Oh, the unintended consequences of being assigned Mutiny on the Bounty as eighth-grade summer reading. I know because I was so assigned. My parents knew because of the salty effect it had on my language.

I remember one morning at breakfast:

Mom: What will you have for breakfast, Larry?

Larry: “By God, I’ll have pancakes!”

Mom: “O … K. And what would you like with that?”

Larry. “Orange juice…… By God!

Mom: I think we need to talk about your language.”

Yes, that happened (more or less as stated). But, joking aside, reading the Nordhoff and Hall novel of adventure on the South Seas -- its tale of loyalty and betrayal, and of the indistinct line between good and evil -- was incredibly enriching. So was reading the other novels I was assigned in the upper elementary and middle grades: Old Yeller, The Yearling, The Call of the Wild, A Member of the Wedding. I only vaguely remember the stories, some of which I might never have read if not introduced to them in school. What I do recall is the effect they had on me, how they helped me visualize a boundless world outside myself.

I thought about this yesterday while reading a letter from a Maryland woman in the New York Times. She was responding to an article about a National Endowment of the Arts report on the endangered status of reading for fun. (“Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/arts/19nea.html?ref=opinion). And she praised, albeit ironically, the Times headline for making the connection between test scores and reading, “because only the evidence of lower test scores will move the myopic beast loosed by No Child Left Behind to change its course.”

Then, the kicker. “My son attends arguably the best public middle-school program in Baltimore,” the letter writer, Christina Myers, said, “and the language arts teachers there have been told not to teach novels until the spring, after the state testing is over.

“The absurdity might almost make me laugh, if it weren’t so horrifying in its implications.”

I would have used the word “sad” -- how sad that these children, and so many others like them, are being denied the kind of transformative experiences I remember from my youth.

Please, don’t let this happen in your schools.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor