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.

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.

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!!

palo alto. james franco. (127)

i read online that james franco was doing a fundraiser, kinda like kickstarter but not, to turn his collection of short stories, "palo alto" into a movie.  

before i go on, quick rant about celebrities doing kickstarters.  seriously?!?! doesn't the general public give you enough money by watching your movies and tv shows?  i mean don't you already get paid a ridiculous amount of money for acting yet you are begging common folk for money?  fund your own projects, you can afford it!

back to "palo alto", though i didn't agree with his fundraising, i was excited about reading his work.  i admire his acting and he seems to be pretty intelligent and cultured.  he did go to UCLA and he sat with marina abramovic during her piece "the artist is present" (he was featured in the doc).  so i had pretty high expectations for his writing, but his fundraiser should have been a red flag.

i mean it did seem odd that james franco would have to do a kickstarter with all of his hollywood success but this collection of stories was horrible.  so bad that its no wonder he couldn't find anyone in hollywood to back it, you would have to be an idiot to.  it was bad.  it was like a sad attempt to be "jesus' son" but whereas denis johnson has talent and a way with words, franco has nothing.

i mean i knew it was going to be horrible after reading the first line of the first story, "halloween":

ten years ago, my sophomore year in high school, i killed a woman on halloween.

i swear to god, i am not making this up.  that was the first line.  it reminded me of that "girls" episode when hannah goes to the reading for her old professor and she reads that poorly-written and forced story about her online boyfriend dying.  and her first line is about him dying and she doesn't get a reaction so she repeats the line about him dying assuming people didn't catch it the first time.  so embarrassing.  in my head, i imagined franco repeating "killed" for a reaction and for effect.  

so that line set the tone for the rest of the stories and after that i couldn't take anything seriously.  everything felt forced.  i know what franco was trying to write, he wanted to create some great beat manifesto for generation y but sadly didn't come close.  i mean franco did capture the pretentious ignorance of gen y hipsters.  it was shocking yet lacked any real depth or edge.  it was all self-righteous intensity, kinda like hipsters.  franco's characters were soulless druggies yet would namecheck kerouac, faulkner, and hemingway.  it was as if the mention of their names would result in literary greatness, instead franco just came off like a wannabe beat.

his characters were  bad people, i was disgusted by everything i had read in  the story.  they were bad just for the shock value versus finding a deeper truth.  it was full of lines that i am sure franco wanted his readers' minds to explode as they read but everything was overdone and cliché.

franco's stories were filled with bad stereotypes as well.  the second story is the tale of girl who is . . . good at math!  what girls can't be good at math?!?!  or the slutty asian girl who will love you long time.  there was also a lot of half breeds and even a mormon.  but a mormon who knows nothing about scriptures (mormons, even the bad ones can discuss scriptures).  and just way too many bat shitty crazy boys with too much time and drugs on their hands.

and i mean i get wayward youth, i enjoyed "a clockwork orange" and "trainspotting".  i revered sal paradise.  but there was nothing enjoyable or enlightening about the reckless youth of "palo alto".  it was so bad that i now have a better appreciation for "jesus' son".

but i will add i did enjoy one thing.  i genuinely enjoyed franco's mention of the children books author bill peet.  i actually checked out a handful of his books because they are alluded to in a story.  though i did not believe anyone would let a druggie do service hours at a library.  

but in the end, i am glad i read "palo alto" because now i won't waste my money to help fund a film version or pay for a movie ticket to see it.