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Here is US President Barack Obama’s speech to the students on the first day of school. It’s a great speech—not for the grandeur of the oratory but its exact opposite. The speech is down-to-earth, couched in simple but effective language, and amply illustrated with examples from the speaker’s own life. Unlike many politicians, you can believe that this one had a real, ordinary childhood.

Best of all, Obama talks to the kids as if they were intelligent human beings. As one who was talked down to by many pompous adults in the course of her schooling, I can tell you that this approach is highly appreciated.

I wish someone had spoken to me like this when I was a kid. Which reminds me that there are millions of schoolchildren right here who need this kind of encouragement and inspiration and are not getting it. It’s tougher on them. This is not America.

For our second LitWit challenge, I want you to write me your back-to-school speech for Filipino schoolchildren. You are the President and it is your job to inspire the children in these troubled times. (I wonder if there is any age in history that did not consider itself a troubled time.) Tell them why education is important and why they should study hard even if it often seems pointless.

Remember: simple, effective language. At the first hint of pompousness you’re out. 500-word maximum—the word count will be enforced this time. Entries will be accepted until 11:59 pm on Thursday, September 17, 2009.

The winner will receive this: a set of Nancy Drew books, hardcover, mysteries number 59 to 62. It’s our tribute to US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Nancy Drew fan. Read them yourself, or give them to a kid. Get to work. The weekly JessicaRulesTheUniverse LitWit Challenge is brought to you by National Bookstore.

I are is not so sure.

Saffy is reading Ribblestrop (Note her evil stare at the interruption) a wild new children’s book by Andy Mulligan, who is having a book signing today at 4pm at Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street, Taguig. Everyone’s invited, you can get your copy there.

Ribblestrop is about a very strange English school whose eccentric teachers and unpromising pupils must unravel the mystery of its secret cellars in order to avoid catastrophe.

The Guardian calls Ribblestrop “disgracefully dangerous high octane fun of the first order—an outrageous delight!” The Independent describes it as “a morally questionable tale about a disastrous school whose pupils can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

A former theatre director, Andy Mulligan has taught at schools in India and Brazil and now teaches at the British School in Manila. For more information, visit www.ribblestrop.co.uk.

With the death of director John Hughes our protracted adolescence is officially over.

We were discussing the John Hughes oeuvre, particularly Sixteen Candles (Essay question: Whatever happened to Michael Schoeffling?), Some Kind Of Wonderful, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty In Pink. “Which character are you in Sixteen Candles?” I asked Ernie.

“I am always Molly Ringwald,” he declared. “The misfit.”

“Correction,” I said. “She was the popular girl in The Breakfast Club.”

“You’re right,” Ernie said. “In Breakfast Club, I am Ally Sheedy. Which one are you?”

“Either Ally Sheedy or Judd Nelson because he was the angry one. Did you ever have a crush on the Estevez brothers?”

“Both. Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.” We agreed that neither compares to their father Martin Sheen in Badlands by Terence Malick.

“Who are you in (the Ringwald-less) Some Kind of Wonderful?” I went on.

“Obviously, Mary Stuart Masterson the tomboy,” he said.

“Naah, Lea Thompson. She turned out to be nice. I’m Mary Stuart Masterson.”

“No,” Ernie corrected me. “You’re Eric Stoltz.”

“Dammit, why am I always the guy character? Why can’t I be the girl?”

“Who are you in Pretty In Pink?” Ernie asked.

“James Spader. Contrabida.”

Most of you are probably too young to understand why Filipinos aged 35 and above are disconsolate at losing Tita Cory. To you the Edsa Revolution is a distant historical event, an item on an exam. To old people like me who were in college at the time it was the greatest thing that had ever happened, and the best part was that we were in it.

Our Better Selves in Emotional Weather Report in the Star.

Map of The Shire from The Mirror of Galadriel

People read stories of adventure—and write them—because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map—marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle—that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.

Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs: The Cartography of Childhood, in NYRB.