Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Big Sigh of Relief

The kid's got taste.

He can tell good literature from garbage.

His summer reading assignments ranged from The Hound of the Baskervilles (for Honors English) to Joshua (for Religion)--in other words, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two novels by Agatha Christie were "in between."

School starts tomorrow. He finished reading the last of his books, Joshua, tonight. (He's got taste, but he's still a procrastinator).

I've been trying to keep a lid on my own opinion of the book and its themes, until he had read the book and done the report (a basic "list the characters, setting, conflict and resolution" paper). And once I found that all of this had been done, I asked him what he thought of the book.

"It was pretty terrible." (YESSSSSSSSSS!)

"So, what makes you think that?"

"Well, you know, compared to Sherlock Holmes, this book just basically stunk."

"Good. You can feel free to share that opinion if your class discusses the book." I know he'll be able to back it up.

Freshmen in high school can and should be expected to read better than Joshua--better theology and better literature.

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