Thursday, June 30, 2011

Guest Blog: David Yoo (The Detention Club)

Today I have David You, author of The Dentention Club who talks about about detention, being a latch-key kid and more.  Also stay tuned, on July 21, I will have my interview of The Dentention Club which I can't wait to read!
The Detention Club


I definitely did my time in detention back in the day, usually for talking in class or over-drawing in non-art classes. One summer I had the equivalent of summer-long detention after stealing chemicals from Chem lab. I hadn’t paid attention in class and didn’t realize I needed to steal a Bunsen burner as well in order to make the chemicals light up in all these really brilliant, cool colors. My mom thought I was on crack when she found the
spoon, Bic lighter, and the tiny vials of white little rocks tucked away in the back of my desk drawer. I was busted, and had to do a summer-long project for the teacher just to pass the class. To this day I haven’t forgiven her for narcing on me. A version of this scene actually found its way into The Detention Club.

But far worse than detention was my years in Latch-Key in elementary school. Latch-Key might be a regional term—basically it’s where if you have parents who both work you have to eat breakfast when it’s still dark out (even in springtime) before getting dropped off at school an hour early, where you’re immediately sequestered in an empty classroom with a handful of other sleepy kids and it’s sheer torture to just sit there quietly, waiting for the rest of the school to show up at normal time so school can finally begin.

Thanks David for joining and sharing with us today!