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.