The Phantom Tollbooth

Summary from Goodreads:
Milo mopes in black ink sketches, until he assembles a tollbooth and drives through. He jumps to the island of Conclusions. But brothers King Azaz of Dictionopolis and the Mathemagician of Digitopolis war over words and numbers. Joined by ticking watchdog Tock and adult-size Humbug, Milo rescues the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason, and learns to enjoy life.

Poor Milo, stuck in the Dolldrums. I remember having this read to me in grade school yet never read a copy on my own. So I decided to re-read it during the Readathon.

Just as wonderful as I remembered. And far more complicated and intricate in vocabulary and plot (how did this not win a Newbery Medal?). Either I wasn't paying attention or it's the perfect read-aloud.  It was the perfect Readathon read.  My edition had a lovely preface by Maurice Sendak, which seemed especially timely.

FTC: I read a strip of this book that I got through work.

The Thirteen Clocks (New York Review Children's Collection)



If you are looking for a great read-aloud story, look no further than The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber.  I so clearly remember having this read to me in elementary school and read and read it on my own.  Who knows why I never asked my own copy, I didn't, but I can recite the opening paragraph nearly verbatim to this day:

Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. His hands were as cold as his smile, and almost as cold as his heart. He wore gloves when he was asleep, and he wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales.

It's such a heart-felt fairy tale.  Who wouldn't want to root for Saralinda, for Prince Zorna to save her with help from the Golux?  Who doesn't wish for any one of Saralinda's suitors to outwit the evil Duke (who admits to the flaw of being wicked)?  Thurber's sly humor shows through and his words trip off the tongue - from "guggle to zatch" just rolls in my mouth.

The Thirteen Clocks is a lovely addition to the New York Review Children's Collection.  I spent a wet and cold evening huddled under the electric blankie reading it aloud to the cats - I think they liked it.  One can never tell with cats.

Here's a treat for fans of fantasy literature - the B&N Review recently featured an animated video of the first scene read by Neil Gaiman.  Worth both a watch and a listen.

Robin McKinley: Beauty and the Beast

"Beauty and the Beast" is one of my favorite fairy tales.  The Disney movie adaptation and the Jean Cocteau adaptation are two of my favorite movies.  I quite liked the TV series (when I was allowed to watch it) and even have a soft spot for that odd Rebecca DeMornay musical adaptation.

I read Robin McKinley's Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast back in junior high.  It's a really great adaptation in that it gives Beauty's family more depth.  Her sisters aren't jealous and grasping as in the original and are quite good at the make-do scenario.  They all pitch in to help with housekeeping and earning money for the household.  When Beauty's father returns with the rose and she agrees to live with the Beast, McKinley's tale aligns with the fairy story.  Beauty and her Beast have their happy ending.

I decided to re-read Beauty because, while looking at McKinley's bibliography, I noticed she also wrote a second re-telling, Rose Daughter.  Say what?  Sunshine rekindled my interest in McKinley so reading both Beauty and the Beast retellings would be interesting.

Rose Daughter incorporates more magic into the story.  In this world roses must be grown with the help of magic and are, therefore, very rare.  Beauty's talent lies in making plants and flowers grow.  Beast's roses are dying which partially explains why he's so upset when Beauty's father picks a rose for her and demands that she come in his stead.  Although Beauty only stays seven days in Beast's palace caring for his roses, as months go by for her family, the alternate reality of the castle and garden allows McKinley to spend a great deal of time thoughtfully exploring the situation Beauty finds herself in.  The end of the tale carries a true twist.  Once she declares her love for Beast, Beauty is given a choice: choose between the handsome Prince (Beast's former human form) or the Beast as he is now.  Beauty has her happy ending, just in a different form.  It's quite refreshing.

Bye, bye 2010! Recapping the reading

2010 was a crazy year what with the stress of trying nearly the whole year to sell my house.  In my attempt to "declutter" and "stage" my house for potential buyers I wound up packing up books that I was intending to read!  More stress!

According to Goodreads stats (far more accurate than my count-your-reading-journal-pages method), I read 91 books this year , 9 more than last year, but I only read 28,809 pages compared with 29,709 pages last year.  This probably reflects my attempts to infuse a little young adult into my reading repertoire.  I had intended to try and break the 100 book barrier but the craziness of December put the kibosh on that.  If I had to choose my favorite book from the year it would be a tie between Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron (an author I have an obvious favorable bias towards) and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak; I read both at the beginning of the year and they are still with me.  Least favorite book was Vixen; it wasn't so bad I wanted to light it on fire, but it really got under my skin with the cliches and seemingly poor research.

