Dungeons & Dragons

First and foremost, we did NOT wake up to several inches of accumulated snow this morning. In fact, it didn’t snow at all and I don’t even think it rained that much. So much for weather hype. But this *is* the Great Lake State and things can get squirrely on short notice.

In the last week, I have read the entire Earthsea Trilogy. Most of my reading took place yesterday and today. I don’t get to read much during the week, lunchtime mostly. At the beginning of the first book, I was a little put off by what I was thinking was rather “stiff” language. That wore off quickly as I got to know the characters and made heavy use of the map to figure out where the heck “we” were going.

When I finished that last book in the “trilogy”, I had a couple thoughts for “what’s next?” in my head. One, a vague idea that the Earthsea “Trilogy” ended up being more than a trilogy. The second that maybe I needed a palate cleanser before reading more of Earthsea (or even Ursula). I looked up the next book in the “cycle” and decided it might be different enough to actually *be* a palate cleanser. Also I was thinking I was maybe trying to make myself adhere to some sort of KW-devised OCD “rules” about not reading umpteen books by the same author (except hello Outlander). In the end I banished my OCD to the dark shadows of the Landfill Dungeon (where it belongs) and downloaded the 4th book in the Earthsea cycle.

Yes, I am a fast reader (or can be if I’m not reading something mind-numbingly dense). When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I was told I was reading at about an 8th grade level. Something like that. I’m not bragging and I wasn’t an “early” reader although I could spell my name and recognize words like “stop” (on stop signs), etc. I can clearly remember decoding words via phonics, etc., in 1st grade. The building blocks to reading were embedded in my head and I was right on time to take off.

Plenty of intelligent people struggle with reading as children and I can remember Mrs. Bishop (my uber-cool 2nd grade teacher) explaining to our class about how kids with dyslexia don’t always see letter shapes as other people do. This was cutting edge stuff in 1962 and I am impressed that she was paying attention to it and also that she was able to explain it to the class in a way that we (or I, at least) could understand it. She did this without shaming any of the struggling readers in the class, who may have had dyslexia or maybe some other learning disability.

I could rattle on and on about this but I won’t and you’re welcome.

G’night. KW

One Response to “Dungeons & Dragons”

  1. Margaret Says:

    You’re a very fast reader. I am too, but find little time to read in spite of my retirement. I think I’m always finding other things to do!!