Summer reading. The two dreaded words that attached themselves to the long-awaited end of the school year. For who wants to spend the summer playing outside Nintendo when you have a list of ten books to read?

We hear that other school districts were more progressive than ours. That kids there read Vonnegut and Heller, Updike and Roth. We were forced to slog through Melville's "Billy Budd" and Thoreau's "Walden" (let us summarize in two words: nothing happens).

But sometimes, the books weren't that terrible. For example, when it turned out that the C in "C. Potok" stood for Chaim and "The Chosen" was a book about Jews in New York City. We have no idea how it got on the reading list in our very Christian school district, yet it did. Maybe this was part of the diversity program?

In any case, that one was good. Even if it took time away from beating Super Mario Bros 3.

Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter"?

Don't get us started.