The Boxcar at the Center of the Universe Author:Richard Kennedy Hungry and alone, a 16-year-old boy meets an old bum in a rattling boxcar on a train rolling beside the Columbia River. The hobo claims to be an Arab named Ali Azizi Abdurraham Hafiz, and he spins a fantastic tale of bargains struck and broken, of goats walking upside-down in the sky, of thefts and beheadings, of magic trumpets, of thirst ... more »and silence in the desert. To the listening boy, the storyteller's words point directly to the questions he carries inside himself, to his own quest.
Complemented by Jeff Kronen's intricate illustrations, Richard Kennedy's musical writing carries readers along like the traveling sound of a distant locomotive disappearing far, far off the beaten track.« less