Some Long Island students might find it difficult to fill out their summer reading list this year. Why? Because some of the books don’t exist.
A summer reading list for the Hempstead, N.Y. public school system had more than 30 typos, according to Newsday.
Some of the books on the list include “The Great Gypsy” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Lovely Bone” (which sounds like something not meant for children) by Alice Sebold. Some author misspellings include Charlotte Bonte (instead of Bronte) and George Ornell (instead of Orwell). (Scroll down to see this beauty for yourself. —Ed.)
One or two mistakes probably would have gone unnoticed, but the vast amount of errors has caught the attention of New York City media outlets—Hempstead is about 15 miles from the borough of Queens in NYC. As you can imagine, the comments on these stories have been entertaining, with people coming up with their own versions of some of the books.
However, the sad part of the story is that this is an official list sent by the school district. It includes the reading for children entering school all the way through to the twelfth grade. The list couldn’t even get “The Great Gatsby” right, which recently had a popular film adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the theaters.
One radio station, 1010 WINS, interviewed a Hempstead High School student who laughed at the mistakes and praised her English teacher as a mentor. But the list reflects poorly on the school district, and it’s never good when your school is the butt of many jokes.
The link to Scribd is bad, so there’s a big 404 error instead of a document.