A Series of Impossible Events

Ape House by Sara Gruen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book was so disturbing that I just skimmed it.  I have a problem with the innocent and helpless being put in jeopardy, even in fiction.  I know this is just my problem; I'm dealing with it, okay? 
The premises behind this book are so horrific to me as to be impossible to believe: firstly, that someone who wants to air a reality animal show would pretend to be an animal rights terrorist group, create a front page story of explosives and mayhem to effect the transfer of bonobos from a research facility to this ridiculously public display ... as if no one would notice?  Or that a man would conspire with this group, leading to the disfigurement of his fiancee, let her fish and plants die while she was in hospital, and still want to get back together with her although he's obviously a horndog who would screw anyone.  Why would that person care one whit for her? 
All my complaints aside and despite the speed read that glossed over quite a bit, it was an exciting read.  Somehow, however, I just knew Amanda would go through an apotheosis that turned her into a clean freak.  The mother's finding of the sex toys and zippy-bagging them was ... humorous.  I find it hard to believe that a writer in California would be subjected to the same pressures as an actor, but it is California after all.  If it was meant to be humorously satirical, it just wasn't funny enough.




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Plump and Juicy Mystery

Too Big to Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Disclaimer: I'm fat, middle-aged, and a former paralegal.
I devoured this in one day.  Most of the ickier bits (the death is a gritty one that's revisited through retrieved screen captures) I skimmed over.  Jaffarian has created some interesting characters, many of them plus-sized which is nice to see.  The mystery was a good one and there is a spot of romance, where Jaffarian falls into the fatal blunder of making the sex "the best [Odelia] ever had."  Writing like that makes me want to bang my head on the desk.  Every now and then I run into an author who has the ovaries to write that the sex was "pretty good ... and worth repeating to see if it got better."  If it's the best, chances are it will only go downhill, you know.  Real life says that sometimes it's really, really good and sometimes it's adequate and sometimes it knocks off socks you weren't even aware you had on. 
Odelia's cherished friend and mentor in the plus-sized world has committed suicide.  She did it on an internet camera, making it fairly obvious what happened ... or did it?  Odelia has her suspicions but the police have called it suicide.  Then Odelia discovers that her friend had many secrets in her life, each more shocking than the next! No! You don't say!  Ahem.  Was one of them the incredibly handsome but poisonous man who came to the funeral?  Or the little man who attacked him, blaming him for the death? 



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Whatta Croc!

Sample clip art for 5 hungry crocodiles

I've got a mess o' crocodile stories coming up for a storytime I'm doing next week as a special program for a Rotary Club Family Lunch, and I thought I'd share a few of my treasures.
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I got the flannelboard poem of "Five Hungry Crocodiles" from Story Place.  I found the black fish in MSPublisher and right-clicked on it, selected Format Picture, then the "Recolor ..." button and I was able to make five fishies in different colors to print off, laminate, and either glue scrap felt or sticks or whatever you choose to the back.

You could use that or "Five Little Monkeys" - where they tease Mr. Crocodile.
Five little monkeys sitting in a tree,
Teasing Mr. Crocodile, "You can't catch me!"
Along came Mr. Crocodile, quiet as could be and SNAP!

Four little monkeys ... etc.

Eileen Christelow has a book version where they don't get eaten, but, I mean, what's the point of that?!

If you want a nicer ending, try Crocodile and Hen, a Bakongo folktale retold by Joan M. Lexau.  There are two versions of this - different illustrators.  One is an easy reader.  Crocodile learns how he and hen are brother and sister, so he can't eat her, however fat and delicious-looking she might be.  I do this one with puppets.

