the whingdingdilly. bill peet. (138)

as i mentioned in the post for "kermit the hermit".  i can't remember how i know this book but i do.  the story and the images are familiar i just can't recall how i know it.

the first thing i noticed was the dedication page.

and given the story, this dedication is super sweet!  even for an anti-dog person like me.

this is a story about about a dog named scamp.  scamp is sad because he feels he is not as special as the horse across the road.

one day while trotting around like a horse, his owner a little boy named orvie called him " a silly ol' dog".  this hurt scamp's feelings so he ran away.

he walked into a forest and came across a witch.  she knew scamp wanted to be a horse so she helped him out with her magic and turned him into a whingdingdilly!

scamp headed home but scared some pigs so when orvie called out to him, scamp was sure his new look would scare him so scamp hid from orvie.  

eventually, scamp went home.  he heard that orvie was sad that scamp didn't return home.  orvie's day offered to buy him a horse but orvie wanted a dog because they were a better companion.  this made scamp happy and a little embarrassed that he was now a whingdingdilly.

the next day, orvie found scamp as the whingdingdilly and scared off scamp.  scamp ran away and everyone started to chase him.  he went back to the forest to have the witch change him back but she was gone.  then the farmers caught up and a man from the palace of wonders came to take the whingdingdilly to be in his show.  scamp was miserable.  luckily he was up on display, the witch returned and saw that her tulips were ruined!  she decided to get her revenge by turning scamp back into a dog!  

since now he was only a dog, the man kicked out scamp.  scamp then returned home to orvie!!

scamp learned a very important lesson about being happy with who you are and you should not try to be something you are not!

the spooky tail of prewitt peacock. bill peet. (137)

"the spooky tail of prewitt peacock" might be my favorite peet book so far. (also love the pun!)  

sadly prewitt was born with a weird tail. 

his tail only had two eyes.  while all

the other peacocks' tails had many eyes.

phineas' tail had the most eyes so he was the leader.

one day when prewitt was older his tail grew into a monstrosity.

eyebrows grew over the eyes, a mouth formed and the feathers on the side grew out like arms and as a result, prewitt's tail looked like a monster!  the other peacocks were frightened by it. as a result phineas told prewitt that either the tail went or prewitt had to leave.

that night prewitt had a dream and decided he would keep his tail!

the next day, the peacocks decided they would take prewitt's tail.  so they chased him, trying to take his feathers.  they were so caught up in the chase the they ran into an open field.  just then a tiger went to attack them but . . . prewitt's spooky tail scared the tiger away and saved them!!!

afterward, the peacocks wanted prewitt to be the leader, but humble as he was he declined but said thr peacocks could hang out with him, which they did.

i loved this book not only because i thought prewitt's monster tail was amazing!!! but it is also a wonderful

tale (and tail) about how something that makes us "different" is actually what makes us special!  it's important for kids to know that they should be themselves and eventually they will find friends who like them for who they are!

chester the worldly pig. bill peet. (136)

"chester the worldly pig" is the story of an ambitious little pig.  chester knew his fate as meal but wanted more.  chester said "a pig is no better off than a cabbage or a carrot, just something to eat.  but before i end up as so much as sausage and ham, i intended to try to amount to something".  chester had a dream of being in a circus so he taught himself to balance on his snout.

he tried to get the attention from a passing circus train but it didn't work.  chester than decided to go to the circus and so he could be discovered.  and he did!

but he fainted before he did his act and was put into the clown act.  he hated it so he ran away.

chester was then chased by a bear.

and almost became a meal for some hobos.

chester even ended up in the city but discovered that it was not safe for him.

he then returned to a farm and accepted his fate as a pig.

but then a carnival man bought him for the farm because . . . chester was a very special pig!!! he had the map of the world on his belly!!!

so chester ended up a star!!! 

this book caught my eye because i love ending pigs but it turned out to be a great little book about never giving up on your dreams!  i also kind of feel bad because i would have totally ate chester.

