Throughout ‘March is Reading Month’, Hamilton Middle School came together with a ‘One School, One Book’ initiative. All students and staff read the book ‘Enemies in the Orchard’ by local author, Dana VanderLugt which is a World War 2 historical fiction book based on a true story and centered around a POW camp in Allegan County, just 14 miles from Hamilton Middle School, which made the story realistic and enjoyable to read for the students.
“Every teacher received a copy of this book and the classes would read together, all along the same timeline,” said Hamilton Middle School principal, Liz Morehouse. “A really cool thing that came out of it was we would have four different students from all four different grades not know each other, but having conversations about the book. It was a great way to build community at HMS.”
VanderLugt came to visit HMS to explain the background of the story, her process of writing a book, and much more with the students and staff. Thank you to Dana and all HMS teachers for making this a huge success!
