Post #19 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’m sore. In two ways. My back is sore so I’m sore at the people who made my back sore. And that would be: our wonderful school system. Yep, the school system that makes kids stumble around school with a load on our backs heavy enough to slow down an 18-wheeler.

So instead of just lying around feeling sorry for myself, I’ve decided to do something about this. Let’s start with a rap song, okay?

SORE BACK RAP
by Dr. Crankenfuss

Yo, can’t get around
This freakin’ bleepin’ school
When Ima loaded down
Like an ol’ pack mule

Dey gimme 5 circles
To make my next class
Needa trade my old Armours
For a new body cast

They puttin’ my po’ parts
Thru a trash compactor
Me now need some face time
With the chiropractor

Maybe he know how
Make this pain a stop
So Ima got a ronday with
Dr. Crack and Pop

I got the answer fo this mess
This ain’t a case o My Bad
Throw those books in the trash
Replace ‘em with an IPad

Yes, that’s right. Dr. Crankenfuss has a solution to this national disgrace. Right now, every textbook we lug around weighs two to five pounds and costs like $30 or more. And within a couple years the books look like crap, all beat up and worn out. Couldn’t all that stuff be downloaded onto a Kindle or an IPad or a Nook? Couldn’t every teacher have a set of e-readers to hand out when we came in the room and we could just use those instead of killing ourselves dragging books around? Couldn’t the government buy e-readers for all students to take home? “But that would cost a lot of money,” I can practically hear some of you saying, especially any tax-paying adults out there. But lissen up, dudes. The readers would cost a lot less than all those books. One reader could hold hundreds of books. They could hold the whole school library, the encyclopedia, everything. Wouldn’t Apple and Amazon and Barnes and Noble fight each other like crazy to get the government to buy their machines? We’re talking zillion dollar contracts here. Well, to win those government deals, they’d have knock down their prices on those e-readers, wouldn’t they? It’d be an all-out price war. Kids win, yes!!!

Take it from the Crank. He’s telling you the truth once again. This may be my best idea ever and that’s saying a whole, whole lot. Yo peeps, we should make this a cause, a movement, a revolution! We could call ourselves the Crankenfuss Crew or something like that. (I admit, I haven’t given the name a whole lot of thought.) But anyway, think about it cause it really should happen. We could have signs that said, “We’re going insane/Give us freedom from our pain.” Or, “We got no flippin’ futures/Cause of all these stitches and sutures.”) And we’d get the smallest, cutest kids out front and show everyone how they’re getting crushed by their backpacks. Oh, TV people love that kind of stuff. Nobody wants to see kids hurt.

This is getting most cool. I need to think this out. Changing history could be very much fun!

All this (and a most awesome grill too) from your favorite middle school and YA blogger,
Dr. Crankenfuss

P.S. That picture of the little dude up there came from an article that says just what I’m saying about heavy school books. You can read it by clicking here.