The Book of Why

In the turbulent 1960s, childhood is a place where a boy sells lies for a dollar, names the sad houses in his neighborhood, and digs for fossils in the softening street. Toy dinosaurs wage wars on front lawns. A butterfly net sewn from a mother's dress strains to catch what the air will give. A father reads poetry instead of fairy tales and teaches his son that falling is part of flight.

Part fever dream, part elegy, The Book of Why summons a country on the verge-block parties and Super 8 cameras, sparklers held aloft while adults look away from what is changing. These pages trace how wonder hardens into knowledge, how small losses leave permanent marks, and how the boys we were learned, quietly, what could not be carried forward.