Be True to Your School [Mass Market Paperback]

Bob Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1988 | ISBN-10: 0345353943 | ISBN-13: 978-0345353948

Today, Bob Greene is a celebrated, nationally-syndicated columnist. In 1964, he was a seventeen-year-old Ohio high school kid. And he kept a diary.
It's all here. The teenage girl who got away. The twenty-seven-year-old woman who didn't. The first beer. The first job. A series of bad haircuts. Friendship and betrayal, griping and groping, a daily account of one boy's struggle -- and all of our struggles -- to forge his way into adulthood with dignity intact, virginity a bad memory, and the day-to-day knowledge that it's not going to get any easier.
"A delightful book, and like the song Greene cruised to that summer, fun, fun, fun." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Everyone who was ever seventeen will love it!" -- Ann Landers

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This diary by the author of Good Morning, Merry Sunshine may top that bestseller, for Greene's re-creation of what he considers America's last innocent year, 1964, possesses nostalgia's magic. He records his life as a high school student in Bexley, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. With his close male friends, he thrilled to the music and style of the Beatles and balked at orders to "get a haircut!"; he mourned from January through December over a girl he continued to love even after she dumped him; sometimes he and his pals drank too much and played tricks "I'm not proud of." He recalls an era when it was hard to persuade a girl to "go all the way" and other youthful experiences that make up a poignant, funny, charming memoir. Major ad/promo; first serial to Esquire and Family Circle; author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The diary kept by then 16-year-old Greene during the year 1964, this "year in the life" of a privileged, suburban, midwestern teen is truly what nostalgia is all about. Hey, remember two gallons of gas for 50 cents; cruising, letter sweaters, the first time you saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan ? Well, it's all herea remarkable first-hand account of that innocent time before the upheaval of the late 1960s gave way to the disillusionment of the early 1970sand adulthoodmade all the more remarkable by the fact that boys didn't usually keep diaries. But Greene, now known for his Good Morning Mary Sunshine, wanted to be a reporter and had heard a journal was good practice toward that end. So this is not just a chronicle of a time but a unique trip through the mind of a teenage boy. Rosellen Brewer, Seaside Branch Lib., Cal.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (May 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345353943
• ISBN-13: 978-0345353948
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #853,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even 30 years later, the book is timeless..., July 6, 1998

By 

Robert Wellen (CHICAGO, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Be True to Your School (Mass Market Paperback)

I loved Greene, but had resisted buying this book. What could I, someone who graduated from private school in Chicago in 1992, learn from 1964? I've never much cared for the 1960's. After reading Greene's novel, All Summer Long, I went out and bought Be True to Your School. The novel contained flashbacks to high school--Be True...contains the real stories. In most ways, the power of Be True is even stronger than the novel because it was all true. As many of the other reviewers have said, it rings true to high school. I laughed, I cried, and I underlined the book. It will stand among my favorite works. Greene was a talented writer even at 17. He poesses a very rare gift. He has the ability to capture life's small moments and illuminate them. He celebrates their importance and makes no excuses for it--nor should he. He finds wisdom in those youthful experiences. He cherishes them. That is the lesson I take from this book. Too many people these days want to forget their teenage years and "move on." Greene teaches us that we will be forever shaped by those experiences, so we might as well celebrate them. If we take their lessons and memories and keep them close to our hearts, we will not only be true to our schools, but true to ourselves. As he does so often in his column, Greene shines again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Didn't want it to end!, November 11, 1999

By 

Dunn Neugebauer (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Be True to Your School (Mass Market Paperback)

The Beatles coming on the Ed Sullivan show, the endless wondering of exactly how to attract the opposite sex, and the simple ups and downs of growing up are captured dead on in this. Wish he'd kept a diary of his senior year and his four years of college. Good stuff!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bob Greene takes you into the heart of high school '64., January 15, 1998

By 

Tim R. Niles "Nomad" (Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Be True to Your School (Mass Market Paperback)

Bob Greene is the journalist who knows how to find the hooks in any story and plant them directly into you, without pain. He makes reading effortless and unstoppable.

This may well be his best book because he was working from his own diary of the year 1964. The detail of that journal calls up personalities, events, feelings, ritual, love and yearnings, all of it tossed wildly around by the musical tidal waves created by the Beatles.

This is also a fine telling of an american story: how events shape the course of a life... and create an extraordinary human being.

Reading Bob Greene is like reading Stephen King (mostly) without the horror. It is reality which carries the message of great writers, and Bob Greene is a great writer who will take you back to high school in Ohio as surely as Stephen King took you to 1958 Maine in "It."

I can barely wait to start re-re-re-re-reading this book. Five years is too long.

Tim Niles