Word: moms
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...Hillegass would have done well in my mom?s class. He might have even earned one of her famously rare A?s. Chances are, they would have admired each other - and he probably wouldn?t have minded at all that she rendered his famous booklets utterly and laughably useless...
...other words, she made it virtually impossible to cheat. Two generations of children passed through my mom?s English classes, heartlessly forced into reading the books and plays they were assigned. It was a brutal battle of attrition: My mom versus Cliffs Notes. Nine times out of ten, my mom...
...There were, of course, instances where a question would slip through the cracks. Maybe a new edition of the Cliffs Notes for "Hamlet" had passed under my mom?s radar. Maybe two pages of her "Henry V" notes got stuck together. Whatever the reason, there were occasional lapses; a quiz might allude to one of Shylock?s character traits - and one or two vigilant (and stubbornly optimistic) students might recognize the description from a passage in their Cliffs Notes. The odds of a slip-up weren?t good at all - but that may have made victory twice as sweet...
...Saturday, my mom lost one of her most formidable adversaries when Cliff Hillegass, inventor of the little yellow books, died at the age of 83. Hillegass abdicated responsibility for his eponymous Notes when he sold the company for $14 million back in 1999, but the cheerful yellow and black design, which has served as a beacon for lazy or overworked high schoolers since 1958, remains the same...
...have anything against Cliffs Notes as a study aid," my mom still says today. "I just don?t want kids to read them instead of the book." Cliff himself probably would have cheered my mom?s diligence. He meant the books to be study guides, not substitutes. This guy probably understood better than anyone the unique and transforming power of great literature. Cliff sat in his study contemplating the books his company would eventually summarize, beginning with "Hamlet," his first project. (Not exactly an endeavor for the weak of heart: Can you, off the top of your head, discuss...