I also do the Monkey and Crocodile story with puppets and foam balls as mangoes. Monkey is fairly fainting with desire for the mangoes he sees ripening on an island in the middle of the river, but he must get past Crocodile.  After convincing Crocodile to take him across in exchange for his monkey heart (the best and most delicious part of a monkey) which he claims to keep in the mango tree, Monkey throws a hard, unripe mango down to Crocodile, who chokes on it.  For older children, I go on to the part where Monkey has now run out of mangoes and faces starvation if he can't get back.  He persuades Crocodile that he's ready to be eaten for being such a baaaaad monkey, but to swallow him whole because he's afraid of being chewed up (or that whole drown-and-tuck-under-a-log-in-the-water-to-soften-up-for-snacking-later for the zoology-obsessed children).  Claiming he's going to run and jump in the crocodile's mouth, he has Crocodile open his mouth so wide he can no longer see, and then jumps on his back, using him as a springboard to the mainland.  Oh, he's a baaaaad monkey!  Crocodile overacts a bit on the choking, but he's such an emo, ya know?

There are a couple of fun crocodile songs, both of which I plan to use.  One is the familiar Crocodile Song with the hand gestures and the other I found on YouTube billed as The Most Annoying Song Ever (which intrigued me immediately).  It's from a German tv show, but English translations are available.

I'm finishing up with making a Schnipp-Schnapp-Schnappi the little crocodile puppet.

Schnipp-Schnapp-Schnappi, Schnappi Schnappi Schnapp!

Teensy Rant

I'd like to talk about decimals.  I'll start with the "Our children's room non-fiction collection is so small that I don't see the point of going out three spaces, much less four."  I understand that there is a jobber who does all this work for us so we don't need the MLIS's cataloging in-house and that company apparently can't discriminate between juvenile and adult collections (maybe without charging more), but still ...

Next up: Y'all, decimals are just like money.
Which is worth more: $90 or $97?
Let's put some numbers in front.
Which is worth more:
$56,790 or $56,797?
$567.90 or $567.97?
Okay, take that zero away.   [Occasionally the jobber puts the zeros in, but they're supposed to leave it out.]
Which is more: 567.9 or 567.97?
What if money were broken into even smaller pieces?  Let's look at this. 
Which is worth more: $900 or $912?
How about 567,900 or 567,912?
Which is more: 567.9 or 567.912?
Here are some trickier ones.
What's worth more: $970.40 or $970.04?
How about 970.4, 970.04, and 970.004?
Or 970.1, 970.004, 970.4?
That was easy, wasn't it?  So, tomorrow when I go to shelve some books, I don't want to see 398.209 coming after 398.24 or smack in the middle of the 398.2s.  Ithankyew.

Next week: The Alphabet.

Hold the Mayo

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Audio-version.
Perhaps this was annoying because the child-like voice with the excruciatingly plummy accent of the reader grated on me.  It's a tone of voice very popular in theatre because the nasality is very penetrating and projects really well.  Nine cd's of it is very wearing.
On to the story - Why do I expect things in mysteries to make sense?  What sort of infant baptism holds a fragile child by the ankle and dunks them like Achilles?  Why would a murderer hang a body from a statue when leaving it where it was would hide it longer while hanging it would expose the murderer to a bigger chance of being discovered?  Kill, hang the body, leaving the weapon in place?  Oh yes, yes, people under stress do strange things.  Usually, they just run away though, or wipe their fingerprints.
And if Flavia only wears dresses, she must give the villagers a lovely view when she rides Gladys with her feet on the handlebars.
I was surprised by the amount of blood that came from a non-fatal head wound.  Not that I'm a forensics expert or anything, but ... who would have thought the old woman had so much blood in her?
The first book in this series annoyed me by having poison ivy in an English garden.  I keep asking Brits about that and get no clear answer.  I suppose it's far-fetched enough having an 11 year old genius-chemist.
The family conflict is getting old.  You know, I only had one older sister who did things like tie me to chairs so I wouldn't bug her when her friends came over, but even I think this family is out of control.  And the father needs a good smack up-side his head and a torch put to his stupid stamp collection.
What is my problem?
I really appreciated the addition of Porcelain (not sure of spelling because this was the audio) when she behaved with good sense, cutting off exploration of a dark place or fetching help when the plot called for it.  But how old is she?  She has no parents, so where does she live ... besides "London"?
Next time I will read the book (I will keep reading them) because the turn of phrase is good.


