In our case, my reading to my dyslexic child makes the world of words more accessible to her while also giving us the opportunity to cuddle. But needing to be read to is NOT a prerequisite for reading together. Stories like Cast in Fury are wonderful reading out loud stories because there is so much dialogue. That means that I can shout, whisper, and bring humour to my voice. Fortunately, my daughter still enjoys my voice. We had fun and precious together time, something I am not usually very good at.
I adore Merrin. She is what I would have liked to have been. But I would go insane in the chaos of an orphanage. Having two children of my own has been difficult enough. The other thing she does, that I would also like to be able to do, is to accept any person (no matter breed) as long as they are kind to her children.
I fear I am more like Kaylin. My daughter and I laugh at her attention span. Do we ever recognize ourselves in that. Kaylin’s attention span and her bluntness. Autists aren’t famed for being great liars (although some of us are able to lie). Nor is Kaylin. If anything, she if known for the opposite. These traits bring her into trouble with her teachers and friends, but they are also the traits that keep her going as she searches for a truth she can live with. Truth is strange that way. Depending on who I speak with or what I read, ideas of what truth is and must be varies. Kaylin’s greatest truth is that all children have the potential for “good” or “bad” deeds. Only time will prove what they prefer.
Cast in Fury is in part about the child that Kaylin claims as her own. She was there at his birth and licked some of his birthing fluids off his eyelids (not my kind of thing). That makes her part-mother according the laws of the Pridlea, and Kaylin uses any tool at her disposal to save a child she has met. The little dude is one lucky boy to have Kaylin on his side. Without her, he would be a dead little Leontine cub according to Caste laws. That a child might need killing in order to protect a group from something is not a new phenomenon. Nor do I expect it to become an extinct practice. Killing this Leontine baby is the only wise thing to do according to Leontine tradition and lore. Not only Kaylin is in trouble for trying to save the Leontine cub. Her sergeant, Marcus Kassan, is awaiting his trial for murder because of that same cub.
We had fun reading together. Recommended (both reading together and the story).
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