This afternoon I was browsing through Amazon on line to purchase a book my daughter plans to read this summer and I want to read it too so we can have our own private book club. It also serves another purpose because I can’t have her gaining any knowledge over me. (That just would not be fitting considering I seem to be getting dumber by the day. I need to keep up!) I should mention that this is no light reading that she is attending a week of a college summer course work and the book she has been assigned to read (prior to her attending) is Phaedrus, and the author is Plato.
This change in her summer reading list is very welcome because the last three years she has been assigned 4-6 books on very depressing subjects such as mental health & suicide, ethnic cleansing, and the plight of woman around the world. This is her school’s attempt to educate the student populace about the human condition and moral ethics. And while I really do appreciate that goal… one or two key books would be enough... a reader would be educated.. but after 6 books well…that reader is downright depressed.
And speaking about being unhappy with summer reading.. we all know our children feel this way. For most kids summer reading is a chore. (Too bad. So sad.) Last year I went out and purchased some classics for my middle school son to read over the summer: Last of Mohicans (nothing like the movie), Treasure Island (the original pirate book), Tom Sawyer (such a clever lad) and Gulliver’s Travels (short and sweet and so much better than the Jack Black movie) and while my son was not pleased I was, because I love, love, love to read. Being able to discuss books and characters with my children (who one day will be so much brighter than their dimming mom)makes my summer.
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