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Manage the KIDS?

In all the years I've been doing storytimes, I haven't had nearly the amount of trouble with kids that I've had with the adults that come into storytime with them.  This doesn't mean I don't want them in there, just that I wish they would use some common sense.
Problem #1: Cell phones.  They forget to turn their cell phones off. The cell phone rings during storytime and the adult steps over the children on the way out, talking all the way.  Solution: Start each storytime with the Cell Phone Song:
    I went to the storytime with my mom,
    But she left
    Her cell phone on.
    The cell phone rang
    And she took the call.
    Now we're not allowed back in at all.*
And have the kids pretend to take out their cell phones, turn them off, and put them back in their pockets while glaring meaningfully at the adults.

I also have a sign that used to be posted on the wall (but now that we're in a new library, we can't put anything up until it gets all grungy and lived-in again).  The idea was that if the cell phone rang, the tiger would come out and eat the phone ... and anyone holding it.

These aren't the exact signs - but you get the idea.

Problem #2: Adults talking during storytime, daycare providers/teachers doing their work, or texting.  Rather than shame authority figures in front of their charges, I have a sign I hold up that has the "No cell phones" on one side and the "Please model good listening." on the other.  I may need to flash both.  I do mostly pre-school storytimes, so they can't read and the adults get the message.  If they don't get the message, some day, some day, I may just resort to public shaming.

The best storytime experiences I have had were with groups that had adults who participated.

* This song has more verses that involve restaurants and airlines and gets progressively vitriolic.  I hate cell phones.  Even though I own one, I rarely turn it on. Be in the moment, people!

The Slippery Slope

Not Just a Witch by Eva Ibbotson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ibbotson writes in the simple declarative sentences of someone telling a bedtime tale ... and then guides the reader gently by the hand into horror.  Because it's a children's book, all has to turn out for the best.  In the meantime, the most unimaginable cruelties can take place. 
There are two witches who were best friends in witching school but had a falling out and went their separate ways.  Because they are "good" witches, they try to do good.  This seems to consist of finding very bad people and either turning them into interesting animals (that are now "nice" so they must be cared for) or to stone. 
If you are a child, this might make sense, and two out of the three children who get involved are happy to help.  The third child, a very very smart Asian girl, is reluctant, but she loses her reservations when a white supremacist comes to town.  Ah, how easily we respond to fear! 
We can also be gulled by love, which steers the witches blindly into cruelty on a mass scale. 
If the actions in this book seem horrifying, they are told in a fairytale style, softening them and making them seem palatable until the little snowball runs out of control and the avalanche ensues.  This is a cautionary tale.  It's about right and wrong.  And Ibbotson has very clear ideas what constitutes right and wrong.



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Fully Rounded Pig

Death in the Truffle Wood by Pierre Magnan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


First of all, I'm appalled by the cover.  How do I know this takes place in France?  Perhaps by the man in the horizontally striped boating shirt and the red beret?  Where's his baguette?
Alyre has a prized Trüffelschwein who indicates clues everywhere but is ignored.  Alyre is proud of his beautiful but unfaithful wife but, as he apparently loves the pig more, he doesn't let it bother him much.  He is more upset when someone throws a stone and injures the pig. 
Hippies who come to his town tend to disappear, so Laviolette is sent to look into the matter semi-unofficially.  He prefers to stay at small boarding houses and hang in the background observing.  The local police cooperate with him.  He investigates.  Magnan manages to make it all come off sort of quirky.  Maybe it's the pig.  Maybe it's the very nearly humorous grotesqueness.  It stoops to the "get everyone in the room and make calculated insinuations to see who blinks" wheeze then builds to a climactic if ridiculous chase scene.  And it has a nicely cynical coda.  All in all, it was worth reading.



