Thoughts before reading:
I hope this is better than it sounds.
The basics:
Kristy's English teacher is on maternity leave, and she has a new, young teacher who insists the kids call him Ted. They're studying biographies, and he gives out two assignments: biography and fiction reading. They first have to read a book from a list, then write about what it meant to them. Then they have to write a biography of a classmate. Ted assigns the partners for the biography at random, and Kristy and Cary are both horrified to discover they're partners. They try to tell Ted that there's no way they can work together, but he just seems amused.
Cary and Kristy have no choice but to agree to a truce. Kristy still has a hard time finding out info on Cary though, since he gives her mainly sarcastic answers to her questions. Even when she goes to his house, his little brothers aren't much help. She finds herself looking around his room for inspiration, and snoops by reading a notebook that's open on his desk. It turns out to be a journal, and the page mentions him having been kicked out of his old school. Kristy feels guilty for reading it and doesn't mention anything about it.
Meanwhile, Ted's fallen into trouble for the book list he handed out, because it contains banned books and was never approved by the administration. Some of the parents accuse him of "corrupting the morality" of their kids. He gets suspended, even though most of the students, parents, and other teachers don't agree with that decision. (Elizabeth and Watson are among those who contact the school to help him.)
When Cary comes over to interview Kristy's family, her brothers tell him a bunch of embarrassing stories about her. She gets flustered and blurts out that she knows he got kicked out of his past school. To her surprise, Cary's hurt. Seeing this, she decides he isn't so bad after all, and she now feels really guilty.
Kristy tells her English classmates that they need to step up and help Ted. Everyone agrees that they need to defend freedom of speech, and they plan to attend his school board meeting. She goes with her parents, and there's a lot of other students with their families as well. Many people speak up on his behalf, including Mrs. Kishi and Kristy. It's decided that Ted can return to teaching, pending a final decision.
It later comes out that what Kristy read at Cary's house was a novel he's writing. Now she's the one who's angry, because Cary has tricked her yet again. He tells her (rightly) that she still had no right to read his notebook.
Ted ends up getting his job back.
Kristy throws a Christmas party, with her parents permission, and it becomes something of a BSC reunion too, because Jessi, Mal, Abby, and Shannon all come. She also finally makes up with Cary.
Timeline:
It's December.
Misc. thoughts:
*Nannie loves MTV? That's a new detail. I have no idea what shows they had on during this time, but that's pretty funny.
*I actually like the books about school projects usually, because I liked being assigned creative projects in school. This one was pretty boring though. The series has done censorship and banned books a few times already, so it was a weird plot choice. Did we really need another one, especially with so few books left?
*I wish we got to read the whole book list though, because I was really curious.
*Other assigned partners include Alan and Cokie, Claudia and Jeremy, Logan and Rachel.
*Cary has posters of Salvador Dali and Esher in his room.
*Cary has to take the bus home with Kristy, which he normally doesn't do... but in Mystery #36, he lived right by her. It's also said specifically that she has to ride her bike to his house.
*It's interesting that Mrs. Kishi is against censorship and spoke up for Ted, since she censors what her own daughter reads.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
*Stacey and Claudia are still arguing about Jeremy, and being really obnoxious.
Books mentioned:
*A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
*The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
*A Life of Discovery, by Russell Freedman
*The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton
*The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck
*A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein
*To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
*Homecoming, by Cynthia Voight
My rating:
2.5 stars. Nothing new here.
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