Summer Reading

Summer reading has taken its toll on me.  There is always about ten times more work to do in the summer than the rest of the year.  And it annoys me that we bribe kids to read with toys and candy and stickers and what not.  Come on people, when I was your age, I looked forward to summer reading because I like to read!  Not because I wanted to win prizes!  This was months of free time for reading without school getting in the way!  Anyway, the extreme workload makes me very tired and cranky and this is why I've been out of commission for a while now. 

However, I have more fun stories to tell.

Here is one of them.

Talking to kids is usually the greatest thing ever, because the ones who aren't shy are so uninhibited, they'll tell you all kinds of stuff you didn't want to know.

This kid was in a few weeks ago, and he was kind of talking to himself, but in a way that I could tell he wanted me to overhear.  He kept saying "Oh, man, I have to get this out for my sister!  She'll have to read it!"  He then explained to me that if he gives her a book, she is compelled to read it, even if she thinks it looks stupid.  So he will purposely pick out things that he knows she doesn't like, just so she is forced to read it through her own compulsions.  How deliciously evil.  I like this kid already.

Then he told me how she gets really into books and will throw fits if something happens in the book that she doesn't like.  At this point, I thought, "I kind of want to meet this girl!  She sounds like she might be slightly insane, and I like that!"  He then went on to explain to me that when one of her favorite characters got killed off in a series that she was reading, she got so mad she threw the book just as he was walking in the room and it hit him in the head so hard that it knocked him out.  He seems like the type to exaggerate and/or make things up, but I decided to believe this story simply because it was too good not to.  I said "Wow, she must really be into those books."
"Yeah, she always reacts that way when she's reading stuff."
"Has she ever done anything more extreme than throw a book at you?"
He thought about it for a bit and then said "Does locking herself in her room and crying for six hours count as more extreme?"

Heck yeah it does!  I can't wait to meet this girl.