| Introduction | xiii |
| 1 | Setting, Mood, And Tone | 1 |
| Dark and Stormy: Charles M. Schulz and Snoopy ("World Famous Author"); Madeleine L'Engle, Wrinkle in Time; Edward Bulwar-Lytton, Paul Clifford | 1 |
| A Talking Raven: Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" | 3 |
| Another Starry Night: Don McLean, "Vincent" | 4 |
| 2 | Identity | 7 |
| Woman Powered: Taylor Swift, "Blank Space"; Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, "What Was I Made For?"; Olivia Rodrigo, "Jealousy, Jealousy"; Maya Angelou, "Phenomenal Woman" | 7 |
| What's in a Name-or Not?: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale | 10 |
| Have a Chocolate?: Eric Roth, Forrest Gump; Winston Groom, Forrest Gump | 11 |
| Can You See Me?: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man | 13 |
| Nobody Is Somebody: Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" | 15 |
| 3 | The Human Condition | 17 |
| Why Shakespeare? | 17 |
| Hamlet's Dilemma: William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark | 18 |
| Songs of Social Change: Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On"; Jay-Z, "Some How Some Way" | 19 |
| Warning Signs: Dr. Seuss, The Butter Battle Book | 21 |
| Mob Mentality: Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" | 22 |
| You Can Do It Too | 23 |
| A Need to Communicate: Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl | 24 |
| The Plight of Addiction: Pink, "Sober"; Selena Odom, "My Master"; Amy Winehouse, "Rehab"; Stephen King; Neil Young, "The Needle and the Damage Done" | 25 |
| 4 | Self-Determination | 29 |
| Making Your Own Way: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton | 29 |
| Change by Example: Michael Jackson, Glen Ballard, and Siedah Garrett, "Man in the Mirror"; Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, "We Are the World" | 31 |
| From Behind Bars: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" | 33 |
| The Trap of Hatred: Wendell Berry, "Enemies" | 34 |
| Double Standard: Gwen Stefani and Tom Dumont, "I'm Just a Girl"; Beyonce Knowles-Carter, "If I Were a Boy" | 34 |
| 5 | Time And Space | 37 |
| To Boldly Go: Gene Roddenberry and William Shatner, Star Trek, Patrick Stewart, Star Trek: The Next Generation | 37 |
| From Science Fiction to Reality: Neil Armstrong, "One Small Step for Man" | 38 |
| May the Force Be with You: George Lucas, Star Wars | 38 |
| Space Parody?: Mel Brooks, Spacebalh | 40 |
| AI Gone Wrong: Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey | 40 |
| Hitchhiking: Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | 41 |
| Better Read or Else: Damon Knight, "To Serve Man"; Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone | 42 |
| Warring Worlds: H. G. Wells, The War ofthe Worlds | 43 |
| Public Panic: H. G. Wells, "The War ofthe Worlds" | 44 |
| 6 | The Road, Streets, And Other Travels | 45 |
| Nothing to Hide: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath | 45 |
| The Boss Voices Tom: Bruce Springsteen, "The Ghost of Tomjoad" | 46 |
| Nobody Street: Octavio Paz, "The Street" | 47 |
| You Decide: Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" | 48 |
| Changing Course: Adele and Greg Kurstin, "I Drink Wine" | 49 |
| They're Your Footsteps: Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road" | 50 |
| On the Wind, You Say?: Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind" | 51 |
| 7 | Sports | 53 |
| Attention Getting: Jim McKay, Wide World of Sports | 53 |
| LaPoem James: Sean Thomas Dougherty, "Biography of LeBron as Ohio" | 54 |
| Remember When?: John Updike, "Ex-Basketball Player" | 56 |
| Surf's Up!: Susan Orlean, "Life's Swell" | 57 |
| Wide Shoulders: Ernest Lawrence Thayer, "Casey at the Bat" | 58 |
| A Price to Pay?: Eva Holland, "Why We Play" | 60 |
| Fighter, Defender, and Advocate: Muhammad Ali, "I Am America" | 61 |
| Right Field Is for Heroes: Peter, Paul, and Mary, "Right Field" | 62 |
| No-Nonsense Conscience: Sherman Alexie, "Victory" | 63 |
| Pit Stop 1 | Reflecting on What You've Seen and What's to Come, Plus Potential Projects | 65 |
