My wife and I enjoyed flipping through this fun picture book, packed full of cool details and elaborate slice of life tableaus- it definitely brought My wife and I enjoyed flipping through this fun picture book, packed full of cool details and elaborate slice of life tableaus- it definitely brought back the nostalgic comfort of something like Where’s Waldo along with its intricate depictions of contemporary millennial life in the same vein as something like Broad City. Following cube worker Jane’s very eventful weekend, as she packs in basement shows, art openings, dog parties, brunches, trips to the garden supply store, and just hanging out in her apartment, each tableau tasking viewers to locate various fun items hidden in the chaos.
Nixon’s illustrations, languid watercolors, is detailed and cool, rewarding looking again to notice continuity and recurring jokes in Jane’s weekend, along with all of the spiders, mimosas, dog bones, and alt weeklies (among many other fun stuff) we’re looking for. Taking place in what my wife called “a magical world of women,” with only a few dudes to be found, Houseplants and Hot Sauce is definitely something neat to leave on your coffee table for others to notice. ...more
This was my love’s favorite children’s book growing up, so when I took a StoryTime training course for the library, we thought it would be fun to try This was my love’s favorite children’s book growing up, so when I took a StoryTime training course for the library, we thought it would be fun to try out some of my new skills by reading this book aloud to her. While I hadn’t read this one as a kid, it carried the same ethereal cadences and relaxing but mysterious elements I recalled from the author’s more famous work, Goodnight Moon. The artwork is lush and evocative as a child and parent bunny imagine various scenarios involving the young bunny’s escape from parental control, but always reminded that their love remains. A very comforting feeling is evoked throughout. ...more
If you’ve ever found yourself watching The Room, the last decade’s most bizarre and inexplicable cult classic film, which seemed to come out of nowherIf you’ve ever found yourself watching The Room, the last decade’s most bizarre and inexplicable cult classic film, which seemed to come out of nowhere to enrapture audiences with its surreal non sequiturs and mystifying sensibilities, you may find yourself craving answers. How did it get made? Why was the film made? Why am I watching this? Most of all, you might be asking, who is this Tommy Wiseau guy, and how did he become the producer, writer, director, and star of this “Citizen Kane of bad movies?’ The Disaster Artist, a memoir of how the aspiring young actor Greg Sestero almost accidentally befriended the mysterious Wiseau and became involved in the disaster that was the filming of The Room promises some answers. It is, however, not a tell all.
Almost as much a memoir of aspiring actors trying to break into the byzantine, guarded world of Hollywood as a tell all of the phenomena that is Tommy Wiseau and The Room, both Sestero’s and Wiseau’s dreams of stardom are examined. Throughout the memoir, Sestero jumps back and forth between the story of how he met and befriended Tommy Wiseau and the backstage account of the harried filming of The Room. The shared obsession of becoming stars unites the two men, and the fractured narrative both heightens the sense of mystery of how the two very different people came to work on one of the most inexplicable pieces of American cinema. Punctuated (almost to distraction) by quotes from Sunset Boulevard and the Talented Mr. Ripley, works which Sestero comes to see as emblematic of Wiseau’s quixotic quest and their relationship, Sestero attempts to explain his role in the fiasco.
Sestero comes off as a sweet, naive kid who just needs some “tape and training” to maybe get started as an actor, and it was in one such training endeavor that he encountered a man equally invested in chasing the dream. Fascinated with this strange figure’s lack of even basic self awareness, Sestero introduced himself to the man known as Tommy Wiseau, a man of indeterminate age, ambiguously European background, and, it seemed, inexhaustible wealth. Equal parts joyous and moody, generous and petulant, Wiseau’s bizarre charisma, secretiveness, and his seemingly crippling insecurities coupled with a maniacal narcissism make Sestero’s accounts of Wiseau a fascinating read. Wiseau, the titular “disaster artist,” is definitely the star here, and Sestro and the reader’s fascination with him forms the backbone of the narrative. Sestero himself becomes almost a bystander in his own story as we find ourselves as obsessed with the mysterious Wiseau, and his single-minded obsession to walk in the footsteps of his cinematic hero James Dean and become a star. Still, while claiming to know more than he chose to reveal in the book, Wiseau’s enigmatic background, wealth, and actual age remain unknown, with Sestero’s apocryphal tales of humble Communist Bloc roots and rough beginnings only offering vague hints at Wiseau’s origins. .
