engaging the boy brain

It’s been mentioned on this very blog that Ace, my 14 year old son, is dyslexic and prefers to do just about anything, including fold laundry, to reading a physical book. We adapt to this particular challenge by feeding him audiobooks that keep his brain interested in stories and words and imagery that are not a direct feed from the Xbox, Playstation or NitroCircus. No easy task, that. 14 year old boy, remember? Sometimes we hide the controllers. Just for fun.

He listens to an audiobook (why does spellcheck suggest audiobook as two words, but accepts audiobooks as one word?) every night, as his choice of bedtime accompaniment, rather than music. With any luck, what he listens too does not have subliminal messages that are rewiring his brain to be serial killer. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Last week I handed over a new audio book for him called Carter Finally Gets It.

It’s about a 14 year old high school freshman, which Hey! So is Ace. I figured he might relate and enjoy the story. He took it dubiously, read the back of the box, grunted in that noncommittal teenage way and said he’d see. I found the box on the end table the next day and thought there would be no meeting of Boy and Book here.

Two days later I found him reclined on the couch, headphones in his ears, staring into the ether. Attention focused inward as he listened to whatever was in the CD player.

Turns out it was Carter Finally Gets It. Ace decided to give it a chance and was hooked. That kid listened to this book at every opportunity he could find. While mowing the lawn. During dinner, in which he ignored everyone, just listening while inhaling a mountain of food. 14 year old boy, remember?

On the way to baseball practice, on the way home from baseball games, walking in the supermarket, in the bathroom, he tuned to the audiobook again and again. Until it was over. Then he said he wished the book had been longer and asked if there were any more by the author he could get.

During the rare break he took fro mlistening, he kept telling me the book was really good. It was like life at his school. He thought the author really “got” teenagers, boys in particular. Ace said he felt he was listening to someone who had taken notes on what goes on in school and with the kids, then wrote a book about them. It was funny, he said. Carter was a great character. That was Ace's take on the story.

My take, without listening to it, is this is a book about a boy trying to find his place. While doing so, he thinks about and confronts the typical teenage issues: fitting in, sex, relationships, finding the inner voice and overcoming teenage angst.

It’s a book like this that makes me grateful. Sometimes it is one book, one story that inspires a lifetime love of reading. Maybe Carter Finally Gets It will be that book for Ace. Maybe not. But my kid loved it, plans to listen to it again and is so enthused by it that he’s told his friends how much he liked it. He even told his literacy teacher it should be part of their required reading. I’m thinking she prefers keeping Shakespeare on the list.

Maybe a reader here will pick it up for their kid, and another reader will be inspired.

P.S. This was not a sponsored review. I have no affiliation with the author or the publisher. If sharing my son’s enthusiasm for a new book brings the same pleasure to another reader, I’ll gladly write a glowing endorsement of my own free will.