[21] Blame Canada

Let me get away from the computer screen for a little while.  I'll do something we haven't done in ages, and read a book.

My favorite author from age 8-13 or so was Gordan Korman, author of many books about kids my own age doing wacky and unusual things. About 20 years ago, I decided to start looking up some of his works on the internet, since I had long since given away or misplaced my books (or so I had thought).

Gordon Korman was one of my childhood idols.  He wrote his first book when he was 13 years old, and it was published the next year.  It was the tale of two friends at a Canadian boarding school who were mischievous trouble makers, as we all wanted to be, at least in our imaginations.  I've never met a pre-teen that wanted to be the best model of behavior, and I don't think I'd want to spend any time around them.  They would creep me out, and possibly be a future serial killer.

I grabbed a couple of them online, before used book prices and shipping went out of control, and re-read some of my favorites.  One of them was a tale about a mischievous boy (notice a trend here?) named Rudy Miller, reluctantly forced to go away to summer camp, probably because Mom and Dad really wanted a couple of months without him.  I Want to Go Home tells the tale of a boy that has hidden talents, another trend in Korman's writing.  Underneath his unfriendly and anti-social attitude (which I still identify with to this day), he was the most able camper. If he did do arts & crafts, he would make the best crafts. If he played baseball, he'd be the one hitting the game hitting home run. But he didn't enjoy any of it. His enjoyment came from causing trouble with the counselors.

A review from a school journal of one of his other books will tell you why this book is so good:

"...the book becomes merely outrageous and offensive. In the characterizations, stereotypes and stick figures abound. The hero instigators are flat personalities for all their rushing about... All of the adults, parents, teachers, etc. are well-intentioned incompetents or utter fools.  Most seriously, in the interest of motivating, the story applauds stealing of confidential records, vandalism and physical violence."

Now, why can't adult books be this much fun?

1980s book cover art really hits differently.  (Compare to the cover for the re-release in 2013 on Amazon)

Some of my favorites, that I also got my hands on, include a couple of books that have disappeared from the bibliography on his web site.  These were aimed at a slightly older reader.  One of them is Don't Care High, the story of a high schooler who transfers into a school with so little school spirit, everyone has given up.  Students, teachers, the community.  

Sometime around 5th grade, I wrote Gordon a letter.  I don't remember if it was a school assignment (I had to write a letter to someone famous a couple of years later for school, and that will be a Sierra On-Line story one day).  But he wrote back, or perhaps it was an assistant, who sent me back a letter printed on his personal stationary with a dot-matrix printer, but his signature at the bottom.  It might be buried somewhere in my childhood home; it's amazing some of the things I thought were lost forever.

And, in a plot twist -- it seems that a movie was made of that first book a few years ago.  I'll be needing to track this down, of course.

Even though it would take me barely an hour to read some of these books now (if that), I have no shame with the idea of curling up with a good book and reliving my childhood, with a cup of hot chocolate in front of the fireplace.

If only I had a fireplace.