Today I was on the bus on the last leg of my trip home, and I saw a young lady with what appeared to be Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. It was a different cover from what I've seen, so I asked if it was the same. She said yes. She was young and it was the time of day that school let's out, so I asked her if she was in high school. Yes.
So here was this white high school student carrying home Achebe in the first weeks of new school year. I'm pretty sure she was from the public hs nearby. I wanted to ask her about what class it was for, was it assigned or did she choose it, etc., but I didn't want to make her feel weird about some random adult male on the bus interrogating her.
I didn't know about Thing's Fall Apart until the second year of college (I didn't actually read it 'til about a year after graduation).
Wow. Yay, NYC public school system.
