Book Recommendations

Good morning!

I need some help. I have been buying Dr. Seuss books for my friends' daughter. It is a fun tradition, but as much as I can help it I would like to buy different series each time. So, since many people that read my blog have children, I was hoping for some suggestions. The little girl has a brother and another one of my close friends is expecting her first baby, but I also need suggestions for future babies, too. I am aiming for prolific authors, but if you want to suggest individual books, that would be helpful, too. My friend that is expecting reads my blog, so she might appreciate some ideas.

Thanks!

Muppet Robin Hood by Tim Beedle (And, a movie review...)

Muppet Robin Hood by Tim Beedle & company

Date Completed: January 11, 2010
Reason for Reading: Just for fun!

The Muppets tell the Robin Hood legend for laughs, and it’s the reader who will be merry! Robin Hood (Kermit the Frog) joins with the Merry Men — Sherwood Forest’s inf

amous gang of misfit outlaws — to take on the stuffy Sheriff of Muppetham (Sam the Eagle) and the wicked Gonzo of Gisbourne! Features a cover from David Petersen, the Eisner Award-winning creator of Mouse Guard!

I was catching up some blog reading and I happened to notice on Becky's, from Becky's Book Reviews, post wrapping up the Graphic Novel Challenge that she had read classic stories retold with the Muppets in graphic novel format. I was curious... Even the cc was curious. Off to the library website I went and they actually had a few of them. I can sum up my thoughts very easily: This book was really fun, but nothing amazing. I laughed a few times and enjoyed the retelling of the story with Kermit and friends. The cc read a bit over my shoulder and he thinks they should make a movie. I plan to read whatever other ones the library has just for fun.

Then, in one of those weird twists of fate, the movie that we had planned to watch last night was Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Cary Elwes stars as Robin Hood, the dashing defender of the down-trodden, who along

with his merry men and Maid Marion, resides in Sherwood Forest. There they have

become together to fight against the seriously neurotic Prince John, the not quite-evil Sheriff of Rottingham, and the mad scorceress Latrine.

This was a fun movie! I am pretty sure I have seen it before, but if I did it was a while ago. I just love the movie. I think anything that Mel Brooks does is sure to be an entertainment not easily forgotten. It is just so random that you think it is going to be really bad, but it all works together so well. I mean, picture a bunch of men dressed in tights doing a dance number about how they are manly men. I laughed for a while at that scene. The movie still keeps to the basic story, but adds humour and entertainment, of course.

The characters were casted really well. Cary Elwes also plays Westley in The Princess Bride. The movies reminded me a lot of each other, actually. I think William Goldman and Mel Brooks have the same creative minds in a way. Then, at the end of the movie Patrick Stewart appears as King Richard. I enjoyed that immensely. We were watching the opening credits and kept saying, oh, he is going to be funny and thoughts along those lines. It has a great cast of really funny people. It's a cheesy movie, I am not going to lie, but it is great for a laugh and is easily a movie you can watch over and over again. Now that I remember seeing it, I am going to make sure to add it to the few movies I do rewatch. So, if you are one of very few people, I am sure, that haven't seen this movie... Watch it!

*** I think I might keep track of what I watch in 2011 over on the sidebar and review from time to time. While I love reading, the cc is a TV/movie person. So, when he is around we tend to watch a lot of stuff. When he is not around I hardly even turn the TV on!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I have to laugh at myself. I decided that I was going to get rid of three boxes of books from when I was in elementary school and a bit older. So, I was going through the boxes and all that happened was I started remembering why I collected the books in the first place! Needless to say, I only ended up getting rid of one box. I think I might make some of the series I have left over from when I was younger a reading project. You see, when I was reading these series, I didn't exactly have the internet at my fingertips. If I couldn't find the next book in a series, it was not always an easy thing to remedy. Plus, I didn't exactly have a large budget for book-buying. So, in the middle of my sorting, I picked up a couple of series that I really enjoyed and didn't have all the books for to see if it was possible to acquire them. I had some success with the library, but they didn't have all of them. Some will have to be inter-library loaned, while others are not available at all. Still, I think I might try and read some of the series in their entirety. Or, close to their entirety. I wish I had lived in such a technological age when I was hooked on the series. I still look at second-hand stores for them, actually. Anyway, I don't think the dates are adding up to elementary school. They more add up to when I was going through my horses/animal stage, so reading levels didn't really matter!

The two series that I am strongly considering for this project:
Riding Academy by Alison Hart
Animal Inn by Virginia Vail

Then, I have series in their entirety like:
Sweet Valley High - Which I didn't actually like at all when I was reading them...
Sweet Valley University - I liked these slightly better
Baby-Sitter's Club - The acceptable thing for me to be reading when I was like 5 or 6... It drove me crazy how the first chapter was always exactly the same!
Baby-Sitter's Little Sister - See above
Nancy Drew - I actually prefer The Hardy Boys. I should try and get the entire set of Hardy Boys...
Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - There are several of these I don't have, and I actually like this series the best.
Lurlene McDaniel's - Really depressing books, but I do think I used to like her.

See, this is why I didn't like books for my reading level when I was younger. They really were not that great.... I used to just read my mothers random books because she would only buy me the series seen above, and, well... I would have preferred fantasy and science-fiction. When I had my own money I started reading Star Trek and Madeleine L'Engle. But, there are a few gems from above. There were also The Boxcar Children and Saddle Club. My library has like all The Saddle Club books. I don't know how extensive this trip down reading memory lane will wind up being, but I do hope to read some of them! Then, I might give them away.... Right...

A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket [October/06]

I have had this book in my house for quite a while. There has been so much hype about it, I felt one day I was going to have to see what it was all about, but it took me a while to get around to reading it.

From Amazon:

Make no mistake. The Bad Beginning begins badly for the three Baudelaire children, and then gets worse. Their misfortunes begin one gray day on Briny Beach when Mr. Poe tells them that their parents perished in a fire that destroyed their whole house. "It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed," laments the personable (occasionally pedantic) narrator, who tells the story as if his readers are gathered around an armchair on pillows. But of course what follows is dreadful. The children thought it was bad when the well-meaning Poes bought them grotesque-colored clothing that itched. But when they are ushered to the dilapidated doorstep of the miserable, thin, unshaven, shiny-eyed, money-grubbing Count Olaf, they know that they--and their family fortune--are in real trouble. Still, they could never have anticipated how much trouble. While it's true that the events that unfold in Lemony Snicket's novels are bleak, and things never turn out as you'd hope, these delightful, funny, linguistically playful books are reminiscent of Roald Dahl (remember James and the Giant Peach and his horrid spinster aunts), Charles Dickens (the orphaned Pip in Great Expectations without the mysterious benefactor), and Edward Gorey (The Gashlycrumb Tinies). There is no question that young readers will want to read the continuing unlucky adventures of the Baudelaire children in The Reptile Room and The Wide Window.

It is a rather short book, perfect for a slightly stressful night at work where I wanted to feel like I accomplished something at the end of it. Last night, it was reading this book. As Lemony Snicket says on the back of the book: "In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast". It truly is a rather depressing book, and I am sure that all the other twelve books that come after it are equally unhappy. I might read the rest of them, have to wait and see.

I can say I read at least one, maybe one of these days I will watch the movie. I haven't done that either, but then there are a lot of movies that I would like to have watched and haven't. Anyways, this book was a very fitting Friday the 13th read.

3.5/5