemporary, such as how it managed to demonstrate how racism and prejudice can be apparent in all areas of life, including in high school.  I loved seeing Angie Thomas deal with these relevant topics both in the outside world and in the smaller school setting, something that made me adore this book even more than I already did.

Although I adore this fantasy novel, I don’t think I would ever survive even a day in Blackcliff military academy!  Not only is this school brutal in its training, but it is also led by the Commandment, making this one tough military academy to get through in one piece.

Aglionby had to make this list, simply because without it Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Noah, our beloved Raven Boys, never would have met.  And although this school does not feature a huge amount in this series, I still really loved the scenes we got of the occasional Latin class or simply of our Raven Gang wandering through the halls discussing Glendower and Ley Lines.

————-

What are some of your favourite books that feature school settings?  Do you agree with my choices?  Have you read any of these – what did you think?

————-