interpreter of maladies. jhumpa lahiri.

i bought "interpreter of maladies" a while back at a $1 bookstore.  it had been sitting on my shelf but went on my to-read list when i saw this on mindy kaling's instagram:

and since i love mindy and think we could be BFF if we ever met, i decided to finally read "interpreter of maladies".

i must admit that at first i thought it was a novel, but then during the first story realized it was a collection of stories.  this disappointed me at first.  a book has to be a truly amazing collection of short stories for me to finish.  if there is a bad story, reading then becomes tedious and kind of ruins my attitude and ability with the rest of the book.  (see:  me reading the complete stories of flannery o'connor-  i will give her another try in the future.). but i didn't have to worry about that with this book because each story was truly amazing/beautiful.  i mean it did win the pulitzer so i should have known i was in for a treat.

every though the stories are short, you become invested in the characters and their lives.  each story was very emotional, i had to pause after each story to allow myself to process what i had read.  and though every story was different, they shared a theme of loneliness, longing, and love.  these stories demonstrated how we often suffer throughout life and the best option for us is not always the easiest but in the end we are better for taking the most challenging route.  many of the characters also learn that what they thought they wanted out of life is not what the needed.  each character has some void which they are trying to fill which regardless of what it may be is ultimately love.  

i know i have used the adjective alot in this post but these stories are beautiful.  i would rehash them here but you should pick it up for yourself and read it.

i will say the stories that i enjoyed the most were:

"the third and final continent" (i loved mrs. croft)

"a temporary matter" (it was only 20 pages but quite the emotional roller coaster, it had me teary-eyed in the end. which is a testament to lahiri's great writing)

"mrs. sen's" (partially due to her inability to drive")

"a real durwan" (which demonstrated that "you don't know what you've got til it's gone")

a truly beautiful (yes that adjective again) read.  please pick it up and enjoy.

the rainbow goblins. ul de rico. (135)

if you read my post for james franco's "palo alto", you know that reading that book was a big waste of my time.  however, i am not that bitter because it brought some great children's books in my life.  one of the characters served his community service hours at the library and he spent his hours reading children's books. one of the books mentioned was "the rainbow goblins", a book i had never heard of, so i checked it out.

"the rainbow goblins" is a story about goblins that drain the colors from the rainbow.  the goblins lassoed the rainbow and drank the color. they heard about a magical land called the valley of the rainbow  where the rainbow touches ground so they devised a plan to travel there and steal the colors from the rainbows.  luckily the roots of the flowers overheard their plan and warned the rainbow.

the next day the rainbow appeared and when the goblins attempted to lasso the rainbow, it disappeared.  the goblins become tangled and trapped in their lassos. then, the flowers having absorbed the rainbow then drown the goblins with the colors.  gruesome but a potent and ironic ending for them.  

as a reward for their help, the rainbow turned the flowers into birds and butterflies.

the rainbow also learned its lesson and no longer touches the round.

the pictures are beautiful and pretty high brow for a children's books.  here are a couple of my favorites:

this is one of the goblins dreaming of drinking the rainbow.

the storm that created the beautiful rainbow.

the rainbow appearing.

i will admit that goblins are scary but shouldn't they be?  but a wonderful

story to explain why we can never find the end of the rainbow.

the hundred dresses. eleanor estes. (134)

"the hundred dresses" has been on my to-read list ever since i saw it as book clutch on etsy.  i didn't buy the book clutch but thought it was super cute.  

(adorbs, right? but i couldn't afford or justify paying $175 for it.)

grandma bea bought me "the hundred dresses" a kid.  i owned a copy just like the library book.  i wouldn't call it one of my all time favorites but i do remember loving the fact that the little girl in the story drew a hundred dresses.

