He casts each student as a character in a classroom reading, then takes everyone on a field trip to a live performance by professionals.

Allusions to Genesis and King Lear, plus scattered echoes of Eliot, insinuate a connection between the sense of verbal potency derived from classroom reading and the impulse to "play God . . . change the world" - a megalomania that has to be frustratedly played out through violence.

Imaginative teachers, such as Dr. Robert Coles at Harvard, are wedding study to service so that the learning that can come from working to address human needs is reinforced by classroom reading, reflection, discussion and writing.

Mr. Weinraub, 37, is a lecturer on classroom reading and instruction at the Pace University School of Education in Manhattan.

Among the categories not actively tracked at this time are: perennial sellers, required classroom reading, textbooks, reference and test preparation guides, journals, workbooks, calorie counters, shopping guides, comics, crossword puzzles and self-published books.

Donovan R. Walling listed the novel in 2003 as a homosexual coming-of-age novel that might be of interest for classroom reading.

It became a notable choice for classroom reading.

He acknowledged that he had nursed a latent fury with the Omaha district since enduring the taunting of schoolmates during classroom readings of "Little Black Sambo" when he attended during the 1940's.

Mrs. Littenberg is on the committee that will review the book to decide whether it is appropriate for school libraries and classroom readings, with a decision expected in November.