From: Isaacs <isaacs>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 20:54:03 -0400 (EDT)

A copy of Brian's Winter is making the rounds of my eighth grade English class. Were you to ask them they would quickly explain that they are far too mature to read these books, it is only that their English teacher requires them to read SO MANY that they are reduced to "children's books"
(their vision) Most of them read Hatchet, either as part of a school book reading game in the past two years or (or again) as part of a suggested summer reading list. They found it too unbelievable and too predictable. This did not keep them from clamoring to be the next to read Brian's Winter and badgering the person who had the book to finish it quickly. They have, universally, found Brian's Winter to be, simultaneously, too unbelievable and too predictable anda good adventure.

They do not know that I agree - and think that perhaps those same pat solutions that make you say "oh come on" to the author, make a wonderfully satisfying read, a la Swiss Family Robinson, the exemplar.

Kathy Isaacs isaacs at midget.towson.edu Edmund Burke School Washington, DC
Received on Wed 02 Oct 1996 07:54:03 PM CDT