Who Could That Be at This Hour

Who Could That Be at This Hour? Lemony Snicket

When Lemony was a young man, he had an unusual schooling and apprenticed with a secret organization. Lemony purposely apprenticed himself to the worst option, thinking it would give him more time to work on a side-project, but he gets swept away to a weird town that used to be by the sea, but wasn't anymore, but still had a seaweed forest and weird times when you had to put on funny masks. There, they investigate a theft of an object that hasn't been stolen.

Like A Series of Unfortunate Events, most of the adults are clueless and just get in the way (the librarian's pretty good), but Lemony finds some kids to help. Until one double-crosses him. While the adventure wraps up, the ending only leaves more loose threads than we started with, and more questions which may or may not be the right ones and may or may not be answered.

If you're familiar with A Series of Unfortunate Events, you'll be familiar with the overall tone and mood of All the Wrong Questions. It's smart and sinister and rather odd, with a ton of references that younger readers won't understand (or even know they're missing, just as naming the librarian Qwerty.) I like that he kept all the vocabulary lessons. I am intrigued most by Moxie and Ellington. I'm not sure how I feel about Lemony as an actual character, as he still remains a bit shadowy, in spite of playing the lead.

I'm interested in seeing where this ends up going.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Turning Kids onto Great Books.

So, today, as you are hopefully aware, is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

When being told of this, the kids today wanted pirate books. I was more than happy to oblige.

It reminded me of a great day with the same bunch of kids when I was wearing my Babymouse t-shirt.

Girl 1 (age 8): Miss Jennie, what's that on your shirt?
Me: It's Babymouse!
Girl 2 (age 8): Miss Jennie, what's Babymouse?
Me: You guys have never read Babymouse?
Girls 1 and 2: Uh-uh.
Me: Come with me! You'll love it!
We walk over the stacks where I find copies. When the other kids see I'm handing out books, they all come over. I end up handing out all 10 or so copies of various Babymouse titles that we have on the shelf...

Ten minutes later:

Boy 1 (age 7. Very macho): Miss Jennie! I want that pink book that everyone else is reading!!!!

Me: tries very hard not to laugh

End scene.

Sometimes, peer pressure is a force for good.

Here's a vacation photo of me (looking a little demented-- can we blame that on the sun? Look how burned I got that morning!) in front of the "Reading Room for Youngsters" in the Beijing Underground City. When China feared nuclear war with the Soviet Union, they didn't build bomb shelters in their elementary schools and backyards. They built and entire underground city-- a series of rooms and tunnels that could house 300,000 people. It has tunnels leading the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, ventilation shafts, and parts can be sealed off in case of contamination. And now, for 20 yuan (about $2.56 US) you can have an English-language guided tour. Very, very cool. There was also a Battle Field Library and a Recreation Room of Old Persons.

Also, I'm at Geek Buffet today, blogging about being an adult, your inner child, and the amount of sugary cereal in my pantry.

But, here's a book review:

Violet Bing and the Grand House by Jennifer Paros

Violet Bing does not like change, or things that are not exactly just so. As such, she has refused to go on vacation with her family and is shipped off to spend some time with her great-aunt Astrid instead.

When her aunt suggests that make some sandwiches and ride their bikes to the beach, Violet's reaction is typical:

Violet thinks she likes her sandwiches with white bread that is nice and soft. She likes them to have the smooth kind of peanut butter and not too much of it, and her jelly must be grape because sometimes strawberry as pieces of strawberry in it. And also, along with not being all that good at ride a bicycle, she can't swim because she does not want to put her face in the water. Putting her face in the water seems like a bad idea because you cannot breathe while your face is in the water.

And so Violet uses her catch-all excuse that she just doesn't have the time.

It's a nice little story about a getting a girl to try new things. Really though, it's Paros's illustrations that make the book for me. Line drawings, sometimes labeled, and Violet in her triangle dress add much to the enjoyment of this story.

And let's review another book:

Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid by Lemony Snicket

This is quite a nice little book of Snicket's bon mots. Kinda like a depressing Deep Thoughts. Or cross-stitch samplers for the demented.

As I'm sure you know, the key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.

Labor Day is a holiday honoring those who work for a living. Laborious Day is a lesser known holiday honoring those who cannot stop talking about their work.

The way sadness works is one of the strangest riddles of the world.

A fun tie-in for fans of Snicket.

Ramblings blah blah blah

So... as I mentioned yesterday, I have today's post all written up, but it's contingent on when the new issue of Edge of the Forest goes up. So... here's some blathering on about random stuff.

Lemony Snicket is finally out in paperback! I wonder why they waited so long. Anyway, it's in paperback, with some additions. I haven't had a chance to look too closely at it, but in the back there is definitely some new material.

