'On the Road,' again

By Jan Gardner  |  February 4, 2007

Though the 50-year anniversary of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" isn't until the fall, the celebrations of the Beat novelist have already begun. In New York this month , "No Great Society," a play based on William F. Buckley's and Steve Allen's interviews with Kerouac, is on stage.

Perhaps no city lays a bigger claim to Kerouac than Lowell (he was born and is buried there). On March 10 , Kerouac's birthday will be celebrated there two days early . On June 2, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell will award Kerouac, a college dropout, an honorary doctorate. Later that month, the 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac wrote "On the Road " will be displayed at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum .

That scroll is the original, unedited manuscript, and Viking will publish it this fall for the first time. Also coming this fall is a book by John Leland, author of "Hip: The History." This one wonders "What Would Jack Do?"

In Susan Eaton's new book, "The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial," the signs of hope offer a sharp contrast to the grim realities of public schools in Hartford. You couldn't ask for a more devoted teacher than Lois Luddy. And the boy Eaton calls Jeremy Otero is so eager to learn that you want to cheer him on.

Eighteen years ago, a group of citizens filed a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut seeking an end to the segregation of poor and minority students in Hartford, the poorest city in the richest state in the nation. Even though the plaintiffs won the most recent round, little has changed, and appeals are pending.

"We talk a lot about the achievement gap, but we don't talk a lot about the opportunity gap," said Eaton, a former journalist who has a doctorate in education policy. She will speak at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

Sandwich Reads Together has improved upon the "One Book, One City" idea. Instead of asking residents to read one book, it selected two : Alice Hoffman's "Blackbird House," which takes place over 200 years in a farmhouse on the Cape, and Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper," in which a child is conceived as a bone-marrow match for her ill sister. A month's worth of events will culminate Saturday , when Hoffman and Picoult take the stage at Sandwich High School auditorium. Picoult is looking forward not only to chatting with readers but to meeting Hoffman, her favorite author.

"Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich," by Mark Kriegel (Free Press)

"High Profile," by Robert B. Parker (Putnam)

"Family Tree," by Barbara Delinsky (Doubleday)

Author-illustrator Suzy Becker recommends "Dimity Dumpty: The Story of Humpty's Little Sister," by Bob Graham (Candlewick): "The premise -- the untold story of Humpty's heroic little sister -- is re-imagined in such hilarious and tender detail, I still (after my hundredth reading) sigh when it ends."

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.