Skip to main content

Chatting with my mother, I realise it has been ages since last I updated this forum of Mollinian thought. Mother suggests the following as an entry:

The Christmas rush is over and I have enjoyed my fulfilling job helping people select quality children's literature at Barnes and Noble.


This is true. Would you like a wider offering of thought? Or broader?
How 'bout a book suggestion? (This should probably be posted on my readers' blog, shared with Edinburgh friends):

I have just finished reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It is a book that every one should read - man and beast, woman and bird. It is about a mouse, a rat, a princess, a non-princess, and soup. Yes, the rodents do talk. No, it is not obnoxiously cloying and cute, unreasonable, unbelievable, or silly. Read it. You will feel both loved and known. You will feel enlightened in the real sense of a window opening the morning into a dark room. You will want to praise it to all your friends in similar fashion to my present adulation.

My mother and father recently visited my brother in Connecticut. I sent him a children's book I had not read but that looked interesting. If anyone out there has read Operation Red Jericho, please tell me what you thought of it. I liked it because it had maps and graphs, sketches and travel-logs in it. And as my mother would say, a book with a map must be good.

I started reading Sharon Creech's Castle Corona today. I do not think it is quite as inspired as The Tale of Despereaux, but it may prove to be fabulous as well. I was charmed by her use of the phrase 'spare prince' on the first page. And delighted that she didn't skirt around the fact that hers was a 'once upon a time' story. I love the necessity of that phrase.

I also read the picture book The Chocolate Cat. Not very well written, mostly because a book like that should have your mouth watering with longing for that favoured bean, but the illustrations were fun.

I am now doing a fine job of being in my mother's way as she prepares a feast for our supper, hopefully to be eaten in front of or just prior to my first viewing of the film Once. I've been meaning to watch that film for many months now.

I have just been notified by my mother's laptop that I am running on reserve battery power. Oh dear.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
6 comments
Read more

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

Book of the Week: The Hunger Games

If Cynthia Voigt had written science fiction, it probably would have looked something like The Hunger Games . In Suzanne Collins's newest novel, we meet a protagonist who seems remarkably familiar. Like Voigt's heroines, we understand her story because she seems so much like ourselves - no matter how strenuous or bizarre the circumstances, we feel certain our story would be the same. We, too, would have those resources, that practicality, that certain sensitivity that separates us from the masses. I don't say this critically - it is the book's strongest feature that it identifies with every one of its readers and says 'this could be your story.' It is not just its portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, the novel's heroine, that is familiar. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic North American nation, Panem. It is a country held together by fear - a fear instilled by the capitol into each of its twelve districts and maintained by a yearly event called the Hunge...
5 comments
Read more