My son Spanky is a rising 5th grader. Over the summer, he has been assigned a fate worse than death: Mandatory Book Reports. Three of them. Surely they jest.

The school has provided an extensive list of books the students can choose for their book reports. There are some awesome books on this list. Treasure Island. James and the Giant Peach. The Indian in the Cupboard. Really good books.

There are also some strange titles on the list. Stinky for President. Captain Underpants. Odd things like that.

So the book report is this: read the book, then take a 3x5 index card, on which you write all the pertinent info about the book on the front, and a 5 sentence summary/opinion of the book on the back. That's it!!! What???!!!!!

Back in the day, when we were given book reports, they were something to whine about. I'm talking PAGE MINIMUMS. Sentence minimums??? Are you kidding me???

Spanky has been in here in between each sentence he's written. And he's not finished yet. Many tears have been shed. This is only the first of 3 for the summer.

It seems to me that while children these days are taught many wonderful things my generation missed out on, they are missing out on some of the junk from the good ole days before every classroom had computers and they were encouraged to race through life at breakneck speed.

Slow down. Stop and revel in the misery of a REAL book report. Be a kid.