On March 7th, 2025 author Lance Rubin came to speak about one of his books, “Denton Little’s Deathdate”, which many students in the 11th and 12th grade read. This is a book based on, believe it or not, the idea of death.
Lance Rubin at the moment is a full-time author but he used to be an actor. It turns out that the origin of Denton Little’s Deathdate was a film that Rubin wanted to create himself.
“Originally my story was a short film idea I had,” said Rubin. “About a person who knew of their death date and had lived past the date.”
Of course the short film never happened, but Lance Rubin kept this short film in mind when he started writing Denton Little’s Deathdate, aiming for the idea of living past the unexpected.
During the visit, students were then able to share their own questions and thoughts on the book. For example, the moral of his book: the role that death has on our lives.
When asked a question about death he said, “Death and mortality influences life.” After writing his book, he thought about death in a very different way.
“Imagine knowing when you die.” said Rubin. “Would you want to know your death date?”
Students wanted to dig deeper, connecting the story to other pieces of media such as a book called “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera which also has to do with this theme of death. When asked what other stories or pieces of media he found to be a huge influence, he named “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. But with the fun of the story came the bad.
The main character Denton in the story is hated by a couple of students; when this was brought up to Rubin, he had an answer that was pretty understandable.
“I’m not writing the book to be like, oh he helps everyone and everyone likes him.” said Rubin. “It’s so everyone starts thinking and asking questions about his actions and what they would do in his shoes and situation. That’s the best kind of reading when it has you thinking of what you would do in this scenario. What would I do better?”
After the visit students were asked their thoughts on the author as well as what were their feelings on the book itself.
When asked his thoughts on the author visit, Justin Juarez ’26 said, “It was great. The way he interacted with people was nice! He wasn’t shy at all and he seemed very happy to be here.”
When asked if they enjoyed the book, Silva Quezada ’25 responded with “The book is a 6/10, I didn’t really like the book at first but it gets good at the end! However the sexual themes felt unnecessary.”
“Denton Little’s Deathdate” was awarded the HS223 book of the year and Rubin was told of this during the presentation.
This is the second visit by an author to the high school this year from the non-profit Meet the Authors. Rubin joins Don P. Hooper who came to discuss his book “True True” with students. “True True” was HS223’s community read over the summer.
