Someplace Else: A Voyage to Zodiac Island

By Barbara Linick

Twelve-year old Johnny lives way up in a high rise in a big city. When he looks out the window, he sees the world bustling to and fro, but doesn't understand what everyone is doing. Fortunately, he happens to have a big imagination that conjures up an odyssey of discovery and transformation.

One night Johnny's pure and naive th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookside Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778831683

Barbara Linick

Barbara Linick has designed a whimsical enchantment using a theme as old as fantasy itself. And, while serving to introduce astrology tochildren and adults alike, Johnny's intriguing voyage also unfolds for us how the sum can be greater than its parts.

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Copyright © 2023 by Barbara Linick

ISBN: 978-1-77883-167-6 (Paperback)

978-1-77883-168-3 (E-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The views expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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For Alan

J OHNNY WAS A DREAMER. His mother said so, his father said so, everybody said so! So it must be true.

He stared out of the window of his room, high up on the twenty-seventh floor of his apartment in the city, and he dreamt. People suddenly appeared on sidewalks, then disappeared around corners. Yellow taxis roamed the streets, stopping at red lights, going when they turned green.

I am far, far away, he thought. Untouchable. But Johnny never got sad or lonely because he dreamt. He dreamt up stories for each and every thing he saw. Taxis were … what horses used to be! And do you know where horses came from? Green meadows, wild rivers, ancient forests. And Johnny also saw the things living beneath the tall buildings in the city. That lady down there, the one in the brown coat, stepping into the subway hole … she might know about the secret ocean swelling dark green under the subway tracks. Where the silvery tadpoles and magnificently monstrous whales kicked and slipped and rolled about. Where seahorses turned into riverboats and competed with the taxis. The lady in the brown coat might go down those steps and never come out again. After all, she could get on the ocean train instead of the one on the tracks. Really, she could be carried away.

Mother is worried, thought Johnny. He watched her watching him.

What are you thinking, Johnny?

Oh, nothing now, Mama … but SOMETIMES my thoughts are like a million jewels, REAL jewels, all sparkling and smiling in rainbows over my head. (He pointed in the air.) But that is only SOMETIMES.

ONE NIGHT JOHNNY LAY in bed and