found art

I enjoy reading "what was that book?" sites, except I am often baffled by the incredible illiteracy displayed by the people asking. It's hard to believe that some of them have ever actually read a book. But I just now got it. The lack of punctuation and run-on sentences and ungrammatically jumbled together bits of information... it's all a (subconscious?) representation of the memory itself, in its randomness and vagueness. As if by putting forth the memory as close to how it appears to them as possible, it might strike a chord more in a reader. I doubt it works, but it's kind of beautiful in a strange way.

Speaking of Jean Webster

as I was, once upon a time, I just started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and I suspect the authors are channeling her. Will be interesting to see where it goes.

(I see that Nancy Pearl sees more of a Helene Hanff thing going on. That's good too.)

Another reason people write fanfic?

I reread Jean Webster's Dear Enemy the other day -- it's hard to judge a book you've loved for around 30 years, but I think it hold up tremendously well despite being around a hundred years or so old -- and got a craving to reread just the ending of Daddy-Long-Legs. And when I did, I noticed something I don't think I've ever noticed before.

Judy, the heroine of DDL, is a dedicated writer and has just published a book as that story ends. Judy is a prominent character in DE -- both books are in epistolary form and most of the letters written in DE are written to her. We hear a fair bit of commentary about her happy marriage, her travels with her charming husband, her baby daughter... and not one word about her book or her writing. It's like that aspect of her life completely disappeared after the happy ending of DDL.

This seems particularly odd considering that Jean Webster was a woman writer herself and that Dear Enemy is about a woman who loves her work and it is very clear at the end that she has every intention of continuing it after marriage.

Daddy-Long-Legs could be said to have some fairy-tale-like aspects, but it never felt like a fantasy to me. Judy is so well drawn, so honest and thoughtful and passionate about life. I don't like thinking of her own creator as writing her off as a fairytale princess who never wants to do anything anymore but live happily ever after.

Reading with Ben - Poetry Saturday

My son tends to find his own books, and very selectively too, so it was a little thrill to see him reading something I'd put on his shelves, Making Friends with Frankenstein. Tonight his dad was out of town, so rather than the usual installment of Harry Potter with voices, I picked up MFwF and read him some of it. What a fascinating experience it is to read comic poetry with a highly intelligent autistic child. He wanted me to explain many of the jokes, especially the puns, but then he found them just hilarious.

He's reading to himself now and I can hear almost constant laughter.

It doesn't seem to be in print at the moment, but used copies abound. My original review:



Making Friends With Frankenstein written and illustrated by Colin McNaughton. Candlewick, 1994 (1-56402-308-7) $19.95; 2001 (0-7636-1552-8) $4.99 pb

The gross, grisly, subversive and wickedly amusing atmosphere of children's playground verses is perfectly captured in this original collection of "monstrous poems and pictures." By turns gruesome, malevolent and cynical--but always gleeful--Making Friends With Frankenstein is delightfully shocking and hysterically funny. The cartoony pictures are an excellent match for the verses: neither are for the weak of stomach. American readers may be baffled by occasional references to English expressions and culture, but that's no big deal--they'll still devour this book and scream for more.

© 2009 Wendy E. Betts

I dunno, this might be better than what they actually did do

xkcd on filmed children's classics.

review: Violet

Violet by Tania Duprey Stehlik. Illustrated by Vanja Buleta Javanovic. Second Story Press, 2009 (978-1897187-60-9) $14.95

I couldn't get a cover illustration for Violet, but here's a book trailer that gives a sense of the illustrations. It's a very eye-catching book, with a spiky haired, elongated heroine and some seriously surreal backgrounds; the overall effect is sometimes childlike, sometimes pretty, and occasionally even a bit creepy in a rather Coraline-esque way. It sorts of makes sense when you realize that Violet is set in an alternate world, one in which people are red and blue and yellow--and in Violet's case, violet.

A simple story, Violet is about Violet's first day at a new school. She's pretty nervous about fitting in, but everything goes fine. Then when her dad comes to pick her up, a girl from her class is puzzled: "Your dad is BLUE??!" Violet's never thought about it before, but now she wonders. "Mom was red. Dad was blue. So, why wasn't she red or blue? Come to think of it, all her red friends had red parents. Her yellow friends had yellow parents. Her blue friends had blue parents. So why was she purple?"

When she gets home, Violet's mom shows her how mixing blue and red makes "a lovely purply-violet" and tells her that "people come in a whole rainbow of beautiful colors." (Only the colorful hands of the adults are shown, another piece of the overall offbeat look of the book.) And the next day, when a boy is puzzled by her red mom, she says proudly, "My mom is red, my dad is blue, and I... am Violet!"

I'm torn between thinking that Violet looks awesome, and that it's great to see a messagey sort of book with such unusual and interesting illustrations, and thinking that it's kind of an odd fit with the text, which is so matter of fact. In a way, of the two of them the book trailer is more interesting than the actual book. Which is not to say that a straightforward book on this subject isn't welcome, especially one that is not heavily didactic; I just wonder if the kind of kids who appreciate a straightforward story might also prefer more straightforward illustrations. Like Violet, I feel a little mixed.. but overall, I like the book enough to hope it finds its audience. (4-10)

© 2009 Wendy E. Betts

life imitates art

Evan, holding his Itouch: "I'm having trouble with the connectivity here."

me, holding my book: "Funny, I never have any problem with my connectivity."

Hey, I think we just lived an Unshelved strip.