My 12yo son has been bugging me to get him a copy of the real Odyssey. He’s been listening to an audio tape and reading the kids/abridged version. So, off I head to the bookstore, step one, find the fiction section. Now, I like the books store, I can find the kids section, the travel section, the science/nature section but fiction? The happy little dyslexic in me thinks, “Who would want to waste their time reading fiction?” It’s a motto that has worked well for me for 35 years. So, I finally find the fiction/literature section. Standing in front of the shelf full books whispering quietly to myself, “Homer, H O, H O,” that auditory feedback thing helps. Thinking, “focus on the author’s last name,” as the barrage of visuals confuse my little brain even further. “Hugo, H U, H U, U before of after O?” (Yep, still have to think about it.) “U after O, have to go backwards.” So as I am scanning backwards to find Homer, I run across Soapsuds. First, thing the springs to my mind is, “Wow, that’s a lot thicker then I thought it would be, maybe I’ll get the audio tape.” I pull the book off the shelf and flip though it reading a sentence here and there. Okay, driving around town with my kids in the car listening to the audio tape is really not an option. So I’m looking at the book, small print, not enough white space on the page. I don’t judge a book by its cover. I judge it by its thickness and the amount of whitespace on the page. I end up buying my son the Odyssey and although I’m a bit intimidated by it I bought myself Soapsuds. Will I read it cover to cover? We will see. Will my son read the Odyssey cover to cover? Nope, he can’t because when I got home I realized the front cover had an artistic picture of naked people. I cut it off so he can take the book to school tomorrow.
Posted on Nov 2, 2006, 6:43 PM from IP address 68.33.206.172