Showing posts with label Theses Are a Few of My Favorite Things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theses Are a Few of My Favorite Things. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Book Review - Carolyn Keene's The Secret of the Old Clock

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
Published by: Grosset and Dunlap
Publication Date: 1930
Format: Hardcover, 180 Pages
To Buy

I will fully admit that until recently I was never really on board with Nancy Drew. As a kid I never read her adventures, though I do remember the spinning book rack in my middle school library, the one my mom worked at for many, many years, was larded with Nancy Drew books and I did pick up The Secret of the Old Clock one day and stopped about two pages in. The story just didn't grab me and at that time in my life I was a reluctant reader. I remember Northern Exposure's Nancy Drew parody with Maggie more than the books themselves! So while not being a Nancy Drew fan I still enabled my mom's addiction. She adored the books when little, checking them out from the library as summer reading. So needless to say when they started issuing reproductions of the original books my mom was over the moon. I helped her hunt them down in our local stores. From Borders to The University Bookstore for Kids, we anxiously awaited the new re-releases was scanning the shelves for any other books that might want to come home with us. I now have these reprints and can not wait to read them for the first time as I have become a Nancy Drew addict because of the new CW TV show. I didn't expect it. I only watched it at first because it was paired with Riverdale and was another "dark retelling" but this time the supernatural aspects were real. As time went on Nancy Drew quickly became my favorite show, and Riverdale fell by the wayside, though I did like their own take on "Nancy Drew," AKA Tracy True, this season. The only real regret I have is that my mom never got to see this adaptation and the resurgence in Nancy Drew's popularity. I think she would have been on board.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Book Review - The Ship That Flew

The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis
Published by: Criterion Books
Publication Date: 1939
Format: Hardcover, 180 Pages
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

My mom was rather notorious for her dislike of pottery. I was never able to really figure out where this came from other than she gave me a vague feeling that the potters she'd interacted with when she was in art school made her dislike all potters. This is extra ironic because the two known pieces of my mom's pottery extant when I was a child where rather good. There was a coil pot that was rather muppety that eventually suffered a breakage and a viking ship. When I was little I adored that viking ship. Screw when I was little, I STILL adore that viking ship. The detail, the heft, I wanted my mother to make an entire fleet, but sadly there was only the one. One day when I was looking around the house for books to read for school, I went to a Catholic school that took a very punitive track when it came to homework, besides the eight hours of homework a night you had to read two additional books a month to write book reports on, there was The Ship That Flew on my mom's prized bookshelf. I took it down and loved the historical adventures our heroes and heroines take on a viking ship. I instantly made the connection to my mom's creation and asked her if this is why she made it. I needn't have asked, of course it was. As I myself have done all my life she also loved to make things from books become real. Now if only her pottery ship flew in time and space...

Friday, November 6, 2020

Book Review - J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Published by: Everyman's Library
Publication Date: 1911
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
To Buy

When my mom was little Peter Pan was her favorite Disney movie. I have spent more time that I can count having to listen to innumerable stories about being taken to Disney films when I was little and freaking out so bad that I had to be taken home. In an ironic twist of fate my brother would do this to me with The Jungle Book and I never knew the ending until it was re-released into theaters when I was a teenager. There was literally only five minutes left! HE COULD HAVE WAITED! Usually my mom took out these stories as amusing anecdotes, after all she'd seen all the films when she was younger so my losing it on seeing the mice in Cinderella was funny. But she was different about Peter Pan. I remember when it was re-released as we took our seats at Westgate with her sister and niece she looked at me and told me point blank, there would be no "Cinderella" freak out. No matter what happened we were staying. While the movie isn't close to my favorite Disney movie it did spawn a love of the book in me. One year for Christmas my parents got me and my brother a HUGE set of Children's Classics and the plan was to have nightly readings in the library. This actually happened once, perhaps twice. But I do know that the only book we read was Peter Pan. I was the one reading it aloud at the beginning and I don't know at what point I became so involved in the story that I didn't notice that my audience had left but leave they did. But I didn't leave that big uncomfortable pink wingback chair until I finished the book. I think that was the first book I binged in one sitting.     

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