In the short story "Radioman," an inarticulate little girl whose mother makes dressmaking patterns out of newspapers finds a way to wrap herself in words:
I would carefully pin the two sides of the paper dress together until I had a whole newspaper dress. Carefully, watching for pins, I would slip it over my head while Mother began pinning together the real dress. I loved to put on the newspaper dress and go stare at myself in the mirror in Mother and Father's dressing room. I would be covered in words--the war news on my left arm, the baseball game on my right. The Red Cross volunteer appeal would go down my front while a story about Christmas shoppers would run around my neck. All down my back was a story about a lost dog that came home three years later. I would read to myself all the words I could see, backwards in the mirror.
Such vividly realized moments make "Radioman" charming and memorable. The story appears in the collection A Fish Full of River by the very creative Janet Bland, from whose pen I expect to see many more reasons to wrap myself in words.
3 comments:
Do you know if it will be available in a local bookstore or library?
Coming soon to a library near you. Very near, in fact. Practically under your nose.
Maybe you know someone who can get you a deal on a copy?
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