Enjoy The Sound of Bradbury's Thunder

I am pushing hard, probably too hard at times, to get my son (who I call the wood-chipper when it comes to reading) to try out some of the stories I read as a kid - and the first master to come to mind is Ray Bradbury. Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked. etc. I have no idea how to estimate the impact his writing had on me and my own writing, but as I leaf through his collected short stories I come across The Sound of Thunder and think Ah! perfect for a kid. So I just read this to my son Whit. Here is a great excerpt describing a tyrannosaurus the hunters go to shoot ... also, here's a link to a synopsis if you haven't had the pleasure.

“It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a tone of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangles out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head it self, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight. It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons.”

Sigh. How gorgeous is that?!?