Sparky and the Dipshit

By: Rod Russell-Ides

Narrated by: Rod Russell-Ides

That Great Bend summer of 1961, when I was sixteen, the world was a Kansas prairie that went on forever. It was a time and a place when a boy of imagination seeking glory [and I was such a boy] could spin a summer of stolen freedoms into such high jinks, such high adventure that such a boy might be in danger of losing some vital part of himself when he cut the strings and moved on.

Over the years, I have revisited that magic summer in stops and starts, shared it with friends, then again with my children, then again with my grandchildren. Shook out a sleeve. Emptied some pocket of its boyhood treasures. Anecdotes. Patches. Now something in me wants to see that ragged coat whole against the sky, like some renegade kite caught in a whip of a Kansas wind.

©01/15/2013 Rod Russell-Ides (P)01/15/2013 Rod Russell-Ides

8 Hours of Fun!

This audiobook is hours of pure enjoyment. First of all, it's beautifully written. Really. The use of personification is so striking that I kept wanting my teenage son to hear it, and toward the end of the book the transition from the past to the present and back is the most elegant I have ever encountered. Ever. Second, the story is priceless. It made me laugh out loud and shake my head in wonderment and wish that I'd ever have stories like this to tell (which I won't). Hearing it straight from the author was also a treat. I got lost in the story and it seemed like he was telling it directly to me! I'm going to play the book again in the car for my children and I'm looking forward to every moment.

Good book and I love that it is read by the author

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Its the story of two brothers coming together so it is powerful, but there are also some very funny moments.

Have you listened to any of Rod Russell-Ides’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Because the author read the read the book, his passion come through.