Speaking of books...

I got Adi her first chapter book this week. She wanted "a book with lots of words, and no pictures, and I'll use my imagination for the pictures."

What we found were cute books about princesses with about 70-80 pages each - plenty for a new-ish reader - and a few pictures per chapter. I figured that turning her to something other than princesses, once she'd seen them, might be a lost cause, but at least I was able to steer her to one about a "daring princess" instead of the more vapid-looking ones.

And then, today, as the kids played shove-each-other-off-high-surfaces at the local play area, I sat down to skim through it before she started reading.

The book starts innocently enough. In Chapter 1, the king announces that his daughter, not his step-son, will be his heir.

Then in Chapter 2, the stepmother retires to her bedroom, draws a red star on the floor, stabs herself, smatters her blood into the center of the star, and recites a prayer to summon "Nur, the Lord of Darkness and Prince of Demons" to help her kill the princess. This works, but the devil is annoyed that she didn't just handle it herself and sends a demon in his place.

So. Yeah.

I realize that many popular kids' books and stories have some very dark parts to them, and that the darkness is part of what makes them so good (eg. Mulan, the Little Mermaid and the Lion King all had murders, none of their terrible sequels did). But do the 5-9 year olds this book appears to be written for really need the full text of the prayer to summon the devil? Do we really need to have Nur (portrayed in one illustration as a creature made of red flame in half-goat, half-human form) thank the stepmother for "giving me the life of Queen Matilda" (the princess' mother - we learn in Chapter 2 that the stepmother murdered her with poison)?

So at this point I need either a spell to make Adi's new book disappear without her noticing and crying her eyes out about it, or a way to convince her that Chapter 2 has always been missing, and in fact most modern books skip straight from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 - it's just one of those things.

Any ideas?

and one more

When I Get Bigger (biography)

In this book, a little... critter... talks about what he'd like to do when he gets bigger.

My review: Most children's books are timeless. Stories like Cinderella and Snow White have been around for various forms for hundreds of years. Which is weird, since they are so obviously completely messed up. Why are generation after generation of parents telling their kids the story about the little girl whose stepmother took a hit out on her?

Anyway. This story is not timeless. In fact, if you're older than 26 or so you're virtually guaranteed to feel old and out of touch as you tell it. "'When I get bigger, I'll have a real leather football, my own radio, and a pair of super-pro roller skates'... what's that?... Oh. Umm... those are things that kids Mommy's age used to like to play with .... Yes. Yes it was a long time ago."

("'I'll spend my allowance on anything I want'... That's right, sweetie, 'allowance' is another thing people used to do when Mommy was a little girl.")

If you're 26 or younger, you may just be confused.

I would suggest an updated version, but I can only imagine how out of touch that would make me feel... "'When I get bigger, I'll have my own Twitter account, and post pictures of myself wearing whatever I want.'"
*shudder*

My rating:  2 of 5 stars. Stop making me feel old, Little Critter.

*****

I am also reading a new story, called Bobok. I'm making vague attempts to read the Russian before giving up and looking at the English. So far it seems to be the most boring zombie story ever, but I'm still not even halfway through, so we'll see how it turns out.

Book Reviews continued

Thanks to Hanukah break I've been too busy to clean the house or do math homework. But fortunately, I haven't been too busy to eat several hundred latkas, write Curious George fanfiction (more on that later) and read new books, which I'll review here for your convenience.

A Feast for Crows (Fantasy)

Book four of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Yes, I read book four almost immediately after finishing complaining about book three. I'm like that.

A lot of people like this book less than the others, because it has a bit less action and fewer plot twists (only a few dozen murders, compared to the usual one per page or so). But I loved it. It took the books from an amazingly detailed fantasy series to an insanely detailed fantasy series.

I can see why people are comparing George Martin to Tolkien. Tolkien invented languages for his books; the history and religions of Martin's imaginary world could be the subject of several college courses.

