Confessions of a Serial Book Report Criminal

I gave the same book report for three consecutive years without ever reading the book in question. My sins ultimately led to a great life lesson in the hallowed halls of CCS, one I used hundreds of times myself as a teacher, a lesson both academic and moral, perhaps the most important kind. I can thank two great Cambridge educators for the learning, Mary Lee Weeks and Richard Burdsall, librarian and English teacher, respectively.

I’m not sure when I became aware, but at some point in time it grew obvious that teachers were pretty busy people. I saw this not just at school but also on the home front. When mom came home after a day with her Greenwich fifth graders, she collapsed into the couch for a 45-minute nap, and woe to anyone who tried to interrupt it. I also observed that while teachers gave lots of homework, it was often difficult to scrutinize every bit of it for actual compliance, one of the most difficult, then and now, the requirement to read widely beyond schoolhouse doors. I should stress for all, especially parents, that there is no other skill more essential to acquiring a solid education as reading, something mostly developed and enhanced in later years by simple and intense practice.

The problem with mandates for outside reading comes in monitoring the actual process, one most common method being the tried and often untrue book report. Cliff Notes and/or a literate girlfriend were most common escape hatches for dodging reading assignments in my time as a student, the Internet now king in that regard, but also, most fortunately, pretty good as a utility to catch scammers like me today. While the reading crime I will now unfold is no longer possible due to computerized data, book report criminals will never go away except under the watchful eye of a darn good sheriff, and Sheriff Burdsall had me on his wanted poster.

Back in the olden days, this being some time in 1970-71 school year when I was a deviant junior more interested in ways of avoiding work than doing it, the lack of quick and easy on-line verification allowed for much deception. I also spent one period of each day in the library as an assistant to Mrs. Weeks, CCS librarian at the time and also an adult I knew very well and really liked, the mother of close friend, Jeff Woodward. Mrs. Weeks taught me many things beyond book shelving, one most important lesson about what happens when a friend’s trust is violated.

As for the academic lesson, this duty fell on Mr. Burdsall’s shoulders. I’m not sure how many books Mr. Burdsall required for outside reading, but it was my first one for his class that started the ball rolling downhill. Had I kept my big mouth shut, I would have been OK, but this was a lesson that took me years to learn, and some would say it’s one I’ve yet to master.

Anyway, as per previous policy, I presented my bogus oral book report to Mr. Burdsall and the rest of the class one morning and was mildly disappointed upon only receiving a “B,” because the two previous years I gave the same phony report it resulted in solid A’s. Being able to lie like a politician and continue spewing nonsense for far longer than a lot of my peers usually meant something like an oral report was a breeze for me. My F’s almost always came in math, which I never did figure out how to fake. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one views this ultimately, I decided to brag loudly in the cafeteria after class about how easily I fooled “old Mr. Burdsall” while also celebrating my trifecta book report dodge. I had one more year to go and vowed to continue my streak for a complete high school sweep.

One of the great things about small towns and the small schools serving them is that we all get to know each other fairly well. This is great in times of need and strife, but can come back to haunt those who kiss and tell. There were very few true secrets at school and it never took long, in most cases, for a stunt like mine to backfire on the perpetrator.

A couple of days after my report Mr. Burdsall asked me to hang around after class and then delivered this message: “Mike, just so we understand each other, I am going to require that your next book report be on a book from our school library. If it’s not one I’m very familiar with, I intend to review the book before issuing a grade, and also plan to ask you some very specific questions to be sure you really did your assignment.” Check and checkmate.

Initially, I felt trapped in a “Leave it to Beaver” episode with me as the Beave, but then the spirit of Eddie Haskell spoke to me in earnest. “You can beat this, kid. I have a foolproof plan.”

As just explained, I volunteered in the library during study hall and the position had lots of advantages. Not only did I have a very good understanding of the Dewy Decimal System and card catalog, thanks to Mrs. Weeks, I also had access to all the right ingredients and tools. I even knew how to create a fictional Library of Congress number.

I decided to invent a book taken from an old elementary school joke, “Up the Yellow River by U.P. Daily.” I just couldn’t resist the title, but was at least smart enough to make up a different author, certain the whole package wouldn’t fly using the original joke as much as I wanted it to work as written. I don’t remember what author I concocted, but do recall, just for additional credibility, finding out there really was a Yellow River in China. Actually, I wound up doing a lot of research about the Yellow River to cover my tracks and pad my report. Adding the two weeks I got in detention later, the combined amount of invested time would have allowed me to read three books for real, but this did not appeal to my sensibilities at the time.

To concoct the perfect book report crime, I created all the evidence needed to prove the book’s existence. Using the library resources I had access to I made a subject, author, and title card. I then placed my forgeries where they needed to go. Next, I used the forms Mrs. Weeks used when each book was checked out and returned. I don’t recall precisely how that went but do recall I managed to leave some sort of paper trail making it appear I cheeked out and retuned “Up the Yellow River,” a book that for some reason was no longer on the shelves.

As promised, after my showcase book report, Mr. Burdsall promptly hit the library and then the blank wall I planned for him. The mystery whirled for several days while I delighted in my excellent scam. Like a lot of kids my age, I strongly identified with certain movie stars and had long decided I most wanted to be like James Garner in “The Great Escape,” at the time viewing school in general as a prison camp where it was my sworn duty to confound and confuse the “enemy.”  What I failed to perceive as I executed my deception was that one supposed “enemy” was in realty a person I truly admired and respected, Mrs. Weeks, and through my deception would wound by taking unfair advantage of her trust.

This might be hard to believe for people who have not spent a lot of time with teenage boys, but my ignorance is very typical blindness for this age and gender. I truly had not, even for a fraction of a second, thought about how Mrs. Weeks would feel, and had this been brought to my attention before the crime, it would have changed my behavior. I know this as I applied the “this is who you’ll hurt” technique more times than I can ever recall with wayward teens and the approach was extremely effective. I also learned, that no matter what the perceived benefit, betraying a good person’s trust and confidence was not only wrong, but also almost always resulted in a most painful loss. I never forgot the hurt I saw in Mrs. Weeks’ eyes the first time we met after the Yellow River incident was public knowledge, and my guilt forged a most valuable life lesson, one that can only be taught by the truly caring like Mrs. Weeks, and for that matter, Mr. Burdsall who was also a really good person we all liked.

Being the person she was, Mrs. Weeks soon forgave me and I was most grateful, but still very much aware of what I’d done and truly remorseful. On the whole, it’s the sort of extremely valuable lesson seldom found in any textbook and also partly why I oppose home schooling as the social contact with many others is often more valuable than most formal course content.

As for the second lesson, I annually told my book report crime story to every class I taught upon assigning outside reading for the first time, making it very clear I was a former book report criminal of great skill and experience and most difficult to fool in the heat of battle. I also told of how I hurt Mrs. Weeks and Mr. Burdsall, why I still regretted it, and how disappointed I’d be if someone tried the same with me.

The payoff came with a lot of books actually read by kids who normally wouldn’t comply because they’d learned the same tricks I had and even more modern ones. I still keep a folder of notes I received over the years as a teacher, scraps of paper that touched my heart in various ways. One came from a senior who wrote, “Mr. Brown, you might not believe this but this is the first time I ever read a whole book for any class.”

I’ll always remember and deeply appreciate Mr. Burdsall and Mrs. Weeks for so many direct and indirect lessons that books can’t quite teach, even if we read them!