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A note about the Brandon Sparks Universe – C.K.

I’ve thought long and hard about how to use this space to tell you what the Brandon Sparks novels are about. It would be appropriate to give you a brief synopsis of the six novels but that is not what I intend to do. You can already find descriptions of the first two novels in the series, Brandon Sparks and the Hidden Sun and Brandon Sparks and the Star Shadow. Instead I have decided to share with you the discovering of Brandon Sparks by a young person.

Roughly four years ago my doorbell rang and in walked my nine-year-old granddaughter, Halley. My daughter, Kara, and her husband, Mark, were taking my wife to the theater. I had happily offered myself as a babysitter to escape the indescribable torture of sitting through the politically oriented Broadway shows that Dolores holds so dear. Instead I had the pleasure of spending the day with my favorite granddaughter and introducing her, in the most basic of ways, to the subject I am most passionate about.

After filling up on ice cream sandwiches, I told Halley that I wanted to read her a story. She of course said that she was too old to be read to, truth be told, she was, but though she devoured books as a small child, she had lost the love of reading over the years. Both of her parents worked long hours and though they were deeply involved with her education, the need for casual reading did not rank as a high priority. Regardless, I pulled out an old copy of Brandon Sparks and the Hidden Sun that I kept in the odds-and-ends drawer in my kitchen and slid it in front of her. The pages had begun to yellow, but the cover was clear; a young boy sleeping in bed, the early morning sunlight streaming through his bedroom window while the stars and night sky swirled magically on his ceiling.

As is typical of someone who does not read novels often, Halley asked me if the book had any pictures in it. I laughed at this and told her that it did. It had thousands of pictures, but she would need to use her imagination to see them. Halley gave me that all-too-familiar look an older person gets when someone wants convey that they just said something that makes them sound really old. I asked her for a bit of patience as I folded back the cover and began to read. When I had finished the introduction, I asked her if she wanted me to continue. She said, “Yes,” and just as I was about to begin, my phone rang. As I spoke on the phone I noticed that Halley had picked up the book and began reading it herself. After my phone call I excused myself from the room, and peeked back in at the last minute to see my granddaughter fully immersed in the story.

We barely spoke the rest of the day but that did not bother me at all. A big grin filled my face as I watched my granddaughter consumed by the wonderful story of Brandon Sparks. When my family returned from the theater, Halley had gotten through the first third of the book. It took her the rest of the weekend to complete the novel. She called me Sunday evening and asked me if there was any more. I told her, “You have only just scratched the surface.”