"the hundred dresses" is told from the perspective of maddie.  the story is about a girl, wanda, maddie's classmate, who was teased by the other girls for being different.  wanda was poor and polish.  as the book explained, she had a "funny" polish last name.  maddie's best friend, peggy was the one that started the teasing.  the teasing began one day when another girl had a new dress which everyone admired.  wanda then shared how she had one hundred dresses.  since she was obviously poor, peggy turned it into a sort of game, asking wanda every day about her hundred dresses and having a laugh at her expense.  maddie knew that it was wrong and felt guilty but sadly didn't stop it.  maddie was also worried that peggy would make fun of her for being poor and having a different last name.   

one day, wanda doesn't show up at school and maddie begins to feel guilty.  also, there was a drawing contest at school and the winner's drawings would be posted in the class, all the kids were excited to see who won.  when they went to their classroom, they saw one hundred dresses all drawn by wanda.  peggy and maddie realized she did have one hundred dresses!  however, wanda was not there to see that she won.  their teacher than read a note from wanda's father explaining that they had moved to get away from the racial discrimination and prejudices they had experienced.

maddie and peggy realized what they had done wrong and wrote a letter to wanda letting her know she had won.  wanda than wrote back and said all the girls could keep her drawings.  she gave two special ones to maddie and peggy which they then realized were drawings of themselves! 

rereading "the hundred dresses" as an adult, i realized there were some things that went over my head as a kid.  for example, as a kid, i didn't realize how racist and classist the girls were when they picked on wanda.  this was something that i never noticed as a kid probably because a) i wasn't sure what it meant to be polish and b) as a kid you never really notice race or class (i for one didn't).

being a mutt (my maternal family is mixed), i was raised without a strong racial identity.  i look filipino but grew up eating mexican and singaporean food, and only speaking english.  as a result, i never have felt loyalty to a specific race or ethnicity nor did i ever feel i had to stick to my race.  and i do want to clarify that i do  have racial prejudices and make horrible racial comments and jokes but unlike the girls of "the hundred dresses", i never allowed race be a factor when choosing friends.

random digression there is a story that my mom used to share about me when i was a kid.  we were at a family party and a kid that was not related to us came up to my cousin nalin (who is part black) and told us that we couldn't be cousins because we weren't the same race.  according to my mom, i then told the kid that we were cousins and that in some way everyone in the whole world was related and it didn't matter.  i have always been accepting of other cultures, if i like you it doesn't matter your race.  in high school our clique was diverse, we used to say we were the real international friendship club (there was an actual one on campus).

now the issue of class is different.  i never considered our family rich but other kids thought we were because i had nikes and wore guess.  i actually had someone tell me that in 6th grade.  what this girl didnt realize is that my family wasn't rich, but my aunt and my grandparents helped my mom out.  if it was just our mom, i would not have sported those clothes.  and maybe it's because we never really went without that i never noticed a thing like class.  but i don't remember judging other kids based on wealth.  looking back if anything all of my friends' families had more money than mine, so i am glad they weren't prejudice against me.

due to this, the reasons for the girls' teasing wanda went over my elementary school head.  however, as an adult, i fully understood.  and without sounding like a product of 90's politicial correctness, i am not accusing the kids of maliciously being racist and classist but noting the racist and classist undertones of their teasing.  at the end of the day, kids are kids and when they tease it is due to the unknown versus actually founded class/racial prejudices.

though i did enjoy the book and believe that it is important for kids to read it, so they can realize how their teasing harms others.   especially with anti-bullying movement in schools right now, "the hundred dresses" should be require reading.  however, i did not love this book because of the ending.  it seemed to be too soft on maddie and peggy, i understand that they recognized the error of their ways and decided to right the wrong they had made but it broke my heart when they realized that wanda had drawn the dresses for them.  the reason it broke my heart was because even though peggy and maddie teased her, wanda still wanted to be their friend.  it is so sad how wanda just wanted to be liked by her bullies, which i realize is how it is in real life. it's a sad fact of life. furthermore, it also seems unfair that the victim has to be the bigger person and forgive their bully when the bully doesnt have that type of compassion (they wouldn't be a bully if they did).  as i write this, i have realized, the ending is realistic, it was the best solution for the situation.  if it ended with wanda getting revenge, she would then be the bully.  so i guess it is a great book!

