There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell

I read this quite a while ago, but in the spirit of NNNNN,  here's a good one to read just for fun, especially if you've been to the Northwest after living in the fairly sane (if that's what you want to call it) Midwest.  

NNNNN

Yep, that's the name of a book.  And it's not "nnnnnnnnnnnnnn..." like a Zen noise, but pronounce each one: "en, en, en, en, en."  I did not read this book, I listened to it on CD... which almost counts.  NNNNN is by Carl Reiner, which is the reason that I picked this one up at the library... I thought that Carl Reiner was actually Rob Reiner, you know, of When Harry Met Sally and All In The Family fame.  So, I figured that Rob Reiner writes some pretty funny stuff and it would be interesting to pick apart the novel brain of this movie writer.  

Well, I figured out within the first few seconds that I had mixed the two up, because I was waiting to hear Rob Reiner's voice and instead heard this ridiculously pompous accent he had made up to read his novel... and then realized it wasn't Rob Reiner, but Carl Reiner, and that was just his voice, therefore not made up and therefore not pompous.  And even though it wasn't Rob Reiner, there was still a lovely funny reference to "I'll have what she's having..." which is a nice shout out from dad to son.  But I was still curious so I listened to the whole thing anyway- it was short.  

It's about an author who is stuck on his latest novel (his working titles are a series of N's, depending on how many books he's written- this is his 5th book, thus the "NNNNN"), and he has really violent and detailed conversations with himself so he goes to a shrink about it.  Unfortunately, that's all I can tell you, because even one more detail I could give ruins something the author meant to be a surprise.  This isn't a great book, but it's a fun book in that as you read it you can almost hear the author thinking, "Now, what would be a great twist to put in here?" and moments later, there's your twist.  It's silly, slightly predictable, outrageously unrealistic, but still pretty fun.  But keep in mind, I was listening to it, not reading it, so I don't know exactly how it would translate on the page.  I imagine it would still be pretty fun.  But don't look for substance or a rewarding experience... just read this one for fun.  Oh, and rated PG13 for occasional language.  Enjoy.

The Hairy Brown Angel and Other Animal Tails

Okay, people.  Do not judge me on the books that I read when I was a kid.  I don't judge you on your Barbie/GI Joe collection (You can say that you only collected one, but you know that you stole the others from your sibling's room to make them make out) and you don't judge me on my childhood books.  Having said that, this is one of those books that I couldn't get enough of when I was younger... and I have no idea why.  

Some of them stuck with me.  I still love to read my Beverly Cleary, Gordan Korman, Cynthia Voigt, Betsy Byars, CS Adler, Avi, and multitudes of other authors that are not only enjoyable to read, but stand the test of time as good stories and contributions to (children's) literature.  But occasionally I pick up one of my childhood favorites, and just can't figure out what I ever saw in these things.  This one, especially... see, this is one of those books that you would find in your church library when you were a kid.  It's full of lots of yummy animal stories that also teach you a lesson about God.  You may remember that I mentioned something about books teaching you lessons and me not liking that- don't misread me.  I said I hate it when they try to sneak in  a message in the midst of the story.  These people just hand you your Bible verse and explain what lesson the story was trying to teach... nothing subtle about it.  So something about me is that I love it when I read books that have lots of little stories in them.  I even read old school readers because I love that I don't have to have a long attention span.  So this book is right up my alley.  

The funny thing is, I remember reading this book a lot.  But I also, when I looked at it, felt this strange sense of dread, like I didn't really like it.  (I do that a lot and just read anyway.)  So that's what I did this time... picked it up and forged ahead.  

The first couple stories were what I remember liking.  Fun, true stories about wonderful animals, how they touched our lives and even saved us from evils in the world.  Then, we reach a story called "dumb dog" about how a kid didn't obey his parents, hung out with a boy they told him not to, and consequently his dog ended up running out into the road.  And this from page 72:  "Prince lifted his head feebly, then dropped it on the ground- dead!"

