These Teen Vandals Were Sentenced To Read Books. Here’s What They Learned

After the five teenagers spray-painted swastikas and graffiti on a 19th-century schoolhouse for black children, a judge ordered them to read books from a list that included (among others) Elie Wiesel’s Night, 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Did the sentence have the hoped-for effect?