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Bertie Wooster Writes a Thriller

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hugh Laurie manages to mix humor with thriller, but I think I need less thrill in my life.  I am assured by my husband, who used to work for a US defense contractor, that while it is true that footage from the Gulf War is used to advertise military hardware, etc., no one, but no one, would develop a prototype helicopter or anything for the military without first being paid by the military and this hasn't happened since Abraham Lincoln took a consignment of rifles with interchangeable parts.  This takes a load off my mind.

Thomas Lang finds himself forced to become an international terrorist in this plot-with-more-twists-than-a-twisty-turny-thing.  As an Amurrikin, I am horrified to think that 1) the good ole US of A would sponsor terrorism for any ... ruh-roh, 2) that anyone would think that would even be a plausible ... aw, shee-it, and 3) Why doesn't everybody love us?! [Breaks down and sobs.]

Sprinkled herein are many witticisms about modern life as well as metaphors about sex stretched tighter than sausage casings on Lance Armstrong's thighs.  It's so easy to see the goofy side of Hugh Laurie in the lead role, right up until he starts killing people.  And he seems to know an awful lot about guns.  This does seem to be running backwards: a Brit going on lovingly about guns and an Amurrikin with a growing horror of them and descriptions of death, but it'd be a funny old world if we all ran to type.

I don't blame the author for hitting the US too hard.  In fairness, the Brits seem to be complicit in the scenario and the baddies are described as renegade CIA.  There's plenty of blame to go around.  Lang's background even includes his tour of duty as a servant of the oppressor in Northern Ireland, which goes to explain his military acumen as well as a reminder that the Brits don't always get it right either when dealing with terrorists.  Or at least it reminds me, since I seem to be one of the few that remembers IRA terrorism at a time when everyone else in this country seems to think terrorism was invented by a different religious group.

But, as I said, this was a bit too thrilling for me.  I've been typing this review for some few minutes and my heart rate is still up.  Other folks might find this tame, but it was a rollicking, riveting read and should satisfy the tastes of most people who aren't as namby-pamby as I.


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Dear Parents

Dear Parents of the cute children who come into the Children's Room of the public library,

Get this through your heads: we are not School.  Although committed to "lifelong learning" in our mission statement, this is just a ruse to make Reading For Fun more palatable come funding time.  Your lovely child slogs for nine months each year through the soul-crushing graded readers, the No-Child-Left-Interested required curricula, and, my personal bugaboo, the Dreaded Accelerated Reader tests.  Don't make summer just another opportunity to make reading a deadly chore. 

Do not:
Insist your child read only at or above her reading level during the summer.  No one really likes the Tiger Mom.
Tell  your child something is too old or too babyish for him. 
Shame your child by remarking in front of the entire library that she "didn't finish the books she checked out last time," so she can't have that many this time.  Books are not brussel sprouts. They don't go bad if they aren't read.  The only reason to limit books is if they tend to get lost.
Ask the librarian to back you up on your opinion of the books.  Hell's bells, I'm a 57 year old married woman!  I don't have the same tastes as a nine year old boy.  Okay, maybe I don't necessarily have his tastes.  Maybe he doesn't like the Three Stooges and comic books - ahem, I mean Graphic Novels.  Oooo, look! Captain Underpants!

Chances are, if your kid can relax during the summer and read something she enjoys (for a change), she might decide that reading isn't the big drag it was during the school year.  Who knows, it might make a big difference in her life.  So lay off the kids.  If you insist on riding their backs even in summer, just make sure it's something other than reading, like piano lessons and science camp until it runs out their ears.  There's nothing sadder in this room than seeing a kid be told he can't have a particular book for some reason.  Worse yet, making him come up and shuffle his feet while he tells me that he can't have that book.

Oh, and about complaints I've heard about Junie B. Jones - get over it.  You think your kid doesn't know bad language or behavior when she sees it?  [I'm still trying to figure out what Junie B.'s "bad language" is.]  You haven't taught your child what kind of behavior you expect?  He doesn't know the difference between fiction and reality?   Perhaps you just need to develop your sense of humor.  I understand that if you lack one, you might find the rest of us behaving irrationally.  Just think about it.