One School, One Cake

Posted on by scott

Can you identify this object?

Yes, it’s a cake. And if you look closely, you’ll realize that it’s a cake shaped like a copy of Uglies!

How did such a thing come to exist, you ask?

Well, early this year I got a call from a South Central High School in Indiana. They wanted to start a One School/One Book project, and they wanted to use Uglies as their guinea pig.

I said that was awesome (as I usually do to people who want to buy 500 copies of one of my books), and said I’d be willing to come for a visit as well.

So last Thursday Justine and I flew down to visit friends in Kentucky, then early on Friday morning crossed the river to Indiana.

Now it’s one thing to see what effect my books have on one person or a group of friends. But a whole school? That’s a different order of magnitude altogether.

The students had made Uglies games:

And art projects:

And even built hoverboards:

Okay, the hoverboards didn’t fly, but they were tricked-out in ways that made them feel more real than the hoverboards in Uglies. They had great personal touches, like band stickers and sports-team logos, and one Hello-Kitty color scheme. (Pink is the new hover, I guess.)

That’s how the whole day was: Cool stuff all over the walls, kids asking smart questions, all the results of a school-wide conversation about one book.

It’s a great idea, and no doubt took a lot of hard work. (And a grant from the Harrison County Community Foundation.) I hope that South Central keeps doing it in years to come, experimenting with all sort of books, and that other schools try out the idea as well.

It was really cool, and I feel honored to be chosen, and grateful to everyone who helped it come into being. (And thanks for Gwenda and Christopher for letting us crash.)

Plus, there was cake.

So here’s a question: If your school did a one-book project, what would you want everyone to read? And let’s focus on books other than mine, because obviously anyone reading this probably already likes me.

So what would be cool for a whole school to read? What book would most change the way everyone saw their high school?

I nominate Lois Lowry’s The Giver and S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.

What about you guys?

119 thoughts on “One School, One Cake”

  2. Hmmmm, maybe the Maximum Ride Series,
    By: James Patterson. They’re neat books! Though, I don’t know if it’d change the way we see our high school…

  3. Okay, I am now officially jealous 🙂

    That looks like it was one hell of an amazing trip, and what an incredible experience it must be to soak in the visions you’ve inspired in others. When the autobiography is written, let’s hope it comes back to you as an emotional highlight.

    Anyway, on to the question: A one book project like this? Barry Hughart’s “Bridge Of Birds” would produce some wonderful things, I think. And I’d love to see what older kids would make of something like Gibson’s “Neuromancer”

  5. Paolini’s ‘Eragon’, Your ‘Midnighters’, Novik’s ‘His Magesties Dragon’, Klass’s ‘You Don’t Know Me’, And Reeve’s ‘Mortal Engines’ (

  7. My high school does an all school summer read book. But very few people actually read the books and we don’t do anything that cool with them.

    And I LOVE both of your suggestions. I read them both for middle school and absolutely loved them. But I guess I am obligated to love the Outsiders because it is based in my hometown. Still, that book is amazing, even if I am a little biased.

    Andrea

  8. Neat! I am soooo moving to Kentucky so I get to make Pretty cake (not that I can’t already but my dad said that 9:48 at night is not the time to go buy frosting)

    So a book, eh? And not your own? Hmm, I have an entire list…Ready?

    1.) Books by Cris Wooding (I.E. Poison, Storm Theif…)

    2.) Garth Nix’s novels

    3.) Stephine Myer’s Twilight & New Moon

    4.) NOT (underline ‘not’ about one hundred times) 1984 by George Orwell. That Big Brother stuff creeps me out! Not that Uglies helped my paranoid side at all 🙂

    So yeah. That is all I can think of now, but a few minutes later when I get anouther one, I’ll put it down (Just wait, Capt. C probably has a mile-long list!)

    Hope you had fun on your trip!
    -Topaz

  9. Hmm, offhand, I’ll go with Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. I know some schools are already teaching it. It’s also been banned a lot, so you know that means it’s good. 😛

  10. ooh the giver…
    well, scott, i have personally initiated a little one-book project at my school…It being the rotating copies of the Uglies trilogy. We have a system (that I started!!) where I tell someone to read the books. They do. They then tell someone else, who tells someone else, who tells someone else….
    it’s especially catching on in the middle school where they all want to be bubbleheads *sigh* but really, almost a quarter of my grade has read them now. We’re aiming for 100% participation.

  11. That is pretty exciting. Congratulations.

    I would have many suggestions. For example: My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, but it’s far more powerful if folks have read the entire trilogy in order: Ishmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael.

  12. the outsiders and the giver are my two most FAVORITE books like in the world!!!

    A Wrinkle In Time would be awesome.
    But, I think Perks Of Being A WallFLower would probably be the best. Imagine, everyone would be feeling infinte!