the hundred dresses is also listed as part of flavorpill's 50 books every parent should read post.  and yes i am on a mission to read those too!

map of tulsa. benjamin lytal. (133)

"a map of tulsa" was a flavorpill recommend and proved that no website is perfect.  "a map of tulsa" is an example that i should not always read what flavorpill says i must. 

though i will add that flavorpill was quoting publisher weekly when they said:

Publisher’s Weekly recently dubbed this elegiac love letter — to Tulsa, to a girl, to the late-’90s art scene — as the coming-of-age novel to replace Catcher in the Rye for “recent generations of Internet-suckled American youth.” And it’s never too late to come of age again.

i of course read this book because of the "catcher" allusion.  and shame on publisher weekly for ever attempting to put this book in the same league let alone sentence as "catcher".  and i know i am not its target audience but my dislike of this book doesn't have to do with my age.  whereas i loved holden, i had no real connection with jim (which is proven by the fact that right now i had to google to find his name).  he is what we in the late-90s would have called a poser and a user.  he was this pseudo intellectual that would never truly be a poet because he lacked a very important characteristic of a poet, a heart.  lytal would write these poetic lines to demonstrate jim's gift of poetry but all it did was make both of them look pretentious and silly.  

"a map of tulsa" is the story of jim returning home to tulsa for summer break after his first year at college.  while back home, he fell in "love" with an artsy girl named adrienne (also had to google her name).  doesn't everyone fall in love with eccentric artsy girl?!?!? adrienne was a heiress to an oil empire, a high school drop-out turned artist/musician, so a 90s slacker (the predessor to the hipster cos i mean only rich kids can afford to slack

like that).  but what jim feels for adrienne really isn't love but more like lust and desperation to be associated with greatness.  she is a local legend and jim was in love with the idea of adrienne than adrienne.  lytal tells us that jim loves her but there is no real indication of that, just words one can read versus emotional one can feel.  i mean he bought her a gun as a token of his affection.  to be honest, jim pretty much just used her for her coolness and money. he had this whole plan to live with her and then one day up and leaves.  

jim returned to school and grows up in new york.  he and adrienne never communicated after all those years.  then out of nowhere adrienne has a bad motorcycle accident and jim flies home.  he hangs around the hospital with adrienne's family and friends but is more concerned with how others perceive his connection to adrienne other than adrienne's recovery.  jim has a lot of regret but with adrienne in a coma, nothing is resolved.  then *spoiler alert*

adrienne dies.  jim attempted to have  some deep life lesson but again he is a user and a poser so he has it though it doesn't seem genuine.

this book was bad there was no depth to his characters. it felt like lytal thought he was going to write this profoundly beautiful book but it seriously fell short.  it's almost like he wrote this to impress a girl, probably the adrienne, of his life but he definitively tried too hard and if i was that girl i would be insulted his love resulted in something so boring and shallow.

kermit the hermit. bill peet. (132)

"kermit the hermit" is another book that i discovered thanks to james franco's horrible book "palo alto".  the kid doing his community service at the library loved bill peet.  i was  disappointed with myself for having read none of his books though "the whingdingdilly" feels vaguely familiar, like i read it or one of my elementary teachers read it to my class.

so i decided to kick off my discovery of bill peet's works with "kermit the hermit" and i was glad i did.  it was an adorable book!

kermit the hermit was a hermit crab and was definitely a "crab".  he was not very nice or friendly and was a hoarder.

one day a dog tried to attack kermit.  but a young boy saved him.

kermit was so grateful for the boy saving his life but he didn't know how to repay him.  so kermit went out walking and discovered a treasure of gold coins in a sunken ship.  he decided that the treasure would be how he could repaid the boy for saving his life!  he then carried the treasure two coins at a time back to his cave.

however, though he had a way to repay the boy, kermit had a problem.  he had to find the boy. he walked around sad because he could not find him when a pelican approached him.  he told the pelican his problem and the pelican knew the boy!  the pelican flew kermit to his house which was the poorest house in the neighborhood.  kermit with the pelican's help decided to fly the coins two at a time and drop them down the family's chimney!  the family, thanks to kermit, became rich!

so sweet right?  and a great example of how helping others can be very rewarding!!

tar beach. faith ringgold. (131)

i learned of faith ringgold's "tar beach" from the flavorpill post on multicultural children's books.

