#reading contest

Book It!

I read, like many of you, a story about a librarian that told a nine year old that he should drop out of a reading contest because he was dominating it for the previous four years.

Imagine that.

A nine year old in a reading contest.

Will wonders never cease?

I kid, and not very well.  That joke was brought to you by the Underfunded Joke Writer’s of America, whose slogan, if you will believe it, is “we don’t get paid to make this stuff up.”

I’m here all night.

But really folks, a librarian asking a kid not to be in a reading contest?  What’s the world coming to?  Next I bet she’ll gouge out his eyes and skull… wait a minute, that’s the wrong direction for this…

Here’s the real question:  Who thinks that holding a public contest with an open ended result will be without some asshole coming along and ruining it for the rest of us?

From what I read in the article that you can google yourself, the mother demanded an apology for her son being slighted in such a horrific way.  Did I mention the little kid also proclaimed himself “King of the Library?”  

I am still wondering in this hellish Game of Thrones scenario who is the bad guy?  The media is ready to jump on the librarian (one even called her evil) while there’s a little asshole in a Burger King crown with his momma behind him crowing about justice for the library king?

Man, what the hell does this teach the kid?  That reading gets prizes and national attention?  

No offence, but fuck that kid.  And the librarian for making up that contest.  Just give everyone a participation credit and burn the damn building down and salt the earth.  

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/the-fourth-annual-new-york-times-summer-reading-contest/

The phrase “summer reading” tends to conjure two opposing mental images: there’s the stack of relaxingly trashy beach books … but there’s also that list of classics your teacher gave you in June that you ignored until the last week of August.

Our contest, we hope, offers something in the middle.

Here’s how it works: Each week from June 14 to Aug. 16, teenagers 13 to 19 years old are invited to choose any piece in The New York Times they like and write to tell us why it interested them. We will then choose a weekly favorite to feature, just as we have done every summer since 2010.