2020 has not been a good reading year for me. I read about half the number of books that I usually do. (If I finish the book I’m reading now before midnight on 12/31, I will have read 38 books this year. I usually average 75-100 books in a year.) But looking back at what I did read, two books really stand out: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (review) and The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe (review).

Both books center around abuses at a boys’ school. The Nickel Boys focuses on a school in Florida similar to the real-life Dozier School; The Night Bell focuses on a fictional school in Port Dundas, Ontario, Canada.

Their approaches were different but powerful. The Nickel Boys is historical fiction. It puts us in the shoes of a young man sent to the school, and we experience the abuses he suffers. The Night Bell is a contemporary mystery. We follow the quest of a detective as she solves the mystery of what happened at the school decades before.

Whitehead won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize this year for The Nickel Boys, and both accolades were well deserved. As far as I can tell, Wolfe did not win any awards for The Night Bell, but don’t let that discourage you from reading it. Both books deserve your time and attention. You won’t regret it.