The Frankenstein boots shuffle to turn the wheelchair to face the audience. Elfin fingers splay forward, thumbs locked together with silver cuffs. Regulation handcuffs gnaw on boney wrists. Shackles squeeze slender arms. A breath escapes the lung and a half of the skeleton that looks as if it were bear-hugged too tightly. One eye looks out at the spectators; the other eye keenly focused within. Ricky Boone’s voice rings strong: Ladies and gentlemen the reason I love doing this escape is because it helps me to show you. Talk about bondage. I don’t care if you’re in a wheelchair. I don’t care if you’re on crutches. I don’t care if you think your hair is the wrong color. I don’t care if you think your eyes are the wrong color. If you can have a dream you can make your dream come true. Ladies and gentlemen, I am the most blessed person on this earth. I am getting to live my dreams…Ricky effortlessly escapes from his bonds just as he has escaped from the restraint of his condition.From day one, Ricky’s doctors predicted his death from a rare bone disorder, Morgani’s Syndrome. If he survived birth, he would never make it beyond four years old. He is now over fifty. Through the years he has escaped a rare pneumonia which kills people with two healthy lungs, brain surgery with a fifty-percent survival rate and lived through a heart attack from a rare virus. When left to die in the hospital a voice spoke to him, If you are too tired, I will bring you home. If you are willing to fight, I promise you, it is not over. Hours later he was still alive, though doctors said he would never leave his bed. A week later he was up, yet the doctors knew he could never perform. That was ten years ago and he has performed more shows since than ever before, appearing on all three major television networks and winning numerous awards and accolades from the magic community. A documentary news broadcast of his life won two Emmy awards for best feature and best story in the Southeast region. If it weren’t for magic, I wouldn’t exist, Ricky smiles.Written in historical narrative from personal interviews with Ricky and those he has inspired, his story shows how anything is possible if one is willing to strive. Everyone has the power to be a giant just as Ricky has become The Four-foot Giant. If you like good stories; if you are somebody that loves going to the movies; if you are someone that loves those Forest Gump-type movies; if you are somebody that just appreciates a good story from beginning to middle and not yet to the end, then you will appreciate this book only because of Ricky Boone. -Leighton Grant, Nine-time Emmy winning News Photographer, WLOS ABC 13
