Leo

Novella: Leo. A boy and his mother suffer broken hearts that drive them in different directions. His new tutor is tough, but understands more than anyone else what they suffer. Her job though, is only about helping him solve his recent reading block. Will this charming brilliant boy finally break through her walls? Will his mother? Might three wounded people pool their troubles into progress, or do their complexities keep them at odds? Explore with these characters while they bump along, sometimes into each other, to find out.

Sample from Leo:
“Ok,” says the tutor, a tall, trim woman with short almost curly dark hair and deep olive green eyes. “The way I do it is, if you don’t bring your own book, you walk around the room and pick what you you’d like to read. You can change our book once, after you read at least one full chapter. But that’s it,” waving a finger back and forth for emphasis. “I encourage you to look carefully, take your time. You can pick a book up, read parts of it if you like, before choosing where to start.”
The slight, pale young man with freckles, moppy straight blondish hair, moves slowly around the room. Without touching one book he stops, points, “is that one French? Historical?”
“Well, it is by a French author. It was somewhat contemporary in 1862, but you could see it as historical now. Have you heard of it?”
“That one,” looking quite determined.
The tutor blinks, “that is an unabridged version, and quite long – ”
“What’s that mean?”
Given the intelligence report on the child, he knows what long means. “Unabridged means unedited. Well, no, full length might be more correct, nothing has been removed, or trimmed.”
Scrunching up his face, “why would anyone want to read something with stuff missing?”
“Quite right,” nodding, thinking she likes this kid already. “But, some authors write long, or go off on detours in their work. This man is a prime example, he wanders off for pages on the Battle of Waterloo, among other things.”