| 8 | Freedom And Captivity, Supers And Sleuths | 67 |
| Freedom and Captivity | 67 |
| A Jury of Your Peers?: Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men | 67 |
| Chains of the Mind: Bob Marley, "Redemption Song" | 69 |
| Broken and Transformed: Franz Kafka, "In the Penal Colony" | 69 |
| Bug Off!: Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis | 70 |
| Separate and Unequal: Maya Angelou, "Caged Bird" | 71 |
| Life on the Inside: Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption; Frank Darabont, The Shatoshank Redemption | 72 |
| Proper Manners and Penance: Langston Hughes, "Thank You, M'am" | 73 |
| Supers and Sleuths | 74 |
| Revised Steel: Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman | 75 |
| A Dark Crusader: Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Batman | 75 |
| Opening the Door Wider: William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman | 76 |
| Web Sunger: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man | 77 |
| Hey, Sherlock: Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four | 77 |
| Encyclopedia B.: Donald Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man | 78 |
| Teen Sleuths: Edward Stratemeyer, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew | 79 |
| 9 | True Love And Heartbreak | 81 |
| Feuding Families: William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Romeo and juliet | 81 |
| Streetlight Serenade: Mark Knopfler, "Romeo and Juliet" | 82 |
| Fairy-Tale Romance: Taylor Swift, "I Knew You Were Trouble" | 83 |
| Did He or Didn't He?: "Once upon a Time" | 84 |
| Love without Obligation: John Hartford, "Gentle on My Mind" | 84 |
| Love and Marriage: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice | 85 |
| Can't You Hear Me?: Donika Ross Kelly, "Love Poem: Mermaid" | 86 |
| Hold Nothing Back: Janis Ian, "At Seventeen" | 87 |
| Constantly Parodied: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "How Do I Love Thee?"; Karen McCullah and Kristen Smith, 10 Things I Hate about You | 88 |
| 10 | Orators And Famous Speeches | 91 |
| Galvanizing Words: Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address | 91 |
| Liberty or Death: Patrick Henry, Speech at Second Virginia Convention | 93 |
| A Declaration: Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence | 93 |
| The Voice of Youth: Malala Yousafzai, Speech at the United Nations Youth Assembly | 94 |
| I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr., "I Have a Dream" | 95 |
| No More, Forever: Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, Surrender Speech | 96 |
| Heating Things Up: Greta Thunberg, Speech at the United Nations' Climate Action Summit | 97 |
| Heartfelt Farewell: Lou Gehrig, Retirement Speech | 98 |
| 11 | Perspective | 101 |
| Just Imagine: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Imagine" | 101 |
| Scrambled Eggs: The Beatles, "Yesterday" | 102 |
| The Best and Worst: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities | 103 |
| A More Personal Perspective: Billy Joel, "Summer, Highland Falls" | 104 |
| Two for One: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 105 |
| Scrub a Word: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 106 |
| Blind Faith: Amiri Baraka, "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" | 107 |
| Parallel Play: Stephen Schwartz, "What Is This Feeling?" | 108 |
| Slipper Trivia: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 109 |
| Measure of a Year: Jonathan Larson, "Seasons of Love" | 110 |
| 12 | Young Adults | 113 |
| Unfortunately Intriguing: Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), A Series of Unfortunate Events | 113 |
| Almost Never: J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy | 114 |
| Missing Parents | 115 |
| Angst Personified: J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye | 116 |
| The Anti-Holden (Save Ferris!): John Hughes, Ferris Bueller's Day Off ? | 116 |
| Modeled Upon: Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | 117 |
| Harry Is Still Harry: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone | 118 |
