Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for June 05, 2022

She should really read the book. Tom’s technique of painting a fence would be quite useful for her in her schemes.

So who assigned the summer reading? The teacher that has passed her to the net grade ( because she doesn’t want her back ) or the next teacher she hasn’t met yet ?

If I was going to “absorb” a good book, then I could not think of a better choice to start with.

She could try the sleep learning method where you listen to an audio recording while you sleep. I’m not sure there’s really any evidence that works, either.

Had a teacher who would tell certain kids they should sleep with the textbook under their pillow and pray for osmosis.

She’s hoping & planning to have the rest of summer off by getting rest.

We never had summer reading when I was a kid. I guess teachers back then thought comic books were sufficient to keep up our reading skills.

Just before my freshman year of high school they gave us a list of books for summer reading. One of them was Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. Being a naive dummy I thought it was about ice hockey. Mother, going to the bookstore, told me she could pick it up for me. It was quite an awakening.

This one’s from 2018; I think Wiley’s on holiday.

One of Danae’s very rare moments without complaining or thinking of ways to change society to suit her ideas. Enjoy it, Friends. It won’t last.

It’s about a modern-day warrior with a mean, mean stride.

So… would someone unfamiliar with the basics of Tom Sawyer know/use the word osmosis?

Reminds me of “The Music Man” and Prof. Hill’s “think” system for learning to play an instrument.

In my school days (1962-75) I never had summer reading assignments.

If I had Audible when I was a kid I would have listened to/read every book on my summer reading list. The words are just as valid whether they are read or listened to.

I have dealt with students like that this past school year. It also helped telling them to not look at the book summary when asking what their books were about.

Read that one Danae. “Tom Sawyer” is a great book.

Some parents I became acquainted with were telling me their child would meditate over his textbooks and after stacking them up would place his head on them and go to sleep. I don’t think the meditation or osmosis worked, the kid flunked out of the private school he had been attending, which I think might have been the point.

I have always enjoyed reading. I get lost in the stories. The biggest buzz kill for me was knowing that I was going to take a test or write a book report/paper on what I had read. Even worse was having to stand up in front of the class and make an oral report on it. I was petrified by this when I was in middle school. Oddly enough, I ended up as a teacher and had no problems with public speaking.

I love Wiley’s subtlety! Tom Sawyer is the perfect book for this cartoon. A sawyer is someone who saws logs and that’s what Danae’s snoring probably sounds like!

I went out with a woman who was so nearsighted she could focus on her own eyelashes. Without her glasses, she would have to read much the way Danae is doing.

“Tom Sawyer”, dialect and racial portrayal notwithstanding, is still a classic.

True story. My sophomore roommate in boarding school was a staunch proponent of this technique. He didn’t talk about it, he just did it. He never could understand why he got terrible grades. He flunked out.

If osmosis worked, we would have retained the wisdom of our ancestors through all the generations since the beginning of time

She knows the word “osmosis”, or so she thinks…

I’ve often wondered, but been afraid to ask, is Lucy a real horse, or a stuffed animal like Hobbes? Or entirely imaginary? I notice that she only talks to Danae — Danae’s “Dr. Jekyll,” perhaps?

And yet she still knows more about the book than the vast majority of those who want to see it banned.

She needs to read Lovecraft, especially “The Dunwich Horror” and “Call of Cthulhu” might give her ideas, also “Whisperers in the Darkness” would also give her a fright.

I’m surprised no one here has yet mentioned that the term she was looking for is diffusion, not osmosis which refers to the more specific case of diffusion of water. But then, thanks to the pedant giants of the past, at least everyone knows the word osmosis, which is a start. And of course, since everyone knows what she meant, everyone but linguistic purists are happy.

Love this!!! If Danae is featured in the comic, it’s guaranteed to be great.

I had to read Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” in high school (“Huckleberry Finn,” too — always good for a re-read). I got a D on my book summary for not understanding what it was about. So I copied the blurb off the jacket and got an A. Later I read about the critics writing at length about the deep psychological meaning behind Dostoyevsky’s use of the color yellow in describing room decor and how it was later discovered that yellow was actually the only paint pigment avaliable in St. Petersburg at that time. I have since read all the books about “Catcher in the Rye,” e g., with a large helping of salt. Trust in yourself.

If you try to read by osmosis, you just get the book wet. Better to read by facilitated diffusion.

This looks just like a rerun of 6/7/18

I would advise NOT to let Danae anywhere near TOM SAWYER;she’ll learn too many new tricks from it.

Tony Esteves’ take on this joke, from 22+ years ago: http://www.cigarro.ca/comic/cramming/