Teaching is a difficult profession, especially when it involves the arts. These 5 novels showcase the complex relationships between mentors and students.

1. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

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“As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and to the truth as you see it.”—Jacob Kahn to Asher Lev

2. Finding Forrester by James Ellison

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“William Forrester, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who has not been heard from for four decades, accidentally discovers that Jamal, a brash 16-year-old African American who plays basketball on the court below his window, keeps a secret journal that shows a real gift for writing. Forrester takes Jamal on as a protégé, and the friendship challenges and changes the two of them forever.”

3. A Mentor and Her Muse by Susan Sage

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“A frustrated writer and her ambitious teenage protégé take an illicit summer road trip fraught with racial and sexual tension. This is a compelling psychological novel about social norms, artistic ambition, and obsession.”

4. Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum

“Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to “make your lives extraordinary! Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society–a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. As Keating turns the boys on to the great words of Byron, Shelley, and Keats, they discover not only the beauty of language, but the importance of making each moment count.”

5. The Mentor by Sebastian Stuart

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“Twenty-five years ago Charles Davis’s first novel made him a literary legend. But with his recent work savaged by reviewers, Charles has been paralyzed by self-doubt. Then fate hands him an unexpected muse. Emma Bowles is the young assistant Charles’s wife, Anne, hires to bring order to his pressured existence. Where Anne is sleek and elegant, Emma is awkward and self-effacing. But Charles glimpses the intriguing mysteries beneath her small-town demeanor. Soon he is obsessed with Emma, with understanding her, controlling her. By the time Anne realizes she wants this disturbing young woman out of their lives, it’s too late. All three are trapped in their own deceptions, and only a savage, shocking act can free them.”

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