Brain Break

Too much Ishmael and Ahab makes me a dull grrrl. I am typing whilst the fam and I watch "A Night at the Opera," one of the Marx Bros. movies. Right now Groucho and Chico are discussing contracts and sanity clauses ("Aaah, you canna fool me, there ain't no sanity clause!")

Saturday the fam and I walked to the local library while the Farmers' Market was going on. After purchasing some lovely fresh snow peas and asparagus from Yakima, we entered the library for some quick browsing and checking out. The Summer Reading Program has already begun, and kids can turn in a ticket for every hour they read. The kids put their tickets into various boxes that represent different prizes: a dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, a $50 gift cert. to the mall, a blow-up alligator pool toy, etc. Then the library staff hosts a drawing on certain days. Hence, the more tickets you put in a box, the more likely your name will be drawn. S. is pinning all her hopes on the alligator.

A. picked up a movie for us to watch tonight, but S. was a little concerned it would be scary. The title of the movie instantly will reveal it as a classic: "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."

No, really! Look! The kids might watch it tomorrow once we finish school. (rolling my eyes) This has to be as good as "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."










Meanwhile, I thought I'd give Ishmael, Ahab and Moby a rest, so I polished off three other books this weekend.

First up was the latest installment of Meg Cabot's Princess Diary series, No. 5, Princess in Pink. Why I continue to bother with this series, I don't know. It got stale after #2. The format is unvarying. Princess Mia, journaler extraordinaire, having histrionics yet again over some minute facet of teen life; this time, the Prom, and the fact that her senior boyfriend thinks the prom is totally lame and doesn't want to go. The characters are well-fleshed out in the series, but they're pretty static. And while throughout the series, they've remained relatively chaste, in this book, Mia is obsessing over the fact that she hasn't reached "second base" with her boyfriend. Not graphic in any way, but Urgh!!! Definitely on my NOT recommended list.


Immediately after finishing that, I picked up Roald Dahl's Matilda. Normally Dahl charms the socks off me, but in this one I just cringed. Matilda's parents are honestly horrible. Matilda's headmistress is unbelievably cruel. It's the brilliant, misunderstood child pitted against the evil grownups. There IS one good grownup in the book, but come to find out, she's been put-upon by evil grownups in her childhood too. So, the moral of the story is: if your parents or teachers are horrible, you can vanquish them by outwitting them. I'm not fond of kids vs. grownups plot development. (Too much anarchy. Still, I like the movie Ferris Bueller, so I'm not completely consistent here!) The book ends up with the bad grownups getting what they deserve though, so evil IS punished, and kids who read Matilda will rejoice that the KIDS WON!





The last book I read this afternoon was Sharon Creech's Ruby Holler. Much better than the previous book I read of hers (Absolutely Normal Chaos); this is more in the spirit of Walk Two Moons, for which she won the Newbery Award. In this book, orphaned twins are taken in by empty-nesters with infinite patience. The orphans have been emotionally and physically abused... never graphic or overstated in the book, just mentioned as part of their past lives. Naturally, they don't trust grownups. The book is devoted to overcoming their resistance to caring about other people besides themselves. This book I DO recommend!






Back to your lives, citizens. Now that I've read all my library books in two days, I've got to get back to Moby. Go, whale, go. Thar she blows!