The book that barked back

There he was trying to explain away something he didn’t understand. Let alone, he couldn’t categorize the print. The boy remained attentive but disengaged, as his reading skills fence-sat en route to an acquired taste.

He knew the important stuff existed on the other side of effort. Practice, LOTS of it. Still, he scrolled on with the artifice of a narrator, pretending certainty could be spoken into being.

His favorite book spoke through images of varied dogs. Go dog go! Handicapped by words, nonetheless, liberated through the imaginary conversations provoked through illustration. If, at first, a partial outsider, the text became less alien over time.