100 pages 3 hours read

Fredrik Backman

Beartown

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016

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Introduction

Beartown

  • Genre: Fiction; contemporary
  • Originally Published: 2016
  • Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 840L; grades 11-12; college/adult
  • Structure/Length: 50 chapters; approx. 432 pages; approx. 13 hours, 11 minutes on audio
  • Protagonist and Central Conflict: In a story told from the perspectives of multiple characters, teenager Kevin Erdahl is a star hockey player in a small town where hockey is everything. After he rapes a girl, Maya Andersson, at a party, bitter divisions arise in the community in response to the crime.
  • Potential Sensitivity Issues: Rape; threatened gun violence; suicide and suicidal ideology; substance use; post-traumatic stress disorder

Fredrik Backman, Author

  • Bio: Born in 1981 and raised in Helsingborg, Scania, Sweden; a journalist, novelist, and nonfiction writer; lives in Stockholm with his family; works published in 40 countries; Beartown adapted as a TV series on HBO
  • Other Works: A Man Called Ove (2014); My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (2015); And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (2016); The Deal of a Lifetime (2017); Anxious People (2020)
  • Awards: Goodreads Choice Award (shortlisted; 2017); Book of the Year Award Sweden (shortlisted; 2017); Audie Awards for Fiction (audiobook finalist; 2018); International Dublin Literary Award (longlisted; 2019)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

  • Secrets and Shame
  • Grief
  • Hockey, Hope, and Obsession