My Geeky Son

Mitchell has been reading a certain book that he found in his Grampa Shumway's library.  It looked so good, that he asked to borrow it last June so he could read it over the carefree summer.  It must have turned out to be quite a page turner because he has recently decided to re-read it all over again. 

So for this re-read, he's now back in school.  Instead of lounging around the house reading far from his onlooking peers, this time through he's been unabashedly taking it to school with him, which has put him in a bit of a quandry.  Apparently his friends have all been giving him grief over his book because today I found the darn thing on our kitchen counter sporting this most rugged and manly looking homemade book cover:

  

Take a closer look...

 

What's the real name of the book you ask?

 

Yes, that's right...

"The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics"

And just how big is this book you ask??

 

And what exactly does it say inside you inquire further?

Let me show you... 

For your reading pleasure I photographed 

a random page for you to delightfully ponder...

"huh?"

Seriously, did you notice this sentence:

"At this time, as you have probably already anticipated, the force of gravity become unified with the rest of the forces."

Probably anticipated???  Good grief!  My mind had already gone blank after the first sentence.  

Remember when you were a Junior reader and your teacher gave you that handy little method to figure out if the book you wanted to read was on your reading level?  You remember.  You had to read the first page and if you counted more than five words you couldn't understand.  Bingo!  Not your book.

Okay, so I tried that method here...

1. quark/leptons
2. bosons
3. electro-weak
4. 10-45 seconds
5. supersymmertry

yep, not the book for me.  How 'bout you?

My question is...whatever happened to classics like S.E.Hinton's "The Outsiders" or "Rumble Fish" full of teenage violence?  Or just a simple magazine like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition?  Or even a comic book for mercy sake?   These things a mother can understand, but Physics?  Astronomy?  and heaven forbid, MATHEMATICS!  All in the name of fun?  These sort of topics do not scream prom date.

...which, is why I'm quite happy with my geeky son!