"tar beach", as i learned from the afterword, is a story quilt and is in the collection at the guggenheim in new york.  (seeing this is now on my nyc to-do list). 

(as you can seen in the picture, the story is written on the fabric.)

"tar beach" is based on ringgold's childhood.  her family and neighbors would spend summer nights on their rooftop, picnicking, playing cards and simply enjoying summer.  i also learned that mr. and mrs. honey were named so in reference to people always saying "'honey' this and 'honey' that", which i thought was cute.

"tar beach" is the story of a young girl who spends her summers flying via her imagination over the george washington bridge and around the city.  she was born on the day the bridge opened and so it is her "most prized possession".  my favorite image is of her wearing the bridge "like a diamond necklace."

her flying not only allows her to appreciate new york but it is also the inspiration for her dreams of a better future.  her father takes her to see the union building he is working on but due to his race he sadly can not join the union.  however, the little girl does not allow racism to stop her dream of a better life.  she plans on buying her father a building which will result in steady work and a happier life for her entire family.  it's seems like childish naïveté but every childhood should be filled with such home.

at first, i considered reading about a child from a lower social-economic class might seem new. however, if you think of all the grimm's fairytales, most of the children and families were initially poor and their good merit resulted in their riches.  in addition to that, i think its only my viewpoint as an adult that would classify her as poor.  i don't know of kids would be able to read between the lines about the hardships her family faced.  however for those kids that are aware because it is very much their life, it must be nice to be able to identify with the protagonist of a story.

though regardless of class, "tar beach" is a wonderful read because it teaches kids to dream big!

matador. all about my mother. pedro almodóvar.

pedro almodovar had a new movie come out a couple of months ago called "i'm so excited".  i haven't seen it but i realized i haven't seen majority of his films and decided i need to change that.  so i checked out "matador" and "all about my mother".

i would discuss each movie but you really need to see them for yourself.  "matador" is crazy with violence and sex (granted it is an almodóvar) and features a young and attractive antonio banderas.  and "all about my mother" was a bittersweet story filled with pain, love and unlikely friendships.  i was in tears throughout it.  it was a beautiful film.  it demonstrates how the most unlikely people in our lives sometimes turn out to be the ones that provide the best love in her lives.  please please see it and if you want to have a talk about it, i'm available.  and yes the title is an "all about eve" references.  

the producers. young frankenstein. a history of the world part 1.melbrooks.

i was channel surfing one day and came across a show honoring mel brooks. as i watched, i realized i had never seen a mel brooks movie! i know outrageous!! my facebook friends were outraged.  i decided to check out some of his films from the library and play catch up on life. i must add that i enjoyed all of them, though they didn't make me laugh out loud the whole time, i did appreciate the humor.  also loved seeing so many older actors young.  and last but not least, i was definitely scared of gene wilder as a kid thanks to "willy wonka" but thanks to these movies discovered, he truly is amazing!!

"the producers"- i found it great though a little sad how he hustled the old ladies.  and seriously L.S.D. as hitler, hey man, seriously so funny, really cool, baby, really hilarious, man.  lol. loved him. i would totally go see the musical, "springtime for hitler", i mean the theme song was so catchy!! i also about died when they did the swastika formation on stage. so clever yet so horrible at the same time.

also random note but the nazi playwright was the voice of king triton in "the little mermaid"!