What the heck?!  What kind of writing is this?  Obey your parents, kids, or you'll be responsible for the death of beloved animals everywhere?  How ridiculous!  The next story is about a poor girl whose parents can't afford a pet, so of course a stray cat "adopts" them randomly... the only significant thinga bout this story (fictional) is that the pictures in this story are the only ones depicting people of color.  The ones who live in the ghetto.  Nice.  We then follow a vet through his paces where the sweetest description you ever heard about putting a dog to sleep just oozes off the pages... this is getting tedious.  My personal favorite, however, is one of the last stories in the book.  It's about a "missionary" family who lives on an island in the middle of a Pennsylvania river.  One night the ice on the river breaks and because of the severity of the winter and the flow of the current, the family has to bravely climb over the ice in the dark of night to the safety of shore.  (Yes, this is fictional.)  There are mountains, valleys, sheer walls, and giant holes in the ice.  Of course the only thing that saves them is their faithful pooch, who despite frozen feet keeps turning back to guide them one by one to safety.  Awww.  How amazing.  But the reason this story is of note is because the father, in his first speech, says, "Vell, little one, you must go up to bed now."  Vell, I don't know about you, but if I haf trouble saying "vell" I vill also stumble over "vun", as in "little vun," and I vill also haf a problem saying many otter vords, such as "vill," "vait," "ven,"  and "vere"- all vords that Vater seems to haf no problem at all saying correctly.  Now, I realize just how snobby I am being here.  This is very nitpicky and rude to this poor author who is trying to teach us something about God.  (By the way, it is that "I will (or vill) guide thee with mine eye."  A very good lesson, except I kept thinking as I read that- over and over- "I spy with my little eye...")  Anyway, there's a lesson in here so I shoudln't be poking fun.  But the father speaks with perfectly normal accent and perfectly normal w's except for about three words, in three separate incidents over 12 pages, so it really sticks out as funny when he says, "vell, little one" and only has an accent on half of the phonetic w's.  Then we go for about 8 pages, and Zeke (the dog) "vonts to take the cow across."  Noble Zeke.  Of course he can't save the cow, it's too dangerous, but it doesn't matter, because the drama of the moment is lost as we picture Wierd Al Yankovich singing "Amish Paradise" and pausing to intone in Father's voice, "He vonts to take the cow across."  Okay, so we keep reading... knowing that there is a good lesson coming out here somewhere, and everybody is safely across the ice on the shore.  Wait!  Zeke!  Where are you going?  Zeke runs back out on the ice towards the island (which, by the way is completely destroyed along with everything on it- house, barn, COW), and disappears into the night.  And the story ends with, "Papa's voice was sad and deep.  'He vonts to save the cow too.' "  And... we're done.

WHAT THE CRAP!  Are you KIDDING ME?  This author makes up a story about some heroic dog who leads his family to happily ever after, then kills himself over some cow, and THAT'S how we end?  What happens to Zeke?  Where's the bloody cow?  Poor Zeke's paws were crusted with ice and he could barely hang on to the churning piles as they were swept down the river, and we're going to send him out with a depressed bad accent?  I mean, come on.  That's no way to end a story that is supposed to teach us about how God loves us and will keep us safe.  Or, I guess it's a story about how God doesn't give a rip about those animals that he gave us for us to lord our dominion over and send off to their imminent dooms- send off with a bad accent, to boot?  No, I'm sorry, now I remember why I don't like to read this book.

But believe it or not, I'm keeping it.  As an adult, this is really funny to read.  It's such a hodgepodge of feel-good/lessons from above/ridiculous stories, and it's totally amusing to remember that this is the kind of book we used to use to teach our kids lessons about God.  (Yes, I was that kid.  And I'm sure I learned my lesson when I wasn't nauseated by all the dead pets.  There were quite a few more, by the way.)  And as a kid, I can see how it could serve a purpose- kids aren't ridiculously snobby like me and won't pick apart weird things like accents or complain that the author needlessly sacrificed a dog to prove their point.  

Well, when I was a kid, I did... but that's beside the point.  I can't help it that my elitism started at a young age...

The Cay

Whoops... put this on the wrong blog at first.

This is a book I had to read in... elementary school, I think?  I seem to remember Mr. Nofziger making us read this.  Well, I had to read it in school, anyway, which is why it was in that pile of "should we keep it or not?" books that Mom and Dad brought out here.  Anyway, I read it again becuase all I could remember was something about a cay...

