The Rodeo

So reads the inscription scrawled in the front of the book I found sitting on the - I don’t actually know what it’s called - that sits just inside our front door last night. Sounds like a worthy challenge.

I love getting packages in the mail, even when they are expected, especially when they are free.

And I was even more happy to receive a book that sounded like it was written just for me. Once the envelope had been ripped open and the contents laid out on the - thing, I took a quick flick through and registered my first impressions:

Look - Red, in a very primary-colour kind of way. The cover only hints at what lies within, without any out-and-out cartoons that might deter those who need to read this book most.
Feel - The cover is very smooth with sharp corners. Once inside though, strong, thick pages that make you feel like you’ve skipped a page when you turn them and ink that is raised off the page. You can feel the very print on the pages. I love that.
Smell - Neutral, doesn’t have the musty smell of old books, or the sharp tang of the numerous catalogues that somehow make it past our recycling bin.
Taste - Licking books is something I won’t be doing. Again. Leaves a nasty mark and weakens the pages, so I don’t know what the book tastes like. Maybe ask Mat if he gets his hands on it (and once he learns to speak).

Escape Adulthood was written by the Champion of Childhood, Jason Kotecki. I don’t know who dubbed him thus, but he seems pretty determined to cure Adultitis and return dreary grown-ups to the land they used to inhabit as children, so the title seems pretty apt.

The whole book reads like he has been watching my life and writing down my story. Life is too short to fritter it away worrying about things you can’t change and to stress over things that aren’t really important, so why bother doing that. Instead, you can re-discover what it is that makes young children so innocent and stress-free, and do likewise. The whole book is just so… obvious, once you read it, that to ignore the ideas within is to resign yourself to a grey, dull, monotonous life.

Read it. And then do it. Not much more I can really say.

The end of each chapter contains a bunch of tips to try, and so, to conclude, I leave a few tips of my own:

• Slide down the bannisters. Nothing is more fun than landing a full-length staircase slide and letting everyone know about it.
• Smile at people. So many people grumping all the time, an unrequested smile can brighten up someone’s whole day.
• Laugh more. There’s plenty to laugh at - try pulling faces at kids. Or adults.
• Name your own constellations. There’s plenty of stars and they can all do with names. The splattered cat, the shopping trolley, the saucepan. One day you’ll have named enough to navigate by these.

RodeoClown: knows Nein Nunb is from Sullust

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