the last book I ever read (Chris Bachelder's The Throwback Special, excerpt one)

from The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder:

The wicker sewing kit reminded Charles of his grandparents’ cabin on Lake Michigan. There had been a box there—though much larger, and not wicker—full of games and toys. While the adults talked and drank, he would sit on the floor, playing Barrel of Monkeys or Lincoln Logs. There had been another toy, a sketch of a bald man’s head encased in transparent plastic. With a magnetic stylus you dragged dirty iron filings to the man’s head, giving him hair, a mustache, a beard. The filings clung to the stylus like filthy moss. The man’s mood was entirely dependent, Charles had discovered, on the angle of the eyebrows.