While it does offer a lot of rather shocking behind the scenes stories that illustrate the horrifying and fascinating story behind the film, as well as the angst and frustration of trying to make it as an unknown would-be actor starting out in Los Angeles, not every mystery is solved. Even for those unfamiliar with the film and its star, there is enough insight into the awkward beginnings of low level actors trying to get started in Hollywood to make the book interesting, though one would really have to witness (suffer through?) the movie to make the most of the Disaster Artist. ...more
Looking for some more books to choose for grade school reading groups, Mrs. Noodlekugel and any of its sequels would be a great choice. Daniel PinkwatLooking for some more books to choose for grade school reading groups, Mrs. Noodlekugel and any of its sequels would be a great choice. Daniel Pinkwater continues to infuse his work with a whimsy that never fails to charm. Mrs Noodlekugel is a lovely woman (not a witch, though she certainly has a magic of her own) who lives in a cozy cottage tucked away behind the massive apartment blocks of a major city, and is discovered by two children who quickly find out that anything is possible at Mrs Noodlekugel’s. Sure, they are nonsensical, sure, they begin and end abruptly with little to no conflict, sure, they are a bit repetitive. The language and short chapters are great for a first chapter book, and the gentle storytelling should charm many children.
I reminded me a little of the old Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series I read as a kid, but there is not an event an attempt at a rote, covert “moral,” which is definitely refreshing. Instead, the quirky kindness of Mrs. Noodlekugel and her cat, Mr. Fuzzface, just are. In fact, there are no bad habits in Mrs. Noodlekugel, no childish malfeasance to be reasonably chastised through magical means. Instead, the very idea of doing everything your parent tells you is challenged (that the parents planned it that way themselves is only more awesome). There’s no shame in a little disobedience and imagination here! I would definitely use any of the Mrs Noodlekugel series for the junior library reading groups, as a perfect first book club book....more
My sister brought this picture book home from the library the other day, and wanted to share it with me. I had totally forgotten about it but as soon My sister brought this picture book home from the library the other day, and wanted to share it with me. I had totally forgotten about it but as soon as I saw that fuzzy, sinister creature on the cover I memories came back. School librarians reading aloud from this picture book, affecting scratchy, high pitched screeches of the menacing, vengeful beast a-searching for its “tailypo” and a creaky, breathless moan for the hapless old hermit who just happened to have eaten it. Creepy stuff!
If I recall, my sister had been more affected by the story than I was, and I believe the story or one like it appeared in one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, too. All I had to do to run shivers up her spine was whisper, “tailypo, tailypo,” especially in an isolated, rural location. As is true in many such works, the brooding, haunted artwork is what really pulls this adaptation of the old Appalachian folktale together and set you up for a moody, bleak tale. You can see it in the haunted eyes of the old hound dogs, eyes that inform the reader, “man, we’ve really seen some stuff, lemme tell ya.” That’s so you know what you’re in for from the title page. The art, with its shadowy lines and muted colors, paints an evocative picture of the dark autumnal woods and the dilapidated cabin, isolated from all human contact but the relentless, tailless “thing” and its glaring yellow eyes and its long, sharp claws. This would be a good choice for a Halloween or folklore themed story time, though with a trigger warning ahead for the younger kids; things get grim. There are some things out there that are merciless and there’s no happy ending. ...more
Last week, I attended the Rain Taxi Review of Book's 20th Anniversary celebration at Macalester College in St. Paul (read more about it on my blog, MSLast week, I attended the Rain Taxi Review of Book's 20th Anniversary celebration at Macalester College in St. Paul (read more about it on my blog, MSP Adventure Time), and the guest of honor was George Saunders, introduced as "one of the best writers on the planet." I would say that's not hyperbole. In addition to discussing his inspiring philosophies on writing and storytelling, he also read from this book, celebrating the publication of its 15th anniversary reprint. For those in the audience who had not been introduced to the humane, funny, and deceptively deep writing of George Saunders, this picture book for adults and children alike may be the very best place to start.