| Not So Wimpy: Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid | 119 |
| Always Online: T. M. Anderson, Feed | 120 |
| Pit Stop 2 | Reflecting on What We've Seen and What's to Come and More Potential Projects | 123 |
| 13 | The Senses And Unity And Discord | 125 |
| The Senses | 125 |
| Alphabet Soup: Mark Strand, "Eating Poetry" | 125 |
| Speaking Up: Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence" | 126 |
| Deep Breaths: William Carlos Williams, "Smell!" | 127 |
| Beyond Us: Judith Wright, "Five Senses" | 128 |
| You Fill Up My Senses: John Denver, 'Annie's Song" | 129 |
| Unity and Discord | 130 |
| Love Light: Hafiz, "Even after All This Time" | 130 |
| The Price and Reward: Rose Marie Juan-austin, "Poetry Is a Solitary Art" | 131 |
| Sharing the Load: Bill Withers, "Lean on Me" | 132 |
| Island or Continent: John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions | 133 |
| Closing the Circle: Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Seinfeld | 134 |
| 14 | Fantasy | 137 |
| Sneak Peak: Stephenie Meyer, Twilight | 137 |
| Toll Taker: Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth | 138 |
| Storm on the Horizon: Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief | 139 |
| Rabbit Hole: Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland | 140 |
| Allusions to Alice: Grace Slick, "White Rabbit" | 141 |
| Buttercup and Westley: William Goldman, The Princess Bride | 141 |
| Hobbits and Rings: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings | 143 |
| 15 | The Natural (Unnatural) World And Life And Death | 147 |
| Genesis: The Book of Genesis | 147 |
| The Lamb and the Tyger: William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience | 147 |
| The Creature: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus | 149 |
| Digging Deep: Ada Limdn, "Notes on the Below" | 150 |
| Never-Ending Summer: William Shakespeare, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" | 152 |
| Murdering Sleep: William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth | 152 |
| Middle of the Night: Dana Gioia, "Insomnia" | 154 |
| Clinging to Light: Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gende into That Good Night" | 155 |
| Revisiting Emily: Emily Dickinson, "I Heard a Fly Buzz" | 156 |
| Graveyard Ballad: Tom T. Hall, "Ballad of Forty Dollars" | 157 |
| Debating an Ending: Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice" | 158 |
| 16 | Society And Its Influences | 161 |
| Three the Easy Way/Hard Way: F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Lorde, "Royals"; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave | 161 |
| Privilege: Plus or Handicap?: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, "Stairway to Heaven"; Langston Hughes, "Mother to Son" | 164 |
| The Burden of Fame: Bernie Taupin and Elton John, "Candle in the Wind" and "Candle in the Wind 1997"; Eminem, "Stan" | 166 |
| That Book Is Fire!: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 | 168 |
| 17 | War | 171 |
| Heavy Jacket: Gustav Hasford, Michael Herr, and Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket | 171 |
| War and Laughs: Larry Gelbart, M*A*S*H | 172 |
| Antiwar Anthem: Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, "War" | 173 |
| Different Paths, Same Destination: Denise Levertov, "Making Peace"; Brian Turner, "The Hurt Locker" | 174 |
| Deserving Better: John Prine, "Sam Stone" | 175 |
| War Hawk: Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund North, Patton | 176 |
| 18 | Dystopian Landscapes | 179 |
| Women and Unwomen: Margaret Atwood, The Handmaids Tale | 179 |
| Feed the Hungry, but Just Some of Them: Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games | 181 |
| A Second Chance: James Cameron and William Wisher, Terminator 2: Judgment Day | 182 |
| Opposite Land: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four | 183 |
| Your True Calling: Veronica Roth, Divergent | 184 |
| Hooray, Success! | 187 |
| Notes | 189 |
| Further Reading, Listening, Viewing, and Exploration | 191 |
| Bibliography | 199 |
| Index | 213 |
| About the Author | 219 |