Why every high school student should read Night by Brittany

Why every high school student should read Night by Brittany - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

It is my opinion that all high school students should read the novel Night by Elie Wiesel before they graduate. This short memoir tells of Wiesel’s personal struggle as a Jew sent to the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. Consisting of a little more than one hundred pages, it is a short but worthwhile read. I chose this book because I read Night in my sophomore year of high school and it completely changed how I viewed the world. I reference the novel on many occasions and have reread it more than once.

Night is a book that grips the soul of its reader and brings them back in time to experience the horrors of the Holocaust. This is not a novel that, like most required reading, is slow and dull for students. Wiesel’s writing style is attention grabbing; I did not want to put the book down and I know that other students will feel the same.

Although students know the facts of the Holocaust, as it is taught in most history classes, the attention to detail is often overlooked. Night gives a chilling first-hand account of the horrors that the Jewish people faced at the hand of the Nazis. The personal thoughts of Wiesel give insight to how the Jewish people reacted to the situation of the concentration camps and how some lost their faith because of it. This novel assists students in coming to understand and appreciate a portion of history better than most textbooks.

The lines between right and wrong are blurred. Huge questions about society are raised that students like myself can ask themselves. “This is not fair,” many of my classmates brought up as we read Night. And it is not; so what do we do about it? Minorities face injustices and genocides are happening every day around the world, even today. The students of today are the politicians, teachers, and business people of tomorrow. Knowing about the past can keep the terrible parts of history from repeating themselves. If every high school student read the memoir Night, then they could be prepared to end similar injustices and prevent another catastrophic event, like the Holocaust, from happening in our world again.

Every student should read Elie Wiesel’s Night because it is a haunting book that will stick in their mind for a lifetime.