So, we've got a kid who gets shipwrecked on an island with an old man.  Luckily for the kid, he gets a knock on the head in the shipwreck that blinds him, so he's completely dependent on the old man.  Really, I think the moment he wakes up in a lifeboat with only the old guy we all know that this will only be a real book if it includes the death of the old guy, so... we wait.  We know it's coming.  (And if we don't, we've never read a single book or seen a single movie in our entire lives, because the kid even says, "I wonder if Timothy was preparing me for his eventual death...")  Usual shipwreck/deserted island fare... rain catchers, what will we eat, oh, there's a hurricane, yada yada yada.  Kid has fears, kid overcomes fears, kid grows so much, what a marvelous young man he turns into.  This would have probably been a really cool book for a kid to read before Survivor was on TV.  But as it is, readers are just wishing for some cool story about an emergency tracheotomy with a coconut shell or something like that.  It's an average story, but I think the author was really trying to give us some message with the whole "rich white kid, old black man" thing.  Which was also lost on us because by this time we've all seen enough sensitive movies to not be phased by how prejudiced people used to be.  Oh, those poor uneducated people, aren't we all just the same underneath our skin?  

I will say, however, if it had been written today, the author probably would have been sued by the ACLU for writing the old guy's accent phonetically.  

So, that's about all I got.  Decent book, nothing wrong with it, but I don't love it and won't read it over and over... it's not going on the shelf.  But don't let your kids complain when they have to read it in school, there's a lot worse junk out there that they'll have to read.  (I'm sure some of those will end up in this blog eventually...)

The Midnight Fox

Okay, I love Betsy Byars.  Love, love, love Betsy Byars, she's one of my favorite children's authors ever.  (Yes, in case you're wondering... I have been reading children's books all year so far... these are the ones you find in the "young readers" category, novels suitable for third graders to read.  Or, as was my creepy case, kindergartners.)  But anyway, I just think she's swell.  The reason I love to read her is that she writes exactly as I think, and consequently, exactly as I write.  It makes me believe that my writing style might not be unreadable after all.  (Snide comments about my writing style will be ignored.)  What I mean is, she just starts writing from inside her characters' head, and then whatever tangeant their brain would go off on, that's suddenly in the story.  So there's a lot of "one time we played this game" or "it reminded me of the time that" type of things.  

Anyway, The Midnight Fox is not a book that I found early- it was one of those that I never read, never bought, never really heard of for a pretty long time.  Somehow it showed up in the pile of "keep it or don't" books, so I had to read it to see if it was worth keeping.  I decided it was.  It's not a spectacular book or even one of Byars' better ones, but it was a pretty good read.  It's your typical let's-learn-something-about-ourselves story, but not preachy.  (She's very good at that, by the way.)  City kid goes to live on a farm for a summer, sees and falls in love with a black fox, of course the same black fox his uncle is bent on killing because it steals chickens.  I won't go any further...  you do the math.  There's only one way this story can end, and guess what?  It ends that way.  But it's fun to read as you're going along, even though you know where you're going.  It's not Shakespeare, but it's entertaining.  So I call it worthy of my shelves, and a good one for kids (or adults who read like kids) to read.

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

All right.  This is hard to admit.  Yes, I read this.  This book was in a big pile of books that mom and dad brought out to Oregon in hopes of getting some cash from them at Powell's.  These books came from Erik's old room, my old rejects, my grandfather's stacks of books, and things Dad was either tired of rereading or thought was tripe to begin with.  

This book came from the stack of "bought once from the school book club or secret santa shop and never read" books that filled at least one giant plastic tub, and probably more.  Now, I have a thing about books in that I find value in anything that was given the time and respect of publishing.  So, I assume if it's bound it might have some worth, and therefore I have a hard time just dumping a book if I'm not sure it's not something I'm going to want to read over and over.  (Those are the only books I buy... the ones I like to read over and over... and a few that I think look awfully intelligent sitting on my bookshelves- those I've never read, but it looks awful impressive when I own "The Complete Shakespeare" or something pretentious like that.)  Anyway, I had never read this book and didn't know if it was one of those cute ones that I would like if I were 25 years younger, my fabled future offspring might enjoy, etc, etc, besides, it was billed as one of those "classic tales", and we can't discard a classic tale, right?

