The Perils of Googling

Today, one of my sweetest kids, a nice polite boy, who always looks like his legs are too long for his trousers, and also one of my shyest (most shy?) was finally up to do his book review in front of the class.  He is in my Literacy class, out of EAL at the beginning of the year and unfortunately for him, he was straight up after one of my most literate and confident kids.

He did a review on a book called Franny K. Stein: Mad Scientist - about a girl inventor, and his plot synopsis, character development and thoughts on the book were well structured and although he read it rather than talked it, he maintained an air of composure and bravery all the way through his presentation.

Then, suddenly I was knocked for six - he launched into a discussion about the author, and instead of talking about Jim Benton, he gave a full biography of J.D. Salinger, or in the way of a typical Year 6, Jerome David Salinger. I couldn't mask my surprise when he said that J.D. Salinger was the author, and we examined the cover of the book, only to see the name Jim Benton, one of the other kids in the class suggested he'd used a pen name to write Franny K. Stein. So I stifled a giggle and let it slide.

On my way home I was thinking through how he would have mixed those names up, and then it hit me... J.D. Salinger wrote Franny and Zooey. So I googled "author of Franny", and sure enough - J.D. Salinger came up as first billing on the Google results list, and poor old Jim Benton was all the way down at #5.