Book Review: To Sir, With Love

By Ishaan Kaila

To Sir, With Love, is a book about a teacher who is treated badly because of his skin colour. He is selected as a teacher in a small neighbourhood that does not discriminate against him because of his colour. The book is about how he goes on to connect with his students and vice versa. The students, who were unruly and boisterous in the beginning, became mature and confident in their abilities, because of the hard work of the teacher.

In the first few chapters, To Sir, With Love was not very dramatic and you would not believe how slow it appeared to go. The only problem I had with the first few chapters of the book was that in the middle of the story, the author added a flashback, which I did not quite understand the reference to.

The book was very thought-provoking, and made you wish you could come to his aid. The language was simple, but it had a few swear words. The writing style was easy to understand, and it is written in the first person. It is the real story of the author. What I didn’t like was that because of his experiences with a few prejudiced people, the author assumed that everyone was prejudiced against his colour. A few bad people should not make us lose hope.

My favourite character was the teacher (author), because I found him to be very hard working and he cared a lot. He made sure that what he did was good. The book also helped me understand how teachers function. Till now, I had no idea what teachers did. It gave a little thought to my mind, that teachers actually do more homework than the students.

I would rate this as being suitable for children in Grade 8 and above. I would also rate this book 9/10.