Look, I'm glad they found the kid

[pegkerr]

But don't you wonder a little a bit about a) our culture and b) this kid's upbringing when you realize that he wasn't found for four days because he was purposely avoiding the searchers because he had been told never to talk to strangers? I mean, come on, the kid's eleven years old! Don't you think he should have better judgment at this point than to think, "Hmmm . . . break the no-talking-to-strangers rule . . . die in the wilderness . . . boy, tough choice there. . ."

Good lord, I hope Fiona at age 12 would have more sense.

Comments

[mark356.livejournal.com]

I remember a lot of popular survival books in the 6th grade (either they were really popular a couple of years back, or they're just a fixture of 6th grade) but I suspect you are talking about My Side of the Mountain; it's the only one where the person goes out on purpose on his own, and his family allows it. Someone in the book does compare him to Thoreau, but if you read Thoreau's book, you know that what he does is way more hardcore than anything Thoreau ever did, since Thoreau was really only just outside of cities that he was always going to, and just by the train, and he always had visitors over and things like that.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Well, 6th grade for me is a cool 18 years ago, so my memory is allowed to be imprecise.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

The thing that always amused me was that while Thoreau lived at Walden Pond, (I have heard) he had his laundry done by his mother.