David L

A remarkable concept, this “thank you” for every day of a year; an idea which summons up hopes for a new civility, extended kindnesses, and a much better world. These were my hopes anyway, and while they are not quite dashed, they are severely wounded. Mr. Kralik, the author, is an attorney who, at the onset, begs the reader to have sympathy for him because he is being sued in a system he admits being, “a plain example of how legal proceedings can become the circle of hatred, in which each vicious legal move is countered by an even more malevolent one, until everyone is out of money.” Immediately my hackles are raised, and I am in an alert mode. Suspicion runs rampant across my thoughts, but I am willing to continue. I should have quit while still able to suspend my belief, for it is only a page later where he reveals, “…too often I was still just the vehicle whereby clients conveyed hatred, sought retribution, and inflicted pain on their fellow men and women.” A few sentences farther, “To me, the work was too often best done when I got in touch with my inner evil core.” The die has been cast for me.

This book is one man’s attempt to secure indulgences and buy his way out of purgatory. His is a long and ponderous chain, and he continues to add links as he admits that he has received so much more back from those he sent notes to. The promises I found in the title are fully undermined by the end of the book where he writes, “I still don’t believe I changed…” Neither do I.

The skeptic in me immediately wanted to “pooh pooh” Maya Frost’s notion of taking a nontraditional path towards international scholarship. I tried a nontraditional path and ended up adding decades to my completing my degrees and creating a mountain of debt that spelunkers have contacted me about climbing.

I am glad I turned the cover of this book. While I was not immediately buying into Frost’s argument that traditional American high school experiences are not preparing students for global competition, I was hooked by Mark Twain’s quote. This turned out to be one of many of the marvelous features in this book. Ms. Frost has liberally sprinkled her pages with pith and sassiness to wake up the stodgiest of readers. The physical layout of the pages pulls the reader along unobtrusively while the material she presents sinks into the brain. Her constant plays upon and inventiveness with words (I loved “FEGO!”) kept me reading far longer in a sitting than I had originally intended. Several chapters later I found that my skepticism had disappeared and was replaced by incredible enthusiasm and strong commitment to support my students and their families in their global quests for college credits abroad.

The premise of the book is well supported. It is entirely possible for today’s young people to say “Good-bye, old school” and “Hello, bold school” in their quest for international scholarship and getting “sizzling 21st-century skills” without debt. Maya Frost thoroughly documents her family’s journeys and enlists the stories of dozens of others to confirm her assertion. Most convincing are her daughters’ tales of initial concerns yielding to unique experiences that have shaped all of them into multi-talented young women in great demand by many international firms. It is hard to argue with success.