In 1967 it was released as a film starring Sandy Dennis, Patrick Bedford, Ruth White, Jean Stapleton and Eileen Heckart.

Sylvia Barrett, an idealistic English teacher at an inner city high school, hopes to nurture her students' interest in classic literature (especially Chaucer and writing).

The novel is epistolary; aside from opening and closing chapters consisting entirely of dialogue the story is told through memos from the office, fragments of notes dropped in the trash can, essays handed in to be graded, lesson plans, suggestions dropped in the class suggestion box, and most often by inter-classroom notes that are a dialogue between Sylvia and an older teacher.

The letters serve as a recap and summary of key events in the book, and offer a portrait of women's roles and responsibilities in American society in the mid-1960s.

An inter-classroom note in which the older teacher, Bea Schachter, is translating the jargon of the memos from the office includes the memorable epigram "'Let it be a challenge to you' means you're stuck with it."