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Read City Kid (1981)

City Kid (1981)

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Rating
4 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0316541869 (ISBN13: 9780316541862)
Language
English
Publisher
little brown and company

City Kid (1981) - Plot & Excerpts

DNFAt 50 pages I'd had enough. The author irritated me so much!This book should have been titled Mary Knows Best.Mary MacCracken is a woman in her forties who goes back to school to get her teaching degree and certification when the school where she's been teaching emotionally disturbed children for the past six years becomes state approved. I quickly tired of Mary's moaning about the fact that she has to return to school to get a degree, and about the courses she needs to take. She makes it plain that she thinks these courses are a waste of her time. Of course. Mary knows best. While still at school Mary gets the opportunity to be part of a Mental Health Clinic grant to put “therapeutic tutors” into one of the schools in Falls City. She does the necessary training and is taken to the school to meet her first child, Luke, whom she will see three times a week, for fifty minutes. Luke is "hard core. He’s "got a list of arrests as long as your arm. Been picked up twenty-four times. He’s set over a dozen major fires, stolen over fifty dollars’ worth of goods from the stores on Main Street." And he's a truant, with over one hundred absences in two and a half years.So...during her first 50 minute session Mary takes Luke out of the classroom, which she isn't supposed to do. But she couldn’t stand "to waste the time." Huh? What? But, Mary knows best.Then, after her first 50 minute session with Luke, Mary speaks to her husband that night and tells him she doesn’t understand it. Luke just didn’t seem that bad to her. Huh? What? Does she think the police made up all those arrests?The next afternoon, Tuesday, sees our Mary heading back to the school, despite the fact that her next visit isn't supposed to be until Wednesday. But, Mary knows best. She goes through Luke's file and sees for herself the evidence of all the arrests, fires, thefts and truancies...but..."the mismatch between this file and Luke of yesterday was the hardest to understand." Really? So what was she expecting? That he'd set fire to school and steal her handbag? She's been told that Luke isn't a problem at school. He's quiet and keeps pretty much to himself. But then again, maybe she wasn't listening. After all, Mary knows best.At that point I waved the white flag and called "uncle"...I was done with Mary knowing best. This author was compared to Torey Hayden in some of the reviews, so I should have known better! *headbang headbang*

What do You think about City Kid (1981)?

Decent story, if at times unbelievable, about a 7-year-old delinquent and the teacher who reaches him. Mary is a 40-something former special education aide who went back to school to get a teaching degree, and while there, she became involved in a program that provided one-on-one guidance to kids who were on the verge of slipping through the cracks. Luke is a second grader whose mom is perpetually ill and whose father is out of the picture, so he spends his time taking care of his younger siblings and getting into trouble. This was in the same vein as some of Torey Hayden's books, although not nearly as good. Torey doesn't mind showing us her flaws and her guesswork; Mary would have us believe that she's actually Mary Poppins sans umbrella. Mary spent a good deal of the book bemoaning the fact that she had to go to COLLEGE to get a DEGREE in order to become a teacher, which was completely unfair to her because she was naturally just fabulous with kids and knew instinctively what to do at all times. And, according to her, every last one of her classes was a complete waste of time, she learned nothing, and she didn't even attend graduation because it was all so pointless. I happen to be a fan of teachers having degrees, and I really couldn't see where she was coming from.But the kid in the story was sweet, and it was encouraging to see him grow and become less rebellious. There were moments that made me wonder exactly how real this "non-fiction" book was; Luke gets held back a grade one year because of poor academic performance, but he becomes such a well-behaved and smart kid that the Powers That Be, without any prompting or special work, actually let him skip a grade the next year. I suppose it could happen, but I kind of doubt it. The comparison to Torey Hayden's books is inevitable, but while Torey includes work from her kids in her books and has a "where are they now" section on her website, MacCracken's characters come off as a little unbelievable. Perhaps Luke was a composite of several kids she had worked with--that would make more sense.The book did provoke an emotional response, and it made me want to volunteer at an elementary school. It's clear that so many kids out there would benefit from an adult just showing up to have lunch with them one day a week.
—Heidi

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