I participated in a few challenges this year.  The Women Unbound Challenge was the one I completed, even reading one book beyond what I'd planned.  Sadly, I didn't get the Complete Booker Challenge 2010 finished; I got three of six Booker-winning novels read but just never got to the other three (I did read one Booker short-list, so not a complete bust).  I'm going to have to think on the future of challenges in 2011.

My Nostalgia Project stalled out with its initial subject - Flowers in the Attic.  Too intense.  The Booker Project and Newbery Project are coming along swimmingly, the Newbery especially, but the Best American Project had to go on hold when I had to pack all my Best American books in order to how the house.  I didn't make much reading progress on the Nobel Project but I did acquire more books to help me in the endeavor (and I can't quite decide with Vargas Llosa to read...too many good choices there).

In honor of the International Year of Chemistry in 2011, I started a blog specifically for reading chemistry-related books (readingchemistry.blogspot.com).  I cross-posted a few science/chemistry posts from this blog and will probably continue to cross-post in the future.

This year I also made my first foray into requesting review copies...which added a whole new level of stress because now I feel obligated to read and finish the book I've requested.  Thank goodness I didn't go nuts and ask for many more review copies - packing and moving has gotten me far, far behind on the ones I have right now!

That's it for 2010 - bye, bye and so long!

Flowers in the Attic

It is ridiculously hard to accurately gauge a book that attracts you (family secrets!! salaciousness!! incest!! kidnapping!!) and also repels you (salaciousness!! incest!! kidnapping!!) because, hell yes, I read this cover to cover in about three hours and, hell yes, I am STILL creeped out by this book even though I am twenty years older (my twelve-year-old self can't quite believe that last statement).

Flowers in the Attic gave me a fear of attics and creepy old houses, far more than Rebecca ever did along with scary materialistic moms, whippings, fundamentally religious grannies, and creepy twins. There's also blood drinking, HOW did I forget that?  Did I mention the incest thing?  There's a lot of that going around in there, too.  Twelve-year-old me wants a flashlight again.  I don't remember reading anymore in this series probably because I had the feeling the incest thing was going to keep popping up and that's one of the things that I draw the "gross" line on.  Not sure if I would read anymore of the Dollanganger series now as an adult, either.

Flowers in the Attic was a fantastically crazy way to kick off my nostalgia project. Now to find something that doesn't make me want to check in all the nooks and crannies!
 
*Edit: Read the plot summaries of the remaining Dollanganger books, don't think I care to read anymore.

Tra-la, it's May!

The lusty month of May (I used to have the entire Camelot soundtrack memorized). By "lusty" I mean "I am going to sit on my porch and read every chance I get" because my life went all sorts of crazy in April. Trying to get people to buy a 2 bedroom condo is insane; you'd think I (and my real estate agent) was asking people to drink a colonic of straight bleach or something. Sheesh.  Today is particularly lovely, not too cool, with a breeze, and big fluffy white clouds in a bright blue sky.  Perfect for lazy swinging and reading.

Like I did when I was a kid.  Even after I got too big to play on the swingset in our backyard I liked to sit on the glider portion and read, swaying in the breeze.  It's very peaceful...(****zzzzzzz****)...what?? Oh, sorry, dozed off for a bit which is the other reason why I like reading on the porch.  Napping.

To that end (the reading end, that is) I'm going to concentrate on reading kids and YA books while whiling away my reading time on the porch.  My Newbery Project is woefully behind and while I didn't participate in the Shelf Discovery Challenge I would like to revisit (or visit anew) many of the books Lizzie Skurnick profiled in Shelf Discovery (read last summer).  And read some more Judy Blume (who really ought to have a Nobel Prize).

This, then, is my Nostalgia Project.  I've been thinking about all the books that meant so much to me as a kid and how much I'd like to read them again.  Or read some books that I can't remember reading as a kid, but think I did. There will obviously be overlap with the Newbery Project and I'm not going to call it a challenge because I see this extending far beyond the limits of one summer.

Gotta go.  The porch swing is calling and I borrowed Flowers in the Attic from the library to get me started.