There is one fairly major downside, though, at least for me. Martin's ability to keep track of his roughly 30,000 characters surpasses my own, so new plot points not infrequently go over my head. The book will be following Asha (one of the several dozen characters followed in at least one chapter) and suddenly Tristifer says something important, and instead of thinking, "Woah! What a crazy plot development!" I'm thinking, "Wait, who's Tristifer?"

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Angelina’s Birthday (Fiction)

A plot summary, for those of you who aren't familiar with this literary masterpiece: Angelina is messing around and breaks her bike. Her parents suggest she earn money to buy a new one. Angelina and her friend Alice work hard, but don’t earn enough money for the bike she wants. In the end, her family surprises her by buying her a new bike for her birthday.

My review: This book is nicely paced, well illustrated, and teaches children a valuable lesson about hard work. Namely, that hard work isn’t nearly as important as your ability to dupe people into buying you things by looking cute and pitiful.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ten Apples Up on Top (Philosophy) 

Plot: A lion, tiger, and dog (?) compete to see who can balance the most apples on their head. For whatever reason, this involves breaking and entering. When they are discovered the entire town turns out to chase them away, only to run into an apple cart. There is a surprise ending.

My review: This is a nice, gentle way to introduce young children to Objectivist philosophy. Competition spurs excellence among the talented, while the non-talented seek only to tear down the "apple carriers'" success, all on a level even a preschooler can understand.

This could be an alternative to Randian classics for adults, as well. Not only is the entire book shorter than any single sentence in Atlas Shrugged, making it something you might actually read and not just Google, but the surprise ending (*spoilers* - all of the villagers end up with apples perfectly balanced on their heads and decide to join the apple-balancing fun) is far more realistic than that whole thing about geniuses abandoning society in favor of their own private paradise (because if there's anything rich businessmen dream of, it's escaping from all those younger, poorer, far more attractive female hangers-on and going off to live independently with their overwhelmingly male associates).

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Pride and Prejudice (Awesomeness)

Plot: It’s semi-complicated. Luckily, it was made into about a kajillion movies, so you can just look it up on IMDb.

I love this book. I love it from the first chapter, where we meet a beautiful, demure, kind-hearted young woman – who isn’t the main character. It’s her less attractive, overly critical sister who’s the main character. 

I don't know why this book seems to be consistently described as a romance. The breakdown is more like this:

15%: Hmm, Mr. Darcy may not be so bad after all.

2%: England being pretty

3%: England being all old-fashioned

80%: Oh dear lord, I'm surrounded by idiots.

It's less of a standard romance and more of a "if The Catcher in the Rye and a Katherine Heigl movie had a baby and it grew up reading the thesaurus, it might look something like this."

It's a fun read if you feel like you're surrounded by morons. It was fun for me even though I suspect I may sometimes be one of the morons.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

If You See a Cow (Language Instruction)

Plot: If you see a cow, say “mooo.” If you see a sheep, say “baaaa.” Etc.

This book gets credit for teaching children about our diverse world and the importance of learning new phrases in order to greet new friends in their own language.

However, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that my attempts to speak Cow were wildly unsuccessful. I don't know if my pronunciation was off, or if "Moooo" doesn't translate the way the authors think it does, but the cows seemed more hostile than happy to hear a human speaking their language.

Saying "Cockadoodledoo" to the chickens produced similar results. From their reaction it seemed that perhaps chickens view this word as appropriate only when it is used by cultural "insiders," but find it offensive when used by Homo Sapiens.

It's a good concept, but ultimately this book needs a major overhaul. An audio guide would be a good start.

My rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars.

******

My Curious George fanfiction in which I reimagined the mysterious Man in the Yellow Hat as a cold-blooded killer-for-hire using his monkey as a cover and occasional partner in crime was, unfortunately, not a critical success. Some (like my darling stistar) even found it inappropriate.

I can only hope they will feel more kindly toward my upcoming Angelina Ballerina fanfiction, in which the real reason for Angelina's ballet lessons was to allow the nymphomaniac Mrs. Mousling the opportunity to pursue her illicit affairs.

