Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 27, 2024

Diabolical would be if there was no English translation of those assigned books.

Diabolical = cutting your own willow switch.

It’s an obvious solution of sorts. Because the point is for the kids to actually read. Of course, some of the kids will read Little Golden Books and some will read Richard Scary… and some will read Westerns or some other historical fiction… or murder mysteries… or watch the Harry Potter movies and CLAIM the books…

It will make Caufield go to the library a lot more(he probably has to do chores and there’s Summer Squirt Baseball)!

Here’s an idea, have every kid write down a book that they recommend and the randomly swap the papers.

Diabolical humor?

Students who have a strong reading list of their own also have an out for summer chores and boring stuff. For others, who might not be as studious, and who prefer a freer summer, devising and reading the list will be a last minute exercise in futility.

Also wonder how Mrs. Olsen will be able to work those books into the report schedule. Unless she asks for a reading list from each student, how will she know which to assign.

Guess she could ask for a report on ‘the best book you read this summer,’ and its opposite number: the worst. That would cover 2 reports. After that . . . ? H-m-m-m-m

He probably also already knows Mephistophelian.

I did the swapping thing a couple of weeks ago. A couple of ladies stopped by my apartment and gave me a copy of the “Book of Mormon.” I returned the favor by giving them my copy of the “Bhagavad Gita.” I may have done them a disservice. When one is confined to a very narrow house, having someone else open a window and show you that there is another whole world out there can be a problem.

I would have LOVED this!

And what doesn’t Caulfield like about this?

I thought that his #1 complaint was the desire to choose his own summer reading list, or up there.

For centuries, quite a few European nations used to start their year on the March equinox — nine months before the birth of Jesus. Venice, for example, kept that form of dating up into the eighteenth century. You can still see it written sometimes — modo venexiano “in the Venetian way”