An email exchange
This came in yesterday. Some names and identifying features have been changed to protect the innocent:
To: somebodyanybody@robinmckinley.com
From: youngenthusiasticreaderperson@greatbigemailplace.com
Subject: I’ve read BEAUTY! Now I’m doing a report!
youngenthusiastic
I was so blown away by the correct use of ‘may’,* which I thought had died out generations ago**, that I answered (a) at all (b) promptly:
November 1952. I’m terrifyingly old. :)
Very nearly by return electron I received a kindly further communication from youngenthusiastic:
No, no! You’re not old! ^^ My mother’s much older…. so… Don’t feel bad! ^__^
This young person not only has a hippie dad [see footnote], she also has a mother who is MUCH OLDER than me? Clearly her family are members of the first successful human experiment in cryogenic suspension. I’m surprised the government is letting them talk about it though.
I hope the dad–perhaps even the medieval mom–like BEAUTY too***. I hadn’t realised it was a classic for the ages† but hey. And I hope that youngenthusiastic wins her COMPETITIONS. Even if it is obscure to me how my birthday is going to assist in attaining this worthy goal.
* * *
* As well as the prospect of the hippie dad, which species I thought had also died out . . . long enough ago not to have kids in school giving book reports
** There would perhaps be some correlation with the hippie dad? Although in my limited experience I would not have said that preservation of the usages of the English language was high on the hippie agenda.
*** Note that I get requests for help with book reports and author presentations from kids who haven’t liked the book they’re asking for help with. ‘Hi. I have to give a presentation on you and your book. I read The Outlaws of Shannara and I thought it was kind of long and boring. I thought it would be better from the cover. But I don’t have time to read another book. So could you please tell me . . .’ is not a good approach to engage the willing assistance of any writer, and especially not an uncharitable old grunch like me. Although the ‘please’ is a nice touch, when you get it. They don’t always bother with the please.
† Or possibly the brain-befuddled, having spent twenty or thirty years floating in a tank of Strange Life-Hiatus-Support Substances. Reentry is hard. Think about having gone to sleep with typewriters and 4,100,000 square kilometres of Amazonian rain forest and woken up to the internet and 3,400,000^.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_Rainforest
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