# Our Town

**Author:** Thornton Wilder
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 1938
**Page count:** 208
**Genre:** Drama
**ISBN-13:** `9780060535247`
**ISBN-10:** `0060535245`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/our-town
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play uses a bare stage and a guiding Stage Manager to follow ordinary life, love, and death in the small town of Grover's Corners. Its third act, viewed from the cemetery, presses the audience to notice how little of everyday life people truly perceive. A frequent grades 9-12 text for studying American theater and theme of mortality.

## Themes

- everyday life
- mortality
- memory
- community

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit drama representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)
- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit drama representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

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