Notes From The Midnight Driver

Notes from the Midnight Driver

• Genre: Fiction; young adult realistic
• Originally Published: 2007
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 850L; grades 7-12
• Structure/Length: 27 chapters; approx. 288 pages; approx. 4 hours, 42 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Angry and vengeful after his parents’ divorce, 16-year-old Alex gets drunk and smashes his mother’s car into someone’s garden. He is sentenced to 100 hours of community service at a nursing home, where he gradually befriends Sol, the cranky elderly man he is charged with helping.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Drunk driving

Jordan Sonnenblick, Author

• Bio: Born in 1969 on an Army base in Missouri; grew up on Staten Island, New York; attended Stuyvesant High School, where his creative writing teacher was author Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes); majored in English at the University of Pennsylvania; taught 5th grade in Texas with the Teach for America program; wrote his book Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie for an 8th-grade student of his whose brother had cancer; lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and children
• Other Works: Dodger and Me (2008); Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie (2010); Falling Over Sideways (2016); The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell (2021)
• Awards: ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2008)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Self-Discovery and Emotional Maturity for Teenagers
• Approaching Conflict in Healthy Ways
• Confronting Illness and Death

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the social and cultural contexts regarding Alex’s community service and personal growth.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Self-Discovery and Emotional Maturity for Teenagers, Approaching Conflict in Healthy Ways, and Confronting Illness and Death.
• Plan and design a benefit event using visual media and draw comparisons with Alex’s benefit concert using text details.
• Analyze and evaluate the plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding the role of songs in Notes from the Midnight Driver, the protagonist’s emotional growth, and other topics.