The Istoriaphile’s Corner

My Friend, Mandy My friend Mandy reads lots of books.  Well, most of my friends like to read but Mandy reads more than most.  And she worries about accidentally embarrassing someone who reads less than she does when she admits how much she reads. She has a good heart that way. But having audited more than my share of competitions about “who reads the most”, I’ve learned to shy away from those conversations. Like Mandy, I think a person’s literacy level can’t be determined by the number of books they’ve read, but I also think that level is based on more than pages and the reading difficulty are involved.  For that, I still turn to Mr K’s A-B-Cs of reading. Mr K was one of my high-school English teachers and one of the more popular instructors in school. Funny, intelligent and a bit daring, he escorted herds of reluctant adolescents through the thickets of 20th Century American Literature and he gave very reasonable tests.  As a matter of fact, the students in his classes got to choose which of his tests they’d take. It was a pretty simple concept.  For every assigned book, Mr K had three essay options, designated “A”, “B” and “C”…