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 First edition | |
| Author | Gordon Korman |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young adult |
| Publisher | Scholastic Canada Ltd.[1] |
Publication date | 1985 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 243 |
| ISBN | 0-590-43129-3 |
Don’t Care High is a 1985 novel byGordon Korman.
Paul Abrams has just moved to New York City with his parents. He starts at tenth grade in a new high school, Don Carey High School, which has earned the nickname "Don't Care High" for prevalent student apathy.
When Paul finds out that no one at Don Carey cares much about anything, he tries to motivate them by nominating Mike Otis, a reclusive man of mystery, forstudent council president. Mike runs unopposed and is soon elected (first since 1956[2]), but the students soon forget about him. Paul's friend Sheldon takes a role in boosting Mike's reputation, attributing a round of much-needed facility repairs to him. As the students begin to care, the teachers sense that something is going on.
Paul and Sheldon publish a newsletter,The Otis Report, which praises Mike and criticizes the school staff, and distribute it in the halls while wearing masks and speeding past on roller skates. Mike is stripped of his position, but the pair respond with a campaign to reinstate him that sparks genuine interest among the student body.
Finding that the home address for Mike in the school files is fake, Paul and Sheldon find his actual residence and learn by eavesdropping that he is about to fail one of his courses. Since a large portion of the student body now idolizes Mike, they collaborate to produce a project for him. It is of such high quality that it is entered in ascience fair, but the judges disqualify Mike after learning that the work is not his; the students react so badly that Don Carey is banned from the event. An announcement that Mike likes basketball leads to massive turnout at anaway game, which Don Carey wins by one point, resulting in a joyousriot and much destruction.
The staff gives in and reinstates Mike as student body president, but he shocks everyone with the news that he will be leaving. Nevertheless, the students organize a huge going-away party in his honor.
Source:[3]
Kirkus Reviews found the book's premise — "that an empty idol could be powerful enough to transform radically an entire community" — to be "interesting and potentially gripping", but overall faulted the "arch, overly wordy prose" and "exaggeration which is so unbelievable as to be silly", concluding that the book did not meet the standards set by Korman's earlier works.[4]
Orson Scott Card reviewed the novel forThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, specifying that although it has no magic, "it's a fantasy the wayFerris Bueller's Day Off is a fantasy: you know that reality doesn't work this way." Card stated that although "(n)ot one thing that happens in the story is believable", it is nonetheless "funny and imaginative"; he particularly lauded Korman's depiction of "political power. Where it comes from, how it's used, and how easily people are manipulated."[5]