Illustrated by the quirky and idiosyncratic Lane Smith (a great compliment to Saunders' writing), this story follows the seaside goat herding community of Frip and its problems with gappers, an aquatic pest with an all abiding love of goats and an annoying screech of affection. As young Capable, who, like all children of Frip spends much of her time brushing gappers off of the goats and dumping them into the sea after which they crawl slowly back, finds herself the recipient of all the gappers in Frip, her community begins to fracture. This tale of cooperation, ingenuity, and resistance to change has a lot of parallels with much current debate in the world- simple yet full of familiar details relevent to our own lives, and full of great wit. Listening to George Saunders read it to the audience was particularly awesome....more
I read this again for the first time in years this week, and was filled with a warm, nostalgic feeling. I think I read it in class for the first time I read this again for the first time in years this week, and was filled with a warm, nostalgic feeling. I think I read it in class for the first time in Fourth grade, and was amused by its surreal, matter-of-fact story. Daniel Pinkwater is a master of writing bizarre, weird, funny, and human stories, filled with eccentric characters and insights into the world. Though I later came to favor Lizard Music, HCE was my introduction to the exciting, surprising, and suprisingly philospohic work of Daniel Pinkwater. You show up for an irreverent story about monster chickens ransacking a town, and you get thoughts about what it means to be an American, how a community can allow hysteria to take away their compassion, and how a little kindness can go a long way. Hmmm, topical, right? Of course, it does all that without scrimping on the absurd mad scientists and giant chickens! A good choice as a first "novel," the chapters are short and snappy, and the story all around fun.
It was definitely a fun read for around the holidays, as the Bobowicz family finds themselves unable to obtain a turkey for Thanksgiving, but instead, thanks to the searching of young Arthur, find a good natured 266 pound Super Chicken named Henrietta. However, keeping a bird of that size in a Hoboken, New Jersey apartment proves more difficult than anticipated, and thanks to some fearful neighbors, soon the entire city in is an uproar and Henrietta becomes a feared and dangerous felon. In retrospect, Hoboken Chicken Emergency might be a little more timeless than Lizard Music, which really does remain an artifact of the '70s, but here, the messages of this deceptively simple story remain fresh. ...more
Stepping in to run another book club in my local library system, I found this to be a great book for budding poets and those who may not know they areStepping in to run another book club in my local library system, I found this to be a great book for budding poets and those who may not know they are budding poets. Check out my reflections on Love That Dog and other choices on my BookLikes blog, Reading Rainstorm, here....more
This was a fun, breezy, action-packed adventure novel for young readers. It really had everything you could need; thrills, chills, wonder, laughs, swaThis was a fun, breezy, action-packed adventure novel for young readers. It really had everything you could need; thrills, chills, wonder, laughs, swashbuckling, romance, the whole cloth of the fantasy adventure tapestry. Ben Tripp does an admirable job keeping the proceedings approachable while still affecting the florid language of the period, using the idioms and cadence of the ornate 18th century.
Young Kit, a servant in Georgian England finds himself bonded to a notorious highwayman, but even more than that, this dashing (but now deceased) bandit dealt with legendary beasts and monsters and was a pretty adept magician himself. Now Kit, stuck with a case of mistaken identity, must flee foes mundane and magical alike while dealing with the haughty (but charming) princess of the Fae Folk. Can he face dread pirates, goblings, witches, and even the gallows? At the same time, the very fate of the Kingdoms of humanity and faery alikedepends on him! I'd recommend "The Accidental Highwayman" for anyone looking for a good swashbuckling fantasy. ...more
From such an intriguing, eerie, and promising beginning, I found “The Vanishing Season” to be sadly quite disappointing. Reading this on a short trip From such an intriguing, eerie, and promising beginning, I found “The Vanishing Season” to be sadly quite disappointing. Reading this on a short trip to Door County, Wisconsin, where it is set, added a lot to the atmosphere of the ultimately empty novel.
16 year old Maggie’s family has fallen on hard times and are forced to move into a dilapidated inherited vacation house in the tiny tourist town of Gill Creek, Wisconsin, on the Door Peninsula. Maggie, a serious, staid girl, is apprehensive about the move but soon meets her neighbors, Pauline, a wealthy, beautiful quirky girl who seems refreshingly unpretentious and childlike, and her childhood friend Liam, the gentle eccentric outdoorsy boy who loves woodworking. The two soon help Maggie adjust to her new surroundings and she even begins to think of it as home. It is evident pretty early that there will be a love triangle between the three, as Maggie soon finds Liam her first love, while he is smitten with Pauline, who sees him only as a friend and appears completely uninterested in romance.
Meanwhile, terror is being spread on the peninsula as a mysterious serial killer begins murdering young women and dumping their bodies in Lake Michigan, while at the same time a mysterious ghost-like entity watches the three teenagers and the killer, while trying to remember their reason for lingering. These asides became the most interesting part of the novel, but unfortunately neither the ghost nor the murders effect the characters or the plot in any tangible way, and they could be removed entirely with very little change in the proceedings.