"young frankenstein"-  i thought gene wilder was amazing!  loved his instance on the correct pronunciation of "frankenstein".  but who really stole the show was igor, marty feldman!!! i got was my favorite with his "walk this way" and jokes about his eyes.  his dirty jokes were the best too.  i also loved that cloris leachman was in it, love her, though her character was minor.  i will admit that i missed it but thanks to imdb discovered that gene hackman played the blind man!  i will add i did appreciate the allusion to the blind man in the book.  i was also not expecting the "puttin' on the ritz"

performance with the monster, his singing was superb!  lol.  and all of the jokes about the monster's privacy were too much.  

"the history of the world part 1"-  i was shocked by how x-rated this movie was, i mean some of the jokes!  loved that it opened with a 2001 parody though the humping primates got gross.  but i was impressed by how edgy it was!  the joke about the homo sapiens wedding followed by the homosexual homo sapiens wedding was great, also nice to see that cavemen were so tolerant. gregory hines was great.  i couldn't believe he rolled a huge joint to escape the romans!  but my favorite was the inquisition musical number, such bad yet catchy songs!! i mean seeing the jews being tortured was horrible but that is how it went.  also the esther williams-esque number and sparkler helmets for the menorah! amazing!!!!  it was great but will add i did get bored during the french revolution but other than that great!

outside over there. (129) and higglety pigglety pop! or there must bemore to life. (130). maurice sendak.

in the maurice sendak documentary "tell them anything you want", sendak discussed two books i hadn't read before, "outside over there" and "higglety pigglety pop!".  they both meant a lot to him so i had to read them.

as i discussed in the post about the documentary, sendak was traumatized by a newspaper photograph he saw as a child of the lindbergh baby's remains.  as a result of this photo he became obsessed with the case and was quite knowledgable about it.   as he explained in the documentary, this book was about the lindbergh baby and also his sister who took care of him.

the story is the tale of a sister who is charge of her baby sister and who resents the responsibility a little.  one day goblins came in and took away the baby to make her into a bride.  the sister crawled out backward but after the advice of her father's song from his ship and sea, discovered the way to save her baby sister.  the older sister played her own and the goblins danced until they became a stream.  then, the sisters returned safely home.  the older one proud to take care of the younger one.

it is a scary story especially for children but with a happy ending.  sendak's giving the lindbergh baby a safe return home.

"outside over there" received a cadecott honor for its illustrations.  the book is filled with beautiful yet dark pictures.  haunting yet lovely, like this one of the baby being kidnap and the ice replica left in her place.  

in the documentary, sendak points out that there is an drawing of the actual

lindbergh baby:

such a sad fate for the lindbergh baby but "outside over there" demonstrated how book are therapy for writers.

----

in the documentary, sendak also mentioned how he wished he had written another book like "higglety pigglety pop! of there must be more to life." after reading it, i wish he had written more like it.  it reminded me of "alice in wonderland" with it's clever word play and puns.  in addition to its cast of colorful animal characters.

as sendak shared in the documentary, it featured his dog, jennie.  jennie was in a handful for sendak's books but in this one she was the featured character:

in the story, jennie has it all.  everything she needs and would want and a master that loves her.  but she is nagged by this feeling that there is more to life so she lives on an adventure.

i would retell the story but its really one you need to experience firsthand because there is a bit of wordplay.  lets just say in the end, jennie gets her adventure!

i will say that i did expect jennie to return home to her master, having discovered there really wasn't much to life as she had expected.  i thought the book was going to be a warning against wanting too much of life. but luckily i was wrong.  i was disappointed with myself for the conclusion i had expected.  kids and adults should be encouraged to go out into the world and discover it.  growing up in a small town it was an easy option to stay home.  thank my lucky stars, i went out into the world, like jennie, and was able to have experiences that would have never occurred if i stayed in delano.  i realized that kids need to told there is more to life than what they have seen.  they need to be adventurous.  it's in important lesson for kids of all ages.

(ps i think this would make a greater graduation gift than "oh the places you will go.")