Wrong.  I read it- very quickly- and decided that some classic tales lose their charm faster than others.  (Funny that this book is now being sold with "charm.)  It wasn't the worst book I ever read, but come on... five poor little moppets meet by chance a spoiled rich kid who overcomes his selfishness and they all live happily ever after in a big giant mansion?  Oh, and the oldest girl by chance discovers walking down the street the spoiled little rich kid's uncle, who also happens to be the long-lost cousin of the munchkins' mother, which means- hurrah!- that they are all related to each other, except for spoiled rich kid (related only by marriage), which leaves the door open for rich kid and oldest girl to be married one day... which is not-so-subtly hinted at during their first ever meeting.  (They are TWELVE YEARS OLD.)  

Now, I'm not saying it's bad.  It's cute, in its own way.  But really, that's all it is- cute.  Come on.  There's a dog named Prince and everybody's name is endeared by adding "sie" to the end- i.e. "Bensie," "Mamsie," "Phronsie," (PHRONSIE)? and let's not forget Jasper, who becomes "Jappy."  How incredibly PC.  So anyway, a little too cutesy for me, and this is going in the garage sale/Powell's pile.  But it's not entirely without worth- you can read this aloud to your three-year-old, when they're sick with fever and won't remember you doing so.

A Christmas Carol

Okay, the first book I read this year was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  Sadly, even though I know this story inside and out (doesn't everybody?) and have seen about 500 version of the movie (hasn't everybody?), I've never really read the book from beginning to end.  Actually, I've never read any Dickens from beginning to end... okay, I've never read any Dickens at all.  Which makes my jokes about little french waifs and other such Dickensian references much more smart alec than they were before... which was pretty smarty.  (Side note, I used to call my brother a smart alec all the time- this was when I was younger and woudln't use the more acceptable term that I have of course edited from my public blog- and he would always come back with, "Smart Alec?  No, smart Erik!"  Smart alec.  That's why I never really use that term anymore... so if I'm ever talking to you and you hear me say smart@$$, I'm sorry... it's just because I can't bring myself to hear "smart alec, no, smart erik" in my head all day, which is what happens to me if I hear those words.  It's like "It's a Small World"... it just keeps going and going and going and going... I find myself grinding my teeth to the rhythm of "smart alec, no, smart erik"... and I'm off again.  Sorry.)

Okay.  So, I was surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed reading that which I have memorized in movie version.  I figured it would be hard to wade through Dickens' 19th Century (read: tedious) English, but it wasn't.  It was pretty fun.  Although this is the first book in about three years that I have wished I had a dictionary for... just a few nights ago Andy and I were in Barnes and Noble trying to figure out how to spend my Christmas gift card from his mom, and I saw a calculator-sized electronic dictionary thin enough to use as a bookmark.  It was called the reader's dictionary.  "Pooh," says I, "Were but my immeasurable intellect ever lacking in the vocabularian department, perhaps I would have need of such a device.  But what ho!  For my knowldege spans all realms of words and origins, and never hast myself the need to unravel a mysterious collection of letters."  So I didn't get it.  And two days later I came across a word I had to look up.  So much for my collosal brain.  Anyway, that's what we have the internet for, but I sure wished I had a handy-dandy little pocket dictionary marking the page of my confusion.  I'm digressing again.  Oh, by the way... if you know me at all, you know that this blog will be 25% "about the books" and 75% "the way my mind works."  But you'll still get some info about the books, I swear.  :)

Okay, so I liked the book.  There's no need to go any further.  You've all read it.  If not, go get it.  It's good.  I will say that the most shocking and pleasantly surprising fact I learned was that of all the movie versions I've seen, The Muppet Christmas Carol was the most true to the book.  True, in Dickens' version vegetables didn't sing and Bob Cratchitt wasn't a frog, but most of the speeches, narration, and images produced (minus the felt-covered characters and jelly bean eating rat) were lifted directly from the pages.  Especially, "...Caring not a button for the dark.  Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it."  So there, Brandon.

Oh, and I don't have that DVD yet, if anybody's looking for next Christmas's present for me... :)

Patience...

Okay, so I know I built this up with a lot of "I READ EVERYTHING" hype, but I'm really tired and don't want to write a book report now.  I'll get some books up in a couple days.