Potato (aka Learning to Speak Child)

*****
Also, I recently had a child asking me where "the thing that's the breaking thing" was.
The thing that breaks things?
Yes.
You mean like a hammer? Something like that?
No.
Scissors? A knife?
No, the breaking thing.

So what did she mean?
....
Corn on the cob.

I get 10 SuperMommy bonus points for getting it right within two minutes.

Sleepover

Adi is having her first sleepover tonight.

The news that she would be sleeping at a friend's house was met with mixed reactions.

It was hard for N to part from her sister/best friend/worship object. My attempts to console her were fruitless. Fortunately, she thought of something to cheer herself up during bathtime.

Things went much better after that. The only other snafu came when N and D were "falling asleep" (rather loudly and bouncing-ly) together.

 I trust regular readers have a sense of who's who in the above picture.

When I got the offending party off, she offered up the following excuse:

Now to wait until morning and see how things went with Adi.

SNAN and Birthdays

In honor of SNAN's birthday, another round of SNAN and ALIRSNAN (normally this is as close as SNAN would come to getting a present from me, but since she's going to actually come see me in person, I'll make her a cake too. SNAN, you like double-chocolate mocha cake as much as I do, right? If not, I'll live).

SNAN and ALIRSNAN: the Birthday Edition

SNAN is always up-front about her age. What's there to hide?

ALIRSNAN finds honesty difficult - for mental reasons.

People are often surprised that SNAN has done so much at such a young age.

People are surprised by ALIRSNAN's age, too.

SNAN likes to think about the year that passed, and her goals for the upcoming one.

ALIRSNAN also makes birthday resolutions.

SNAN doesn't make a huge deal out of her birthday. She goes about her daily life, but with extra well-wishes.

ALIRSNAN is a big believer in birthdays being a special occasion - when it's her turn.

But ultimately, for both SNAN and ALIRSNAN, birthdays are about being in touch with family.

Calm

I was remarkably calm today.

I managed to stay calm through my desperate attempts to complete even half of my math studying for the week.

I managed to stay calm through a screaming contest between two three-year-olds (the second being a friend who's basically Boy Dani).

I managed to stay calm through seven kids turning my bedroom into a massive fort (no picture available. I'd rather not remember it long enough to draw it.).

Then I unleashed a day's worth of frustration at some hapless pancakes.

Oh well.

********

Here's a nice story: http://www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=24200&hp=1&newsletter=04.12.2012

Summary for English speakers: Police were called to a house in Migdal Haemek because of complaints about garbage all over the yard. When they got there, they realized the owners of the house were a handicapped couple and had left the garbage outside because they couldn't move it alone. So instead of giving them a ticket, they called in more police, to help them move the garbage themselves (a process which took over two hours).

I thought it was sweet, and a nice counter-balance to the stories I've posted about human stupidity (although both of the previous stories I posted do have human caring, too, come to think of it).

War souvenir

I spent my brains on math today, but I still have a story to share. Fortunately, it's not my story.

But first, a quick quiz. What's the most appropriate way to remember a brief but traumatic period of shelling in your home city?

a. A new-found appreciation for life.
b. Gratitude that you and your loved ones were spared.
c. An active rocket head in your living room.

If you went with c, you'll find you have something in common with the guy in the story told here:
http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/247760

For English speakers, the basics:

Guy lives through war, guy finds rocket head containing several kilograms of explosives, guy decides best use of rocket head is to be kept in his living room as a combination souvenir/toy for his young children (yes, really).

Ultimately, guy is robbed of a richly deserved Darwin Award by a neighbor who happens to be a police sapper who overhears someone mentioning his "souvenir" during a basketball game.

Police demolish rocket; police are forced to issue the most superfluous warning to the public since they started putting nut allergy alerts on peanut butter.

Since the star of our story has kids, he's probably married. Too bad, he might have been a good match for cockroach lady.