John Buell Boeken

The book presents a compelling argument that homework detracts from valuable unstructured time essential for children's play and emotional growth. It explores how the emphasis on homework reflects deeper cultural anxieties surrounding the value of work, suggesting that the current educational practices may hinder rather than help children's overall development. Through this lens, it advocates for a reevaluation of homework's role in fostering a healthy balance between academic responsibilities and personal growth.

In Four Days, an orphaned boy watches as his older brother and idol graduates from petty thievery into big-league crime. A bank heist goes awry, leaving loose threads and dangerous links back to the brothers. Following instructions, the boy leaves the city with the stolen money and travels to a rendezvous point in a mountain vacation resort. What he doesn't know is that he is on his own, his brother will not show up--and the underworld is after him. Buell's second novel, Four Days was first published in 1962 by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy in the United States and Macmillan in the UK.

Detective Henderson investigates the death of heroin-addicted call girl Elizabeth Lucy, which leads him to a frightening underworld that is far more dark and dangerous than those of prostitution and the drug trade.