So. Finding books is alway tough. I want a story I can love…Yes. I appreciate good characters. But for me it’s more about plot and action. Where is the next big thing taking place? Is it so upsetting that I have to close my eyes? Reading Garth Nix , at the suggestion of the British Isles SCBWI ARA, I chose Keys of the Kingdom. High concept. All about saving the world. And, yeah, I like those ‘the kid as hero’ books. I’m a true sucker for rescuing the world…no matter what it takes…carrying a ring to a volcano, finding a sword….it really doesn’t matter, so when Arthur Penhaligon finds the House and the Morrow Days, which are people who control parts of The House. [the House being the true universe as creafted by the Architect who is missing or disappeared] And. They all have gone rouge, failing their mission, hiding parts of the will so it can not make it okay, and Arthur becomes the true heir, well then I’m all over this. Mister Monday had the lower house, Grim Tuesday had the Pits of Nothing saying s lot about grim, and Drowned Wednesday had the Border Sea, hence drowned…and I have to say all that time in the secondary seas was not fun, a little boring, and except for the bit where they go into Drowned Wednesday, the whale and sort of solve everything. Now I’m into Thursday and this one is more interesting. Arthur joins the house army,which fights the Nothing or the representatives of Nothing, the Nithlings. There’s the Skinless Boy, the wings that not only fly but keep Suzy Tuquoise Blue invisible. And a better Leaf, Arthur’s friend from the Secondary Realm—Earth. So. I’m into it, but not as much as I though I would be considering books one and two. I would have thought Arthur would be a bit smarter by now, but maybe I’m asking too much of an eleven year old, I’ll keep reading.name I’ll let you know.
Category: Reading (Page 4 of 5)
…is comics. If you’re thinking the paper booklets you read in the 50’s or 60’s. Then no. Those were comics that you could read and you got all the visual clues and the hero did save the day. But if you’re thinking a real story, not matter how fanciful, with pictures and words, what we now term ‘graphic novels’ then you need a new way to read.
I’ve got a couple from First Second Books. Some are easier and faster to read than others. Like Robot Dreams by Sara Varon. Mainly because it is a story in pictures. What you might be tempted to call a picture book. But beware! It’s not, well, the traditional picture book. It’s a story, with a high concept and a lot of twists and turns. But try reading Orcs Forged For War Well, I’ve got to tell you, this takes a bit more work. First off, in this concept, the Orcs are the good guys. Secondly, there’s as much story in the words as there is in the pictures. And together they are fabulous. I may now have to read Stan Nicholls’s book on the Orc Universe. Because he takes the What If? question and makes it a whole different place.
I’m getting used to this new way to read. It’s not just reading now, it’s exploring a different way to tell story. Ya gotta love it!
and by video, I mean anything that would be visual. So TV, movies, DVD, video games, etc. I realize if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you think I don’t read books. I do. It’s just that I sometimes find it harder to review a book than a video.It’s that visual person thing, but then again, it is also the fact that I grew up reading without the benefit of CGI or video games. I did a lot more reading than watching video.
Now. On to John Carter. The movie. I liked it. There were parts where I laughed out loud. To me, it was an adventure. And outsized, fantastic adventure, and Burroughs prose was full of action and suspense and in some ways, terror. John Carter said or thought something and he was on Mars. I didn’t remember the medallion. And there he was like a god, small ‘g’ of course. And he fell in love with the beautiful princess. Remember too, this was a different time for women, not that they were fragile, but there were not the fighter we see in the Disney movie, John Carter. Not that Dejah Thoris was in anyway normal, she was a princess on the Red Planet.
I remember Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ books as being on The Index that was published in The Tidings, the LA Archdiocese newspaper in the 1950’s. Not banned exactly, but not on the approved reading list either. But Mom and I loved Tarzan and John Carter on Mars, well, it was one more adventure. And I we knew that Tarzana, the town just down Sepulveda Blvd you turned right and you were in the town where ERB lived. He died long before I started to read. Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan, lived just down the road a piece in Woodland Hills.
There are lots of good adventure books out there. Lots. But somehow I miss the fact that they can create or recreate the most fantastical of stories and we can see them. LOL, with just the video, it feels very Fahrenheit 451.
lately, I’ve been reading graphic novels. I was a closet comic book reader. I loved not just the art, because I can’t draw at all, but I loved what was immediate about it. The now. The POW! of a comic book. There are still comic books, but now graphic novels have entered the school library, the media centers, traditional publishing. There are respectable. LOL, in the same way science fiction and fantasy are respectable. Almost.
I admit. Some of them I just don’t get. They seem dark, jerky. There must be something in the art I’m missing. ‘Cause I just don’t get it. But, recently I’ve read two that decidedly intrigue me. One is Robot Dreams. A wordless graphic novel. Could have been a wordless picture book, but as a graphic novel it has the time and space to expand the story. Some have said it’s a sad story. Some have been irritated about how callous the main character seemed. Not me. I saw it as hopeful. Everyone can find their own place, sometimes that place is not where you think it should be.
The second is The Professor’s Daughter has so many levels and twists and turns. The mere fact that a mummy, thirty centuries old, could be re-animated. Not only that. Have a father? And children? And when he takes off his bandages he looks normal. A person. Certainly not in the vein of past mummy movies. Not your rampaging, brown and dirty ragged preserved specimen who has just escaped or been exhumed from a grave. No. No. This mummy is suave, a bon vivant, a sophisticate. Top Hat. A stylishly cut suit. Walks in the park, arm and arm with a woman he loves. Truly wonderful writing and art.
Onward! I have more to read.
“Maybe you can help my cellmate, Mineola Potts. She’s such a nice lady.”
“What’s she in for?”
“Jaywalking.” …
“Was she really arrested for jaywalking?” Tony asked.
“Indeed she was, poor woman,” Mrs. Carillon replied. “She was very hungry and had nothing to eat, so she borrowed two cans of lobster meat and a tin of caviar from the supermarket. She was jaywalking when the police stopped her.”
Ellen Raskin, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)
Funny is hard. I read this. I blinked and I started to giggle. then laugh. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t explain it. And, I doubt if I can replicate it. It’s not as funny now as it was when I first read it. It was very awesome feeling. A giggle just bubbling out of you. A giggle you just can’t stop. A giggle that builds into a full-blown laugh.
I think this is dynamite and tough. This laugh-out-loud line came at page sixty-something. Well into the story and I was surprised to find it there. A delightful tidbit for me, the reader. Continue reading