A 12-year old altar boy wryly observes an undertaker's funeral in a cemetery. A teacher spins yarns about the lives of saints, hoping that her middle school students will want to emulate martyrs. A fifteen-year-old discovers the importance of the backseat of a car... And he learns to be responsible and adjust to the coming death of his father. A man peddles a bicycle from coast to coast, seeking the physical challenge and, reclaiming, something he has lost. From innocence to awakening, from the humorous to the serious, from the subtle to the sublime, these are a few of the themes found in this collection of short stories titled Homer the Innocent: Selected Stories.