The Most Memorable Book Report I Ever Heard

A kid reads a book, writes a report, goes up in front of his class, and tells everyone about the book they read. Big deal, right? Two days later, who remembers, right? But imagine this. A fifth grade boy does a book report just like that, yet it is such an incredible, amazing, and memorable report that one of his classmates can still vividly remember it almost fifty years later. My friend Jim did a such a report when we were in the fifth grade together, and I still remember his words.

"I read a book called 'Captain Blackheart' and it was about a pirate. The pirate's name was Captain Blackheart. He had his own ship, and it was a sailing ship, and he would travel the seas stealing everybody's treasure. His men were tough guys and they had knives and sabres and swords and they killed people. But Captain Blackheart was the meanest of 'em all. One time one of his men argued with him and wouldn't do what he said, so Captain Blackheart took out his knife, stabbed the man in the chest, ripped out his heart, and started chewing on it!! Captain Blackheart was so fast that the guy was still alive when he started chewing, so the last thing the guy saw was Captain Blackheart chewing on his heart."

I have thought about this a lot, and I am sure the teacher did not stop him. Nowadays the teacher would lose four pounds just from jumpin' up and down like a Mexican bean when they heard those words, but in my school days that was just vivid imagery which I still remember.

That was one helluva book report.