  13. I hated The Outsiders…and all the other books of that genre we were forced to read. The Pigman, That Was Then This is Now…They just bothered me.
    But I usually hate anything I’m forced to read.
    I would want to read something in the sci-fi/fantasty genre, just because of all the cool activities they could do with it, like hoverboards. I would probably want to do something like Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, or White Oleander. (I keep looking at my bookshelf and wanting to suggest your books). If they did White Oleander, they could do poetry projects.

  15. I do have a mile long list, but I’ll tone it down. (I mean, who wouldn’t have a mile-long list after reading 32 books over the summer?)
    1. Poison, Storm Thief — Chris Wooding (already mentioned, but they need to be said again)
    2. Backwater — Joan Bauer
    3. Abarat — Clive Barker
    4. Inkheart — Cornelia Funke
    5. The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger (because, obviously, we all want to be commies. And no one knows what I mean… yeah. They tried to ban this book saying it turned kids into communists…)
    6.I am the Wallpaper — Mark Peter Hughes
    7. Cirque du Freak — Darren Shan
    8. (yes, one mooore)DELTORA QUEST!!! ( no, umm…)
    8. (for real) What the Birds See — Sonya Hartnett

    Yeah. There are a million others, and I really think that Poison and Storm Thief would be good. I keep looking at my bookshelf, too, and I see Peeps and I’m like “And Peeps… wait, NO!” yeah.
    Hawksong would be good, too, as said above. And The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill. I’ll stop now, because my list is too long. I’ll write about this idea in the school paper. It just might work, my school is small…

  16. Sabriel!!! I don’t really like the rest of the Abhorsen trilogy though, it ruins it. Somehow the whole plot of the second and third books makes defeating Kerrigor look like a picnic, and the characters aren’t nearly as interesting.

  17. Farinheit 451- Bradbury
    The Time Machine- H.G. Wells
    Alice Through the Looking-Glass- Carroll
    The Truth About Forever- Sarah Desson

    These are all on my list of books everyone should read at least once in their lives.

    Also: Poison Study- Maria Snyder and The Decoy Princess- Dawn Cook… they’re not deep, which is why there not on the top list, but I can reread them limitless times.

  18. I agree that a lot of these books are amazingly awesome(^) and it’s so hard to pin down one book that I’d want to share with everyone. I have so many! I love sharing (I never thought I’d say that). Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli was so awesome though, and having my entire school read it would be really cool. The Five People You Meet in Heaven would be okay too. Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen would be wonderful, but the guys probably wouldn’t connect to it as much. There’s too many AMAZING books. I can’t choose. So Yesterday would be neat too, although we weren’t supposed to pick one of yours…

    (I loved Twilight, New Moon, anything by Sarah Dessen but The Truth About Forever most of all and anything/everything by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Sharing those with people would make MY life better anyway….)

  19. I think that The Book Thief and I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak are both really good books that make you think. I also really liked Hawksong and the Abhorsen trilogy.

  20. Cake and hoverboards. That’s a pretty awesome school!

    For books, I’d say the Shadow Children series by Margaret Petterson Haddix. The series is easy enough that everyone could read it, and the books are really intriguing – the whole plot of only being allowed 2 kids. Great discussion topic.

    Wow, I can’t get over how cool of an idea that is to have everyone read the same book!! I tried to get all my friends to read Uglies, but that’s pretty far from the whole school … It would be neat if my school was smart enough to do something like that.

  21. Hi Scott Westerfeld,
    I would like to let you know that the two trilogys called the Uglies and the Midnighters were truly inspiring. I am now even considering becoming an author myself. On this website: http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/?p=181#comments, you sound like a really great guy. Good luck! I will continue to recomend your books to my friends.

  23. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer!!!

    Not to say guys won’t liek it but the majority of the fna base for Twilight is female and I go to an all girls school. It would be an excellent book to have a school read because once you start you can’t stop (like another author we know) so no one would drop out.

  24. We did that at my high school. I don’t know if I remember all of the books we read, though. definitely ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE. And KAFFIR BOY, which was incredible and which I would definitely recommend for another one book, one school project. We also read the autobiography of a woman who’d gorwn up a sheep farmer in Australia and became the president of Smith. ROAD FROM COORAIN, I think it was called. And I can’t remember what the last book was. I think… Sophie’s World?

    I would also recommend Frankenstein. The Giver is a good one, though!

  25. And Shade’s Children would be a really good one(that’s another one by Garth Nix). I also like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ books, especially the vampire ones like Midnight Predator and In The Forests Of The Night.

  26. The Claidi Journals, by Tanith Lee

    The Dragonriders of Pern Trilogy by Anne McCaffery

    The Harper Hall trilgogy by Anne McCaffery

    Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. (I want a hoverboard!!!)

    Kim-la

  27. Twighlight & New Moon by stephanie meyer
    Freak the Mighty by rodman philbrick
    Speak by laurie halse anderson
    The Girl Who Owned a City by O.T. Nelson
    The Book Theif by Markus Zusak

    all of these are amazing books. I would recomend them to almost anyone.

  28. My high school actually did that – the only year I actually read the book, though, was the year that they picked Fahrenheit 451, which I’d already read a few years earlier while at summer camp.

    Right now, I think I’d have to second Korbe’s nomination for The Book Theif – I read it last month and it’s currently hovering at being my favorite book of the year.

    That said, I’d also push Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish, entirely because of the great storytelling workshops that could be based around it.

  30. We read “The Giver” in seventh grade, I loved it. And then we got to see it on stage at a college, which was fun, it was my first school-related theatre experience. But it wouldn’t have made sense without having read the book, because it’s hard to depict seeing color for the first time if you can see in color…

  31. A book that’s not one of yours? Probably everything already mentioned and City of Masks by Mary Hoffman. But So Yesterday would be great for this.

  32. That’s awsome for a whole school being able to do that, and what creative kids!
    I would nominate Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm. Both books are not only powerful but also a delight to read.

  33. Out of your books, I think Peeps would be a good choice (other than Uglies.)

    For other books, probably “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer. Although it seems like girls are the majority of the fanbase. So maybe “Maximum Ride” by James Patterson, because it brings up discussions about genetic experiments and such. That would probably be better for younger students though. For older students, “Brave New World” would work well.

  35. that is the coolest cake i have EVER seen! i want to do that at my school for your book. i love this book!! when i first saw the picture i said “thats from uglies, the chapter fight” and wow i had no idea and i was correct. will you answer my EMAIL scott? i want a reply please, im getting anxious……:)

  36. Scott thats amazing! ur books are so awesome and diff. i love them! and i agree with the giver and the outsiders! i love those books and i read them both in school haha

  37. Wow, great minds absolutely think alike. I would nominate The Giver and The Oustiders also. Last year, my 7th grade Pre-AP English class read The Outsiders and I thought it was so great, I gave it to a bunch of my friends for their birthdays. My story for The Giver: I read it in the 3rd grade but didn’t really get it. I re-read it in the 5th grade and loved it so much, I recommend it to anyone who reads anytypes of books. By the way, the cake is completely gorgeous.

  38. Wow. Almost all of you have read The Giver. I have not. And probably won’t (eek, don’t yell at me!).
    My newest ideas are
    Touching Spirit Bear — Ben Mikaelsen
    Hoot — Carl Hiaasen
    Especially Touching Spirit Bear, that book is REALLY good. And books about owls are always good for ornithology obsessed poeples (like me)(and Hoot is also good for pancake obsessed peoples, if you know what I mean).

  39. “twilight” and “new moon” by stephenie meyers rocks! also all of your book. many girls @ my school read most of your book and “twilight”/”new moon.”

  40. WOW! First, congrats Scott!

    Second, to everyone else :: Wow, you guys rock! So many of these books I would suggest too..Speak, Abarat, Wooding books…

    My choices:
    -Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury ((or The Illustrated Man))

  42. That cake! It has to be my fantasy come true; my two addiction -books and food- as one. I want two of those. One to keep and one to eat. (Actually, while I’m at it, make it five with only one to keep).
    That is one cool school.
    Books I want for my school:
    Fearless by Francine Pascal (so people will accept us freaks better)
    Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (so everybody would be exciting, frustrating loons)
    Flowers In The Attic by VC Andrews (so everybody would be creepy, twisted loons)
    Harry Potter by JK Rowling
    Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger
    and of course; Uglies by you (go Scott, go Scott)

  43. i would feel bad if i ate that cake! it is so nice and probably took a long time ot make! i would request ‘shattered sky’ by Neal Susterman. i love that book. buts its REALLY sci-fi.

  44. I’d say “Speak” and “Catalyst” by Laurie Halse Anderson should be required reading, moreso than some of the crap they make us read that doesn’t pertain to our lives today. But, in a purely fantasy-esqu book, I’d say “Inkheart” and “Inkspell” by Cornelia Funke, as they’re amazing.

  46. I would have to say anything by Ann Rinaldi. She is a great historian writer, which is fun to read. We did the one school one book thing this year, and read the Alchemist. Bleh! I was so jealous when my friend got to read the Uglies. Hm. Not fair! :o)!

  47. Congrats, Scott.

    the books I would choose would be:

    The Book Theif- Markus Zusak
    OR
    I Am The Messenger- Markus Zusak

    and of course… classics like Catcher In The Rye, War Of The Worlds, Fahrenheit 451, etc.

  48. ummmm… i would go with:

    valient and tithe by holly black

    the last night of the earth poems by charles bukowski

    the house of the scorpian by nancy farmer

    all great books that i have read and reread about a bazillion times

  49. Wow. Turns out The Catcher in the Rye is quite popular. Have any of you turned into communists from reading it? I doubt it. Neither did my class.
    Another book I would pick is Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes. That book’s good (I read it yesterday in two sittings). And also The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty. I read that today. I read far far too much for my own good.
    Also, East by Edith Pattou
    Faerie Wars — Nerbie Brennan
    Walk Two Moons — Sharon Creech
    The Sight — David Clement-Davies (donch just love that name?)

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