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Start giftingUp the Down Staircase
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreBel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase is one of the best-loved novels of our time. It has been translated into sixteen languages, made into a prizewinning motion picture, and staged as a play at high schools all over the United States; its very title has become part of the American idiom.
Never before has a novel so compellingly laid bare the inner workings of a metropolitan high school. Up the Down Staircase is the funny and touching story of a committed, idealistic teacher whose clash with school bureaucracy is a timeless lesson for students, teachers, parents—anyone concerned about public education. Bel Kaufman lets her characters speak for themselves through memos, letters, directives from the principal, comments by students, notes between teachers, and papers from desk drawers and wastebaskets, evoking a vivid picture of teachers fighting the good fight against all that stands in the way of good teaching.
Bel Kaufman grew up in Russia, learned English at age twelve, and went on to a distinguished literary, academic, and teaching career. She has won many awards for her writing and public speaking, addressing educators and students here and abroad. She is the granddaughter of the celebrated Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem.
Barbara Rosenblat, one of the most awarded narrators in the business, was selected by AudioFile magazine as one of the Golden Voices of the Twentieth Century. She has received the prestigious Audie Award multiple times and has earned more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards. She has also appeared in film, television, and theater, both in London’s West End and on Broadway.
Reviews
“Merely the most excellent and truthful picture of a contemporary American teacher’s life that we are likely to have for a long time to come.”
“Pertinent, useful, charming, important, and utterly adorable.”
“This author has a refreshing way of stating the facts, of breaking down statistics into recognizable teenagers, of making you smile, be contrite, and infuriated all at once. In effect this teacher-author knows her school and her subject.”
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