It looks like there's a serialized story going on! (Please, if you've looked more closely than I have, correct me.) Also, Mr. Snicket seems to have turned Agony Aunt on us, to my immense pleasure.

In other news, Megan McCafferty's new Jessica Darling adventure, Fourth Comings, comes out next Tuesday. Very excited. I can't explain what draws me into it, but I couldn't put Sloppy Firsts down and stayed up way past my bedtime reading it.

Anyway, here's my dilemma (yes, I know I lead an exceedingly difficult existence). It comes out Tuesday. I want to read it NOW. My library hasn't even ordered it yet! What am I to do? Oh! The Agony! I want to preorder it, but I don't, because I've been spending way too much $$$ on books lately. Plus, I don't own any of the others, so... whatever. It looks like my local library (the one near my house, not the one I work in) has it on order, so I can place a hold on it there BUT, I'm not around this month during library hours. I'm always at my library, school, or out of town. Argh.

whinge whinge whinge

Poetry Friday! Potter Edition!

OK, this isn't a poem, it's a song. By The Ramones. And, technically, we're down to 12.5 hours here on the East Coast. Woo!

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
Just get me to the airport put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
Oh no oh oh oh oh

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair get me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
oh oh oh oh

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair get me to the show
Hurry hurry hurry before I go loco
I can't control my fingers I can't control my toes
Oh no oh oh oh oh

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair get me to the show
Hurry hurry hurry before I go loco
I can't control my fingers I can't control my toes
Oh no oh oh oh oh

Ba-ba-bam-ba ba-ba-ba-bam-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bam-ba ba-ba-ba-bam-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bam-ba ba-ba-ba-bam-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bam-ba ba-ba-ba-bam-ba I wanna be sedated

And.... here are some book reviews to keep us entertained until later tonight.

Mapping the World of Harry Potter: An Unauthorized Exploration of the Bestselling Fantasy Series of All Time ed. by Mercedes Lackey

I finished reading this yesterday morning while waiting for the nice people at Honda to fix my fuel door. This was actually quite good. I picked it up after my boss showed it to me and I read part of Sarah Zettel's essay "Hermione Granger and the Charge of Sexism". This is not a book of predictions, but rather well-thought out commentary on different aspects of Harry. If you can get your hands on a copy before tonight, check out Lackey's family's Harry Potter drinking game. Hysterical. It'll be outdated soon, so I wish I had read it earlier so I could have recommended it earlier. Ah well.

And... here's my review of the last volume of another popular series, which, um, Holy Cow, I read in October...

The End

When we last saw the Baudelaire orphans, they were trapped in a boat with the evil Count Olaf, drifting out to sea. They finally reach an island where other people can see through Olaf’s silly disguises and nefarious (a word here which means overly scheming and really just not very nice at all) ways. But are they safe? Does isolation and conformity lead to safety? This bittersweet end to the popular A Series of Unfortunate Events doesn’t answer all of our questions, but it answers enough and Snicket tells us which questions he will not answer, and why.

Many people have complained that the end is inconclusive, and not necessarily happy and that Snicket leaves too many threads unfinished but...

Would we really have been happy with it any other way? If it wrapped up nicely and succinctly, would it still have been A Series of Unfortunate Events? No. We were told from the beginning not to expect a happy ending and Snicket kept his promise. But it's not a sad ending. And we don't know how the all the threads played out because... well, in life, you know what happens to you, and you know what happens to some other people, but you don't know what happens to everyone.

It didn't answer all my questions and in some ways left me very disappointed but it was the perfect way to end this series and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

More Books from 2005

Ha ha ha! You thought I was done with this already! I'm at a library training right now and this afternoon we're learning how to blog, but, obviously, I already know this. So I'm just messing around.

100 Best Books for Children Anita Silvey: Loved. Not only does it outline the whats and whys of the 100 best books for kids, but it tells the story of how each book got published and explores the relationships between author, publisher and illustrator. Really interesting, even though I only read it because my boss told me to.

Judaism: A Very Short Introduction Norman Solomon: Short, dense, and focusing more on history and philosophy/theology than practice. Intersesting.

The Year Of Secret Assignments Jacyln Moriarty: I talked about this already. But this is a fun story that's well written and told in letters. Not only is there correspondance between the characters, but the main character also gets notes from such groups as the best friends club and the society for teenagers. Plus, it's Australian. I really liked it and recomend it if you ever go for teen-lit stuff. A shining example of the genre.

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, The Penultimate Peril, The Grim Grotto, The Slippery Slope, The Carnivorous Carnival, The Hostile Hospital, The Vile Village, The Ersatz Elevator, The Austere Academy, The Miserable Mill, The Wide Window, The Reptile Room, A Bad Beginning: I talked about these already. They were great. I highly recommend the "Unauthorized Autobiography" if you've read the series.