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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
The teaching profession's loss is the reading public's gain, entirely. [15 Sep 2005, p. 1014]
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Phillip Lopate
An enthralling work of autobiographical storytelling. [11 Nov 2005]
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
McCourt's many fans will of course love this book, but it also should be mandatory reading for every teacher in America. [12 Sep 2005, p. 60]
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Outstanding
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The New York Times Book Review Ben Yagoda
"Teacher Man" is an irresistible valedictory, about a man finding his voice in the classroom, on the page and in his soul.
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Favorable
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USA Today Bob Minzesheimer
The last 50 pages of Frank McCourt's third memoir... is as good as writing gets about teaching and learning and finding yourself through writing.
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Favorable
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Wall Street Journal Roger Kaplan
Readers of Mr. McCourt's best-selling pair of memoirs--"Angela's Ashes" (1996) and "'Tis" (1999)--will notice in "Teacher Man" the same wry wit that characterized those books, and the same melancholy recognition of his own foibles.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Ron Charles
McCourt manages to celebrate high school English teaching without disturbing the most pernicious misconception about the profession: that unlike algebra, French, chemistry or history, English is essentially the study of a needy teacher's personality.
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Favorable
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Booklist Brad Hooper
[McCourt's] trademark charm, wit, and unself-conscious self-effacement ensure that the flashbacks of his dreadful days growing up in extreme deprivation in Ireland don't sink the narrative in self-pity. [15 Sep 2005, p. 4]
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Francis Gilbert
There is nothing hugely original about the stories that McCourt tells here. If you had not read Angela's Ashes and Tis then Teacher Man would be unexceptional. But if you have, then the book is transformed.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] James Howden
[McCourt's] internal dialogues are biting, and his comments on education caustic and informed (if slightly repetitive). But his superb ear for the classroom experience is the centre of Teacher Man. [24 Dec 2005, p. D5]
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Favorable
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The Guardian Rebecca Seal
This book is charming, and it relies heavily and successfully on the lilting style and phonetic writing that marked out his last two books. At times McCourt can be a deeply frustrating protagonist, but this is, none the less, a really good read.
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Scott Tobias
McCourt's wise, measured, and blessedly unpretentious new book Teacher Man gives a brisk anecdotal history of his adventures in the teaching profession, from his naive beginnings at a vocational school to his inspired stint at New York's esteemed Stuyvesant High.
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Mixed
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Houston Chronicle Barbara Liss
It is surprising that a book as grounded as this one is in a large city within a specific time frame has no discernible historical context... And though less important but truly annoying, why can't the man use quotation marks in his writing? For an English teacher--even an iconoclastic one--this is a strange decision
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Floyd Skloot
"Teacher Man" seems listless, forced, as his previous two memoirs never did, its sporadic moments of passionate brilliance only reminding the reader of how disengaged the rest of the book seems.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
The quiet desperation of a frustrated man doesn't pull at the heartstrings quite like a hardscrabble Irish childhood, but McCourt makes clear that it was, in its own way, every bit as miserable.
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Mixed
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Christian Science Monitor Teresa Mendez
After so many pages of McCourt's sometimes inexplicable self-loathing, I found myself, begrudgingly, disliking him nearly as much as he seems to have disliked himself.
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Unfavorable
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Boston Globe Brendan Halpin
After two wildly successful memoirs, many readers will buy ''Teacher Man" on the strength of McCourt's name. Those looking for an involving story will be disappointed, as will those hoping for a fresh look at teaching. Even those interested in McCourt as a person will find reading this odd, cranky book a frustrating experience.
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