"Teacher to Teacher" provides a forum for teachers to share ideas, materials, and activities. In this article, the first teacher describes the effects the well-known novel "Bleachers" (John Grisham, New York: Doubleday, 2003) had on a ninth-grade english class. The novel bought to life the high school culture that the students found challenging. The novel raises sensitive issues, including self-worth, identity, relationships, forgiveness, and tolerance. This compelling novel allowed high school students to explore themes and issues they struggled with daily. Teaching the text through literature circles proved to be the appropriate choice, and the novel proved to be a provocative piece of literature that connected with the students. The second teacher talks about the influence the novel "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" (Salman Rushdie, New York: Granta, 1990) had on eighth-grade students' examination of free-speech. The teacher explained "All that we teach about good writing is contained in its pages"; students experience the poetic conventions they have learned. The novel appealed especially to adolescents who are themselves caught between the worlds of childhood and adulthood and vacillate between them. This dichotomy enables them to both identify with and appreciate the levels of the story: the unambiguous and enjoyable children's story and the more sophisticated treatise on our freedoms.