“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Over the course of the Christmas/new year’s day week, I read three books by Christopher Pike. My sister also read the same three books. We used to read a lot of his books when we were younger — though apparently not really that many! We went through the titles and couldn’t recall many of them, causing a great deal of shrieking (with laughter, of course) as we went through the plots we remembered. Here, for your pleasure — all three of you reading this — are recaps of the books. Uh. Beware of spoilers?

See You Later

This one I never read before. I, uh, will not try to be kind. This one, while it has a seriously WTF-is-going-on-here plot, was still predictable. Of course you knew who the girl was! Who wouldn’t? This had to be the worse of the lot, at least plot-wise.

It also felt like Pike was trying to smack the back of our heads with some sort of personal philosophy. Reincarnation! Trying to rationalise cause and effect to explain the paradoxes set by time travel! Those weren’t the things I needed paragraphs of rambling upon, thanks.

My sister read this book after I did. I had a blast watching her expressions as she flipped through the pages — she’s a very expressive girl. There was a point I was sure she was going to throw the book across the room, but of course she didn’t.

Among other reactions from my sister: “What kind of title is See You Later? It doesn’t make sense! See who later? Yourself? And what the heck is on the cover? The Eye of Sauron?” Ahahaha.

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Spellbound

This I definitely read before. This one has your standard shaman, transfer students and people turning into animals and of course the quiet, pretty transfer girl is obviously the one to look out for. Beware of English chicks. Seriously.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really good either.

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Gimme a Kiss

I probably read this one before. A mystery/thriller, this time, instead of horror or something with supernatural elements. Rather slipshod when it came to resolving the whole story, but maybe my twelve-year-old self wouldn’t have been too critical about the too-nice girls always being the evil ones. (Or maybe I would have been. I was one of those too-nice girls once.)

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. . . but this is not why we are here

I am here to tell you the reason why I am thankful for Christopher Pike. Strange thing to do, I suppose, after rather dour recap of three books.

My first language isn’t English. I never had much trouble with English, and languages in general, since my parents liked books and I had always liked to read. When I went to school, though, I pretty much despaired at the state of some of my classmates’ command of the English language. The good ones were very good. The bad ones were really, really bad. It didn’t seem possible that after six years of classes in primary school, you can’t get a sentence like “This are is a cat.” right. In another school, it probably would have been more believable — yet still not acceptable, if I have any say in the matter — but I went to one of the boarding schools, one of those supposedly “good” schools where you got in based on merit.

There was a girl I was rather close to when I was in the second form. She would come to me with her English homework, asking me for help, and I would feel more like a harassed teacher instead of a friend when I had to underline and cross out things in her essays and workbooks and struggle to explain to her why this is correct and that is not. (I was not a good teacher and never will be. I lack the patience to explain the same thing over and over after I’ve explained it once, and I don’t have the grace to give a kind word when needed.) I never corrected things for her. I only pointed out what was wrong and forced her to fix those mistakes until she got everything right — I think her English teacher was a bit suspicious how she managed to write as well as she did. She would come very close to giving up sometimes, looking sadly at the sentences I kept underlining.

She didn’t read many English books, this friend. (I can’t remember what was required reading when we were in the second form, but I certainly know that you should never force The Red Badge of Courage on lower secondary students who had naught of American history. Even the abridged version.) I tried recommending books from the school library but they were either too hard or she wasn’t interested in them, so that was a dead end. I figured if I could get her to read more, it would solve a lot of her problems.

One day I found her reading an old copy of one of Pike’s books I had brought from home. I was quite surprised — I didn’t think she would have liked horror. I can’t even remember which book it was. I couldn’t tear her away from it. She asked me if I had any other books like that book, and I had shoved all the Pike books I had to her. Her English improved. She started reading other books. She got an A for the exam we took in third form. I was happy for her.

She’s a teacher now. No, she doesn’t teach English, but she probably could have if she wanted to.

See? These books can be useful, after all. XD If you can use them to get a kid to read, then I’m happy enough.