Is the book The Taking of Room 114: A Hostage Drama in Poems by Mel Glenn based on real events?

Question

God Bless!!

Answer 1

Before he retired in 2001, Mel Glenn was a teacher for 31 years in the same high school from which he graduated. All of his books are based on his knowledge of high schools and the students who attend them. The first one was Class Dismissed (1980), a collection of free-verse poems based on a number of "typical" teenagers.

But, no, neither this book nor his other eleven are based on actual people or events. The students whose years of high school are presented with five poems each are "realistic"; they could be found in most any modern high school. But they are fictitious. Hopefully, such an event (a history teacher taking his class hostage) has never really happened, but if it did this might be the way it would come about. At least these are like students you might well find in such a class.

You can find out a lot more about Glenn and his books from his website listed below. Besides Class Dismissed I and II, Back to Class, and My Friend's Got This Problem (all four of which are poems about students in a high school), Foreign Exchange and Who Killed Mr. Chippendale are called "mysteries in poems," and Jump Ball is subtitled "A Basketball Season in Poems."

Answer 2

No idea, sorry. But it sounds so interesting that I'm gonna check it out.