The Oldie

The key to growing up? Books

‘Twelve years in school and it all comes down to me writing about some beef between a scorpion and a bloke whose name I can’t even read.’

So said one of my Year 11s about his first English exam. Put like that, the point he makes is a fair one. They were writing about Steinbeck’s and, all right, what’s Hecuba to him or

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