Read With Me 6.0.11

My name is Lisa VanDamme, and I am the founder of VanDamme Academy, a small private school in Southern California. Our primary goal is to provide students with an exceptional education and a joyful learning experience.

The heart of my career lies in teaching literature. Although I do not possess formal expertise in literary scholarship, I do not concern myself with classifying works by "school" or "movement," analyzing historical context, or identifying literary devices. Instead, I have an unwavering passion for great books. The writings of authors such as Hugo, Rostand, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Jane Austen, Maupassant, Rattigan, and Sinclair Lewis have deeply moved me and allowed me to recognize the profound richness of life.

This passion for literature led me to create Read With Me. I encountered numerous individuals—thoughtful, intelligent, and motivated—who avoid reading the classics for various reasons: lack of time, uncertainty about what to read, never learning how to enjoy it, or unpleasant memories from tedious high school English discussions.

If you find yourself feeling intimidated, uninitiated, jaded, disillusioned, or simply too busy for literature, I invite you to read with me. Allow me to demonstrate the transformative power of reading.