They might not have been reading it aloud or all at once, but the readers were experiencing that novel together. They talked about it in the cafeteria, on the walk home, and even in papers and projects for my class. I eventually came to understand that while my students loved the book for many reasons, at least one of them was that its tragedy allowed them to rehearse loss. How badly can something hurt? How hard can losing someone be? How awful will profound grief feel? Those answers are not always present in a sad book, but glimmers of what’s ahead might
