THE REDWOOD COAST Volume 15, Number 4 REVIEW Fall 2013 A Publication of Friends of Coast Community Library in Cooperation with the Independent Coast Observer MEMOIR Crime of Passion Jan Edwards wasn’t born a thief. Sure, in junior high I pocketed the occasional bottle Iof polish from the drugstore, but I didn’t really want it, didn’t even paint my nails. Shoplifting was just a bond- ing ritual. The same way you had to sip some beer or toke off a joint whether you wanted to or not, you had to boost something if everyone else was doing it. It wasn’t optional. You know what I mean. For some girls shoplifting was fun, but not me. I was always terrified of getting caught. I never did it alone and never took things just because I wanted them. I knew not paying was wrong, but I was NUNN PT not really bad. My stealing was social, not antisocial. I could still see myself as a good person on the right side of a fine but clear line. The Bookworm & the Butterfly By high school, a spool of thread or card of buttons would sometimes slip into my purse while the clerk was cutting fab- Is the novel doomed for want of future readers? ric. I figured if I was buying something, taking something of lesser value was only E. G. Willy fair. I knew kids who did much worse, my younger brother for example. I was still an okay person—better than most. y students don’t read introvert with the copy of Kafka displayed the assigned book?” Their responses were But moving out on my own was a fi- books. No surprise there. lovingly on his desk, the jock scholar immediate. It was almost as if they’d nancial shock. With barely enough money Most teenagers don’t with an action adventure, the girl with been waiting to hear this question. I hast- for food it seemed crazy to waste it on read. Any parent of a the perfect posture reading fantasy and ily kept track by making hash marks on a things like toilet paper, especially when teenager can tell you this. romance, the geeky boy with the latest piece of printer paper. The results were rolls were available for free in public MAny teenager can tell you this. They don’t science fiction title. I miss their worried evenly divided. One third said they read restrooms and you could also unscrew a read. They avoid it. Like the driver who faces as they follow their protagonists into the book. One third said they used Cliff’s light bulb if you needed one. Burn’s Drugs sees a lump of something threatening on yet another life-threatening dilemma. I Notes or SparkNotes. One third said they had samples of shampoo sitting right out the highway, they swerve, change lanes, miss their wondrous expressions as they didn’t bother. There were also a few com- on the counter and down the street in the slow down, change course, anything to get enter worlds made only for them. I miss ments like, “Never, ever open the book” lounge at Saks the tampon machine had no out of reading a book. I’m in a particu- their suddenly enlarged vocabularies as and “I just read the cover” and “I read it lock. It wasn’t like I was stealing for kicks larly good position to see this. I am high they experiment with the words they have because I want to know what I’m talking or to get frivolous luxuries. It was a matter school teacher. I’ve been teaching for found in their books. about.” As I have already noted, this is of survival. I swiped the shakers from the twenty-five years now and have wit- Recently I began to wonder what nothing new. We’ve known for years now Chicken Pie Shop because I needed salt. It nessed a disturbing cultural change in my had happened. I had a few clues. As an that students are reading less. There are was my Jean Valjean period. Not exactly classroom. The bookworm is dying out. educator I get a particular insight into the plenty of studies that show we are losing bread for a starving child, but I was eigh- No longer do I catch my wards sneak- teenage mind that few witness. It can be our literacy at an increasing rate. There teen. Cut me some slack. ing a pleasure read in class, their eyes a very scary and invigorating place. You are many reasons for that. But here is Around that time I wiggled my way down, their minds lost in the dream of a can imagine. But I am not a mind reader. what bothers me: these are students from into a performing arts college downtown. wonderful novel. This once daily event I needed more information. I hadn’t one of the top one hundred schools in the My major was acting, but scholarship has turned into a rare spotting. This year I seen any new numbers on declining book nation. And most of those in the two- students had to take a technical minor. saw exactly two, one a young Russian girl readership for several years, so I decided thirds that didn’t read the book are solid A I chose costume design, and as a plus who believes everyone hates her because to ascertain the number of my students and B students. got keys to the laundry room. Of course she is different, the second a junior varsity that didn’t read the book assigned in Eng- students were not supposed to use the baseball player who loves novels from the lish class by asking them. I don’t teach an my numbers be an accurate reflec- costume shop washers for their personal 1970s. I wish I had more bookworms. I English. I teach French. This made my Ction of the American teen reader? laundry, but everyone ignored the sign. I will have fewer next year. task easier. Their grades weren’t going to Ninety-nine percent of my students go certainly wasn’t the only one to take ad- I like my bookworms. They are the be affected by my inquiries. I interviewed on to a four-year university. The other vantage of the free machines. Sometimes closet intellectuals of the class. Maybe sixty-seven students, the population of 1 percent enters a nursing program or an there was even a line. But one particular they don’t test the best (they’re reading two of my classes, freshmen and sopho- automotive tech school. These are not Sunday I had the place all to myself. while I’m explaining), but they are the mores. I simply said, “Look, I’m not your impoverished urban teens or your I’d just put in a load and had time to ones whose tests are the easiest to correct. going to tell your English teacher or any rural poor. They have money. They have kill, so I started thumbing through some Invariably they have the best creative adult. If you don’t want to participate, not money to buy books. They have parents costumes hanging on a repair rack. And writing skills, can answer questions in a problem. I just want you to be candid. who pay for tutors and demand good that’s where I found it. Crammed in be- perfectly metered sentences, can look up Out of curiosity, how many of you read grades. They all read at or above grade tween a torn rehearsal skirt and some ratty from their books and pose questions that level. They all speak perfect English tights was the most fantastic lace blouse. the rest of the class neither understands (the non-English speakers are enrolled in It had this Victorian lady meets flower nor cares to explore. Many times they If you ask my stu- another school in the district). They have child look, and was way too delicate for avoid the question altogether and go in higher test scores than 99.99 percent of a costume, wouldn’t last ten minutes on directions I would never expect. Some dents, you will find the country. Still, only a third reads the stage. So why was it left there? write poems or offer mordant asides. Oth- that many have never assigned book. If this is the case, what is I slid it off the padded hanger and ers use their refined senses to scold me. it like in areas with fewer advantages? Do spread it carefully on the folding table for Most people would say the young scholar read a newspaper. more of them read the book? I can assure close examination. The crazy patchwork should be paying attention in class and not you they don’t. I have visited schools of lace could have been spun by spiders wasting time on other things. Why indeed Some can’t read a in many regions and several countries, on acid. It was so light I could read my should they be throwing away precious standard clock with have compared teaching experiences with palm through it. Mismatched pearl buttons learning time on material not required to hundreds of teachers. There are not more winked from the bodice. Of course I tried further their careers? They need to focus two hands on it. They readers in less-advantaged regions. Young it on. on getting into a “good” college. They adults are taking tests and writing essays And Oh My God! The blouse was need to do well in chemistry and math.