Concerned by what teachers often call the “summer slide,” this spring, after school was canceled when a couple of neighborhood kids showed up at my door looking squander some time, I gave them each a YA novel out of my own library and assigned them book reports.
Just then I was writing one myself—of a new book called Unbelievers, an Emotional History of Doubt for a magazine called Free Inquiry by a prof at Durham University in England. The book turned out to be a fascinating read about the history of people who publicly advertise themselves as atheists. Very dangerous business in the middle ages: Galileo Galilei ended up under house arrest next to the gallows for it.
However, as time went on, it became the kind risqué behavior people committed to getting attention frequently engaged in—like doing drugs or coming out trans these days. I called my review-report Flipping God the Bird across the Ages showed the kids how I made notes without defacing the book and told them to bring reports back in a couple weeks and I would check them.
All summer elapsed and I never saw the kids nor the journals I gave a couple other neighborhood telling them to keep track of their daily activities. My books are gone and so are my journals, but at least I got an A+ for effort this summer. And FI editor loved my review!
