summer reading list

where the sidewalk ends is quite possibly the greatest combination of paper and ink ever created. that's why i'm giving it to nephew alex for his sixth birthday this weekend and that's why i'm reading his copy now. i'm reading these poems and looking at the illustrations and each one is taking me back fifteen years and conjuring up vivid memories of sitting in the b.b. rice elementary school library being read these poems and shown those illustrations in the typical 180-degree-make-sure-all-the-children-see-it fashion. good god it's like yesterday. damnit "iclke me, pickle me, tickle me too" is beautiful.

so you can see why i'm turning off the endless everybody loves raymond and friends blocks to actually read a bit more this summer. i've already run though the da vinci code (very interesting topic, very horrible writing) like the rest of america and spent a good couple hours at the laundromat last sunday starting a "brave new world." i raided my closet in conroe for all the old classics my dad had stolen from libraries of all the schools he's worked at since the late sixties and with that i rediscovered my love for that old book smell. after those i end my harry potter protest, and after those i should begin my correspondence course on creative writing which takes care of my elusive humanities credit, and after all that i write my own great american (or in most cases, britsh) novel and hopefully, just hopefully learn to communicate a complex thought without resorting to overly-hyphenated and drawn out run-on sentences.

i think i will name my son shel.