Martha Franks’ Books without Borders: Homer, Aeschylus, Galileo, Melville and Madison Go to China is an account, a vivid narrative, of education actually taking place in the classroom day by day, month by month. Ms. Franks steadfastly and unpretentiously brings to her students a form of education directed not at passing standardized tests but at considering timeless questions such as, “What is the best life?”; “Does human suffering have any meaning?”; “What is justice and how can it be realized?” At the same time, Ms. Franks portrays her own education through her reading of Chinese classics and travels to sites such as the Forbidden City, the Palace of Heaven, the Great Wall, and the Lecture Hall and Grave of Confucius.