Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

"...if you have any questions, I'll be walking the room. Otherwise, you have 15 minutes," I said to my 5th period class, started the timer on my phone, and sat it upon the ledge of the white board at the front of the room.

As I turned around and began glancing around the room, scanning for the inevitable confused faces, I was surprised to find none. Everyone had the reading passage, the map, and list of questions in front of them and seemed to be actively reading, either to themselves or aloud with their partner.

I hesitated for a moment, made one more visual sweep thinking "that can't be right," before I began my walk down the gap between the first 2 rows of desks. "Strange, even Jacob is reading. That kid never starts without at least 2 reminders." I continued my loop to the other side of the room, a direct, but not overtly obvious route to Jacob's desk.

"...I think the, uh, You-? Um. Oof-ray," Jacob struggled to pronounce the word on the paper, but clearly had an opinion he wanted to share with his partner. I was curious.

"The Euphrates," I quietly chimed in over his shoulder.

"Yeah, the Euphrates. I think that river is the most important to the region 'cause of how close it is to," Jacob Continued.

"Holy shit," I thought. This kid actually was actually paying attention for once. I gave his desk a quick, but quiet, double-rap of my knuckles and said "good job, Jacob. Make sure you get the answer down on your paper," with a slight smile and continued to loop around the room. Every pairing was like Jacob and his partner. Reading, conversing, and writing.

I looped a few more times around the room, changing direction every now and then to keep my students honest. They were still working. I walked to the front of the room, tapped my phone to check the timer, and announced to the class "8 minutes left, everyone should be about 3/4 of the way through at this point if they hope to finish by time. Good work, keep it up."

I watched from the front of the room for another 30 seconds, but there were still no questions. Boredom began to sink in. Students think school work and tests are boring, but nothing compares to watching others do something while you do nothing.

As I scanned the room I began to notice that a few of the students had their library books on their desks, and Tina had her famous stack of books. With my curiosity peaked, and my A.D.D. beginning to kick in, I made a bee-line for Tina's desk. Without saying a word or breaking stride, I grabbed the book from the top of her stack and flipped it open to the first page.

Tina, confused, turned around and followed me with her eyes. I gave her a little shrug and continued my "I'm watching you" loop around the room, but my eyes were solely on the book. At this point, a few more students were quietly watching their teacher blindly walk the room with a bright pink, young adult romance novel in his hands. 

I read the first line to myself. "I have one of those faces that just seems to be begging to get slapped," it read.

"Wow, that's a great first line," I blurted out. Feeling eyes on me, I looked up as I remembered that I was surrounded by students who up until this point had been working uninterrupted for over ten minutes. "Y'all are good, keep working." I went back to reading and walking.

A few of the students gave their patented scoff-laugh that they always gave me. It was their way of saying "Mr. Woods is so weird," without actually saying the words. I couldn't help but to agree with them this time.

About 2 sentences later the narrator mentions something about the eyebrows of the boy she has a crush on and I've checked out. I closed the book, returned to Tina's desk, and sat it back on top of the stack of books. Tina's eyes were still on me, still confused. I gave her my honest review, "Great first line, really grabbed my attention, but once she started talking about his eyebrows I knew it wasn't my type of book."

The room laughed the moment the word "eyebrows" left my mouth and I could tell Tina was a little embarrassed.

"However, I can tell she's an entertaining writer just from that opening, I bet it's a good book."

"Yeah, I like her," Tina said with a smile. She adjusted the pink book so that its spine lined up with the other 5 in the stack. I began to make my way back to the front of the room to check the timer again.

​"What was the first line," a voice shouted out.

​I stopped in my tracks, sighed, and turned around to see Jacob doing the half sitting, half standing thing that kids do where they bend one of their legs in the chair underneath themselves. The overzealous and hyper kids all do this. It's like the ADHD cheat code for getting out of your seat without getting in trouble for getting out of your seat. Clever.

​A few giggles trickled out around the room in anticipation of something about the cute-eyebrow boy again.

"It said, 'I have one of those faces that just seems to be begging to get slapped.' Now finish up your questions, time is almost up."

The room fell silent for a moment except for a few woahs and wows. "You're right, that is a good first line. I think I have one of those faces," the suddenly self-aware Jacob said.

More laughs. It was clear at this moment that not much more work would get done before the timer went off.

"Why did you even pick up that book?" Kate asked from the back of the room. "It doesn't look like your type of book."

"Well," I began, "you should never judge a book by its..." The alarm went off on my phone behind me. I turned around and stopped it to the sound of a few students quickly scrambling to get down their last couple of answers. At this point, I was impressed enough with everyone's progress that it didn't really matter to me if they didn't get every answer down. I had a piece of knowledge that I just had to get out.

"Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," I sarcastically directed at the phone in my hand. "You should never judge a book by its cover, but by its first line. If the first line is poorly written, then the rest of the book probably is too. I liked the first line so I kept reading. It took me a paragraph or two to realize that it wasn't my type of book, but it was probably a good book."

Sounds of agreement and a few nods of heads gave me that proud teacher feeling. It of course had nothing to do with what I was teaching, but I felt it was a good piece of lifetime knowledge that they could use. Then the seeds of doubt began to set it as I watched every student with a book on their desk open them up to the first line.

"Mr. Woods, this first line is awful. It just says 'My name is Steven.' Anyone could write that, but the rest of the book is good."

Laughter again.

"Mr. Woods, can you read us more first lines of books? I want to know what you think of them." Sri asked. Classic Sri, trying to distract Mr. Woods instead of doing work. Well, I wasn't going to fall for that.

"Sure," my mouth said, betraying my brain's wishes, "but another time," I continued after regaining control of my mouth.

I began wrapping up class, giving instructions for what to do with the papers, and getting everyone to straighten up a bit before the bell rang. Class dismissed and I couldn't help but laugh a little at what had transpired at the end of class, but soon forgot about it.

- - -

I stood watch outside my classroom door, dreading the cacophony of noise that was about to fill the hallway as students gathered their items for 1st period. My eyes scanned faces, my head nodded, and my mouth handed out "Good morning" to every group of students that passed.

"Hey Mr. Woods, you got to see this," a voice to my right excitedly said. I turned to see Julie, a student in my 2nd period class. The group of 3 behind her was composed almost entirely of 2nd period students, with one glaring exception: Tina and her stack of books from my 5th period.

"Yeah Julie, what's up?" I asked.

"We were in the media center this morning, looking for the book with the best first line, and we think we found it," she said with a little laugh while handing me a copy of The Martian.  The rest of the group giggled behind her. "Tell us what you think of it."

I'm pretty much fucked.