Under the Cover

Remember the horrible Gary Paulsen covers?  The Cat Ate My Gymsuit has had the same trouble. The cover was the total reason that I never read this book until now.  Here are the terrible ones:

But here are some good ones, that I didn't see until now.

This book is about a lot of things!  Self-esteems, equal rights, all kinds of stuff.  I never, ever knew what it was about because I just couldn't read it because of the cover...and maybe also because I was (and am) a fat person and man...it just was too painful then to get into it with a book.
This book is from a time and a place that I don't remember much about from experience, but it was back when women really didn't work outside of the home.  When it was weird for a woman to refer to herself as Ms.  instead of Miss, if she wasn't married.

Ms. Finney is Marcy's new teacher and she is really looked upon with suspicion by the school administration because of her "unusual" tactics and her "untraditional" dress, but what puts her job in jeopardy is her refusal to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  I went back in my blog to see if I had written about this before and I had, back here, two years ago.  Now the gal I wrote about back then was different from Ms. Finney.  In the book, she stands and salutes, but won't pledge to the flag because she believes that our country doesn't offer "liberty and justice for all." and she will keep working to see that it does, with that hope that it will one day do just that.  She also says that she loves her country.  So it is a little bit different from the 13 year old that I railed against two years ago.
The thing is....at the time that I was listening to this, I was (and still am) listening to Hitler Youth:  Growing up in Hitler's Shadow.   Hitler made folks pledge the flag.  He made them pledge him.  And the truth that is even deeper, is that as a Christian, we really aren't supposed to pledge our allegiance to anyone but God.
Now I am a patriot.  My last night at karaoke, I sang, as I have many times before The Fighting Side of Me.  I won't buy anything but a Ford, GM or Chrysler.  Well, I have never bought a Chrysler and I probably will stick to Ford from now on, unless maybe someone wanted to give me a Caddy or a Corvette.
But I am a Christian first.  The man I used to pastor with back in the day, he never said the pledge.  I can see why now.  I pledge my allegiance only to my Lord.
Ah, I have gotten off track again!  Shocking!
But I did enjoy this book, though I don't know if kids would be in to it today.  But maybe to read it in addition to American Girl's Julie books.  Yeah!  Like Meet Rebecca and All-of-a-Kind Family!   Yeah!  Hooray!
Also, TCTAMG has a sequel, There's a Bat in Bunk Five.  I am going to read that, too!