I read The Day They Came To Arrest The Book by Nat Hentoff. The genre is Global Issues. The copyright date is 1984.

This book is about a group of high school kid’s that are reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There is an African-American family that does not want this book to be taught. They think this book is racist because the word “nigger” is repeatedly uttered throughout its pages. There is a trial about this topic. The kids argument is that the book can be taught under the first amendment. The parents say that it is harmful to students if the read those words they will think it is okay to say them. This is called censorship and is a big issue in the world.


I would not recommend this book to middle school students. The book made me fall asleep when I read it, because it does not have any action, and does not have much of a storyline. There is also way to much debating and the book is almost difficult to understand. There is not much of an introduction to the characters and therefore the storyline is difficult to understand.


The book starts when the kids Barney, Luke, and Kate are in class. They make normal before class chat. Unfortunately, more information about the kids is not mentioned. The whole book is essentially debating between Mr. Moore, the principal or in the trail between the McLean family and the school board. For example, pages 20-30 are a debate between Mr. Moore and a school parent. This book is full of debating and it is a hard novel to understand. I would not recommend this to a fellow middle school student.