Special to the Arizona Daily Star

With the possible exception of parents, no one welcomes the start of a school year more than modern authors.

Campus life has long been rich fodder for storytelling, be it grade school or grad school, and good examples can be found in every corner of the local library.

With classes beginning this week at the University of Arizona, volunteers with the Tucson Festival of Books were invited to share some of their favorite school-day reads. Predictably, their backpacks were full:

“You Belong Here” is the latest from one of mystery’s brightest young stars, Megan Miranda. Released last month, it is the story of a woman who has vowed never to return to her alma mater, where her college roommate had disappeared without a trace. Then her daughter secretly applies to the same school and receives a full scholarship. Miranda attended the festival last spring and appeared at Stacks Book Club earlier this month. — Jody Hardy

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“A Sea of Lemon Trees” by Maria Dolores Águilla is a middle-grade novel in verse about the courage of one young boy to stand up for what is right. Scheduled for release next month, it recounts the first successful school desegregation case in the United States. In 1931, the Superior Court of San Diego County stopped the Lemon Grove School District from segregating 75 Mexican American children into a single elementary school. — Kathy Short

“Vladimir” by Julia May Jonas features a celebrated (and married) young novelist who finds himself drawn to an older (and married) colleague. Her husband, meanwhile, is defending himself against the allegations of inappropriate behavior with former students. Unhinged behavior and the inevitable consequences follow. — Abra McAndrew

“The Idiot” by Elif Batuman is a coming-of-age story about the daughter of Turkish immigrants struggling through her first year at Harvard. She enrolls in subjects she has never heard of, befriends students from around the world, and discovers a gift for writing she didn’t know she had. Funny and insightful, “The Idiot” was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. — Samantha Neville

“Kareem Between” by Shifa Saltagi Safadi is a middle-grade novel that won last year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. It features a seventh-grade Syrian American boy who feels lost between home, school, friends, football, right and wrong. Making it worse, he’s on his own to figure it all out. — Kathy Short

“The Assignment” by Liza Wiemer is a young-adult novel based on a real-life controversy that began in a high school debate class. Students were asked to argue for or against The Final Solution, the Nazi plan to eliminate the Jewish people. When two students decided to protest the assignment, the resulting tumult divided the entire town. — Lynn Wiese Sneyd

“Town of Babylon” by Alejandro Varela was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction in 2022. It features a gay, Hispanic professor who returns home for his 20th high school reunion. Once there, he hesitantly starts to reconnect with old friends … and old flames. — Jody Hardy

“The English Experience” by Julie Schumacher is the final installment in her Dear Committee trilogy, which follows the hilarious misadventures of Professor Jason Fitger at Payne University. This time, he is leading the school’s annual “Experience Abroad” with 11 students in England. What could possibly go wrong? — Meg Files

“I Have Some Questions for You” by Rebecca Makkai is the story of Bodie Kane, a successful professor and podcaster who has somehow survived a miserable and tragic four years at a New Hampshire boarding school. When Granby invites her back to teach a course, she reluctantly agrees … and almost immediately is pulled back into the uncertainty surrounding the decades-old murder of her college roommate. — Thea Chalow

“One and Done” by Frederick Smith is a modern romance novel about a college administrator whose goal of being a university president might be thwarted by the consultant who is working on the university’s accreditation process. — Jessica Pryde

“Straight Man” by University of Arizona grad Richard Russo is a hilarious send-up of academic life that features Hank Devereaux, the head of English at a severely underfunded college in New Hampshire. While different than Russo’s other novels, “Straight Man” oozes with the compassion and poignancy that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for “Empire Falls.” — Gay Vernon

“The Incandescent” by Emily Tesh is a fun fantasy set in Chetwood Academy, where Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented sixth-formers, and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions. — Betsy Labiner

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