While we get to know Maggie a little throughout the novel, I felt the characterizations of every other character were misleading and weak, if they got any characterization at all. Their actions often contradicted what we (or at least Maggie) thought they knew about them- is this because Maggie is a bad judge of character or because of poorly described characterizations? I think the latter, judging that aside from these three, nobody else gets more than a token identity- with cases such as Liam’s dad receiving just a handful of lines of dialogue. As the novel closed into it’s last few chapters I was like, “Hmm, they’re going to have to make a reveal pretty quick here,” but...
(view spoiler)[While not completely unexpected due to overt foreshadowing, I was surprised to find that what I thought were red herrings ended with Maggie freezing to death for no real reason, led to her death by the happy go lucky Pauline. I was not certain what the tragic death of our viewpoint character was supposed to signify, narratively? It seemed to render large portions of the proceeding story totally meaningless, I felt. Compared to another tragic ending I’ve read recently, Maggot Moon, Maggie’s “sacrifice” seems feeble and pointless; yes “bad things happen to good people” and anyone can just be hit by a bus, as it were, but since we were never really interested in these characters in the end, the tragedy serves no purpose but to annoy the reader. The ability of Pauline, Liam, and Maggie's parents to go on without much thought of either Maggie's tragic death or their roles in it also seemed odd. (hide spoiler)]
Beautiful writing and atmosphere coupled with a disappointingly meandering love triangle and a hasty, unsatisfying ending was not enough to make “The Vanishing Season” anything but a disappointing read. Check out more on my blog, Reading Rainstorm!...more
A more or less satisfying conclusion to the lovingly crafted Wildwood Chronicles, Wildwood Imperium highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses oA more or less satisfying conclusion to the lovingly crafted Wildwood Chronicles, Wildwood Imperium highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of this ornate young adult fantasy epic series. I quite enjoyed the trilogy, finding it to be a rich celebration of childlike fantasy adventure nostalgia and imagination, as melodic wordsmith Colin Meloy of the Decemberists takes a beloved real life location (Portland, Oregon and all its quirks) and paints on a lush overlay of secondary world. However, as the final book in the trilogy, Wildwood: Imperium, stretched into it’s final (final) few hundred pages, I think I came to the conclusion that it was becoming a little over indulgent. The quirkiness began to over spice the proceedings, just a bit. Like eating a gigantic layer cake, delicious, rich, but in the end, just a bit too much sugar. There is a cultivated, almost vintage, oddness to the characters and events that I’m not sure how much will appeal to most children, but it somehow feels like one of those books that Suzy Bishop would have been reading in Moonrise Kingdom.
As a big fan of the Decemberists, throughout the series, Meloy’s trademark use of language and elements of folklore, mythology, and history come through strongly, making each of the plethora of elements mixed together fun, if not altogether coherent. The Chronicles chronicle the mysterious Impassable Wilderness (known as Wildwood), hugging the western border of Portland, Oregon, what in this world would be called Forest Park. Having recently visited this lovely place, including the integral Pittock Mansion and the scenic Wildwood Trail, the setting of the verdant, Pacific Northwestern forest nestled next to an urban area comes through powerfully.
Continuing where Under Wildwood left off on a cliffhanger, Imperium wraps up much of the simmering plots and multitude of characters begun when young Portlanders Prue and Curtis found themselves in the strange principalities of the “Impassable Wilderness,” defeating (for now) the power mad Alexandra, the Dowager Governess, joining the honor bound but anarchistic Bandits, negotiating the power vacuum left by the collapse of an old regime, and attempting to fulfill the prophecies put forward by the Elder Trees, oldest life forms in the forest, while the future of both Portland and Wildwood is threatened from outside by the machinations of industrialist Joffrey Unthank and the Titans of Industry who rule the Industrial Wastes.
It seemed very comfortable reading, obscure vocabulary aside, with too little actually at stake, as unlike say, His Dark Materials, I never really feared for the outcome. The almost overstuffed ambiance, following at least three or four different plot lines which come together only loosely, if they came together at all, tired a little. A couple of the plots cutting through the latter two books in the series, particularly involving the Mehlberg siblings (as much as I enjoyed them) and the battle for the Industrial Wastes, seemed a bit superfluous and could have been cut without effecting the rest of the story. Maybe they deserved their own novels? While I still enjoyed almost all of these elements, on occasion it just seemed somewhat crowded, in particular the prominent use of the chosen one type of prophecy, which I had hoped might be subverted but is played fairly straight throughout the novel. In the end, Meloy’s ornate writing and almost collage like amalgam of fun coming of age fantasy tropes was enjoyable, but for me, did not really push the envelope. ...more
Loading...
