Daniel Dyer, who has been an educator for about forty years, has written a wonderful account of not just those years but of all his SCHOOLBOY experiences growing up in Oklahoma and Ohio, an unrepentant booklover and the middle son of teachers. Dyer is also married to a teacher-writer, Joyce Dyer (author of two wonderful memoirs, Gum-Dipped::Daughter Remembers Rubber Town[Paperback,2003] and Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood (Ohio History and Culture).) I've read and greatly enjoyed both of Joyce's books, which is how I came to find her husband's two memoirs. I read both Turning Pages: A Memoir of Books and Libraries and Loss and SCHOOLBOY the same week, and probably have mixed up what's in which book. Indeed there is some overlapping information in the two memoirs, but that was okay.

SCHOOLBOY is written in such a way as to compress those years of teaching into a single day of it, with many digressions and look-backs at his life, all of which I found absolutely charming and relevant. There are sadder segments too, as the author reflects on the decline of his late father, as well as the deaths, many untimely and tragic, of various colleagues and former students.

His tales of his early years in teaching back in the mid-sixties and early seventies struck a chord as I remembered my own poorly-paid teaching job in the same era. The difference was I got out of teaching after just five years. Dyer stayed, and grew to love it - mostly. Because he does talk about strikes and teachers' unions. But he also was deeply involved in extra-curricular duties, especially drama clubs, which he obviously dearly loved and enjoyed. There are also stories of family and friends and personal illnesses and trials which ring true, told as they are with Dyer's unflinching honesty and candor.

And there's a lot in here too about researching, writing and collecting books, which often led to deep credit-card debt. As a person who loves reading about nearly anything having to do with books, I loved this book. Dyer is simply a marvelous writer. ( )