FoxTrot by Bill Amend for August 25, 2013

We didn’t have “summer reading” when I was growing up. It looks like our school system is becoming more Draconian and evil every day… just like the rest of our government.

One way to tell if you’re dreaming – try to read something. For some reason it’s not possible to read more than a couple of words in a dream. I wonder if writers have the same trouble though?

Night-Gaunt49 – I remember that episode very well, with the letters melting off the page.

That’s funny: I can usually get at least a full sentence or two when I am read-dreaming or dream-reading, whatever you prefer to call it. I’ve gotten some of my best lines of dialogue or scene/character descriptors. Usually I am reading what I will have already written, although technically I have not written it yet. My subconscious is clueing me in on what I should/will write at that day’s session (I recognize my own handwriting) so immediate on waking, those words go right into the creativity journal that is always next to the bed. Three pens just in case I drop one. Glasses are last on the list, and I keep the journal clipped to an open page – really amusing to see how I have written without turning on the lights, words all per the page, although I have become much better at this with practice.

Summer reading hadn’t been invented when I was in school, and I’ve never understood how it works. You’re in a different grade, different class, maybe a different school, you have a different teacher — how can an assignment follow you? There’s no school during summer break, so you can’t be forced to do school work. Anyway, there’s plenty of time during the school year for kids to read all the books they need.

I never had an academic summer reading program, but one summer when I was in high school I did do some reading for a teacher. She was a huge fan of Harlequin romances. I told her how I thought they were stupid and dull (we often chatted). She asked me if I had actually READ one; I said no. She dared me to read just a few over the summer, come back in the fall and tell her what I thought. My mother did side work for a consignment shop, and just happened to have a whole box of HRs, so I asked to borrow them before she brought them to the store. I read the first one, and it wasn’t too bad. Then I read the second; it was essentially the same thing. Third, fourth, fifth…ditto Come fall, the teacher asked if I did what she suggested. My answer: “Yes I did: they are STILL stupid and dull!” I really liked that teacher.

I always enjoyed a summer reading program because I enjoy to read. However, it was usually set up by the local library and was not mandatory.

Required summer reading is the worst. For those who a confused by the concept:Whatever program you sign up for (regular or AP English), all the teachers who teach that program and your school, and sometimes even in the district, are required to require that book for summer reading. So your old teacher tells you before school gets out and there are various places online where you can find out what book to red as well. You buy it in June, read it in August, and usually the first week of school your class does something related to the book. But the books are always “literary” and next to impossible to read. And 80% of the time they’re about discrimination and racial segregation. It’s not fun.

Being a rabid reader, even in grade school, I never needed a summer reading program. At 9 or 10 I was a regular at the libraries. By my late teens I belonged to two or three book-of-month clubs.

Why is she in school already? School starts on September 3. Is this a dream?

I don’t think you’re dreaming, Paige…

My school district didn’t, and still doesn’t, do any sort of summer reading. Never really understood how that was a smart idea for the teachers anyway, assigning reading over the summer break…

Bleh…I didn’t like “Animal Farm,” even if it wasn’t a hard read.

Wake up, Paige, it’s real life!

She wouldn’t have gotten “Animal Farm” if she had read it. “OOOHHH! Talking animals.” would have been the extent of her comprehension. Do they even teach about the Communist takeover of Russia in school anymore?

poor poor paige

That’s still the best Batman series that has ever existed so far.

We had summer reading but we had like 5 or 6 books we could choose from

WOW – It’ s a cartoon not a way of life – get over youselves

Lots of Charlie Brown strips about the assigned reading over Christmas vacation. There’s a classic one about CB having to read “Gulliver’s Travels” and finishing the book report at three in the morning before the first day back at at school. Charles Schulz said this was based on actual assignments, which he detested.

I got both comlete series on dvd^^

Don’t worry, This is probably one of Jason’s dreams

I actually can normally figure out if I’m in a dream, i just never remember to look till after I wake up.

What? In my school district banning books (which seems to be what you’re suggesting) was abhorred. I remember being rather traumatized by Animal Farm when I was 10, but there’s nothing wrong with high schoolers reading it and much to be learned from it. (Note: I never actually was assigned it, I’m just saying that there are certainly high schools out there that would, at any rate, allow it.)

Nice reference! Good episode :D

Could somebody tell me what website you can read every foxtrot comic strip at?

“Batman: the Animated Series”, excellent program. One of the best shows of the 90s.