Crisis Part One: On Monday, the 12-year-old
remembers/discovers (we’re never quite sure with him) that he’s got a massive
packet of papers to complete (for today(!)) on his English class’ recent
reading of S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders.”
Crisis Part Two: We’re pretty sure we own the book. Good
thing, since the teacher won’t let school copies of the book go home in order
to complete this assignment. Except it’s not on the shelf. A quick scouring of
the shelves in the study and the shelves in the kids’ rooms (we could insulate
our house with the paperback books we own) reveals nothing S.E. Hinton-related.
No problem, it’s a perennial favorite at our local thrift stores. So off we go
. . .
Crisis Part Three: It’s not at the Idaho Youth Ranch Thrift
Store. And the other local thrifts are closed. As is the local used book store
(out of business, due to exceptionally high prices). They do have a copy at
Barnes and Noble (inexplicably filed in “New Teen Fiction”). Good news, though:
I find a copy of Theodore White’s “The Making of the President 1960, adding yet
another to my collection of Richard Milhous Nixon-connected books, which causes
much eye-rolling on the part of my wife. I pass up a hardbound biography of
Gerald Ford, however.
Crisis Part Four: The copy Barnes and Noble has is a 50th
Anniversary edition. Of course. Which probably explains why it’s in “New Teen
Fiction,” I suppose. That also explains
why it costs $10; one dollar more than we can buy the ebook. Because the
publishers know this is a perennial favorite among high school English teachers
and why not profit from that?
Crisis Averted: We make an appeal to the Internet and of
course find so many study guides and helps and hints on the book that (as far
as I know) the homework packet is completed and we have enough time to do
dishes and send everyone to bed. Good thing I didn’t need/want an evening.
Confession: I’m pretty sure I’ve never read the book. Nor
have I seen the movie. I know vaguely it’s about gangs, I think, and includes
someone named Ponyboy. Lest ye think me uncultured in the way of must-reads in
high school, I am versed in the works of Robert Cormier. Though I’m not sure
that’s something to brag about.
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