Hi everyone --
    It's been a while--my father (92), and two dear friends (78 and
 55, respectively) all died within the space of less than a month.
    I just had to, however, weigh in on both Twain and teens and whether Sam
had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
    The trouble with too many public high schools is that teachers of
literature and language are often hamstrung by dim-bulb school
administrators
and mediocre boards of education. But there's also the problem of parents
who
don't read to their children, while they're still preliterate, each night.
I learned to love Sam because my dad did, and love Louisa May Alcott because
my mom
did, and still does.
    Since I was a television columnist for 15 years, I blame a lot of it on
the sheer passivity of the medium; it doesn't engage a young imagination
quite
the way a good written story does. I remember getting so caught up in the
horror of Jim finding Pap, I didn't hear mom calling me for dinner. I was 10
or 11.

That my family is overstuffed with voracious readers is no accident.
      Anyway, just to add to the mix, Joan Hedrick's absolutely terrific
life
of Mrs. Stowe, which won the Pulitzer for biography in 1992, gets quite into
the interrelationships among all the residents of Nook Farm.
     Check it out.
     The Twain house is also doing a really fine series featuring people
such
as Spike Lee and Aaron MacGruder, in tribute to Sam's on relish for causing
controversy.
     Happy Easter to some, happy Purim to others.

Kathy O'Connell
Record-Journal
Meriden, Conn.