April 2008 Dear Bookseller,

I am delighted to introduce Schooled, a sparkling debut novel that is destined to be this year’s summer read.

Based on the author’s experiences, this addictive novel will do for the tutoring industry what The Devil Wears Prada did for fashion. Insightful, biting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Schooled is told by the only person who could truly tell it: a teacher who became a tutor.

Enjoy! I hope you agree that this charming debut definitely deserves an A+.

Best,
Ellen Archer
President and Publisher, Hyperion Books


“ If you count yourself among those who eagerly await the second season of Gossip Girl, Anisha Lakhani's debut novel Schooled might be just the thing to tide you over, as it takes yet another peek into the gilded lives of Manhattan's über-rich. Coming from the same family tree as The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries,Schooled is about recent Ivy League graduate Anna Taggert, who lands her dream job teaching at Langdon Hall School, an oh-so-exclusive Upper East Side private school (Ms. Lakhani taught English at Dalton). Anna is disturbed to find out that the majority of her students get by through the use of expensive private tutors—who basically do the work for them—until she's lured into taking advantage of the lucrative benefits herself. The plot will be familiar to anyone who has sampled the assistant-to-the-wealthy oeuvre; and much like its predecessors, Schooled's writing is breezy and fun, with winking references to fashion labels and N.Y.C. hot spots sprinkled generously throughout. ”
—Sara Vilkomerson, The New York Observer 


“ I stayed up way past midnight, alternately laughing and cringing as I made plans to go and blow some money on designer clothes with all the money I'd save by home schooling my children. ”
—Paulina Porizkova, author of A Model Summer and judge, America's Next Top Model


“ By turns dishy, delightful, and hilarious, Anisha Lakhani’s debut novel is also a biting teach and tell. Required reading! ”
—Claire Cook, author of Summer Blowout, Life’s a Beach and Must Love Dogs


“ From the exclusive upper Eastside world of Chanel bags and Juicy Couture, Anisha Lakhani has captured the idiom, rituals and taboos of the society first-year teacher Anna Taggert encounters at a Manhattan private school. Part Margaret Mead, part Tina Fey, the author of Schooled provides a knowing, insightful, witty and delightful window into the aggressively successful families of her charges and provides a lesson on how to survive them. Besides all that, this book is fun to read. An entertaining, wickedly observant debut. ”
—Diana Meehan, LA Times bestselling author of Learning Like a Girl: Educating Our Daughters in Schools of Their Own and co-founder of The Archer School For Girls


“ Utterly terrifying and delicious. I inhaled this novel in hours. ”
—Jane Green, author of The Beach House and Jemima J.


“ Lakhani paints a darkly comic picture of what a five-figure tuition bill really gets you at an elite Manhattan private school. The former Dalton English teacher knows the territory, and it is bleak. Here's Anna, a newbie teacher with Ivy credentials whose passion for the low-paying teaching profession is cause for celebration at the upper-crust Langdon school, where as the exotic-looking newcomer, she is mistakenly identified as a coveted minority hire. With low pay and even lower expectations from teachers and parents, Anna realizes there's no way she can survive—until she learns about lucrative after-school tutoring gigs. And just like that, Anna's ideals go out the window. In a hilarious out-of-control spiral into obsession with all-things designer, expensive and showy, Anna transforms into someone who believes money can buy everything and everyone. There is redemption, of course, in the form of a teacher who bucks the system, and Anna discovers some of her students are pretty wonderful… the romp through an unsettling, soulless world of adults and children who'd rather coast through life than live it provides plenty of laughs. ”
—Publisher’s Weekly


“ This book is great fun, a delicious look inside the windows of upscale Manhattan's private-school culture.”
—Michael Potemra, Literary Editor, National Review


“ We just knew those spoiled brats from The Nanny Diaries would need to be coddled through homework and term papers. Lakhani, a onetime New York City private school teacher and tutor, picks up where the Nanny authors left off with Schooled, a fast-moving, gossipy take on teaching, tutoring and cheating in the city's private schools.
Columbia-educated teacher Anna Taggert, 22, starts her career broke and idealistic. Lured into the lucrative world of tutoring, she discovers that one earns respect by wearing Juicy Couture, attending bar, bat and faux mitzvahs and assigning homework that students' tutors can do for them.
Lakhani gets high marks for keeping Anna sympathetic even in the throes of greed; she's a fine writer who keeps the story moving with absurd situations, telling details on prepster bling and real emotion. Sometimes the novel suffers from the pious whine that afflicts too many New York tell-alls, but in the current crop of city-girl chick lit, Schooled easily finds its way to the head of the class. ”
—Hannah Sampson, The Miami Herald