Read lately...
Feb. 9th, 2006 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnellI'm sitting with an enormous box of tissues to hand, and a healthy dose of self-pity (for very little just cause) and interrupting the typing from time to time to sneeze all over the place...
Just finished Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which was the first of the upcoming course books I picked up to read/reread. It was fun, and the critique of (human) society more pointed than I might have expected from a v. popular children's book written in 1971 (though no equivalent feminist awareness!), but not so sure I see quite why it won the Newbery Medal. Yet. It may or may not become apparent later. But mid-way through I suddenly noticed how surprisingly many of the books are anthropomorphic: Watership Down; Aesop's Fables; The Wind in the Willows; The Mouse and his Child; The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh, Mrs. Frisby, Black Beauty, Blitzcat (I think, from reading the description on Amazon - don't know about Yaxley's Cat) and Charlotte's Web. That's leaving out the Potter and other picture books, which are more often talking animals/dolls/whatever, I'd have thought. 10 out of 14, and possibly 11. Yet there's no other type of fantasy immediately apparent, and just the one science fiction. And there's plenty of fantasy in later courses. Okay - that was stupid, as there are collections of fairy tales, but nothing else in the chapter books.
Want to take on DWJ on Hilary McKay's Permanent Rose, but now is clearly not the time, no matter how much absencia she might be in. Instead I'll content myself with an entirely apropos quote about appropriate children's reading from Moominpappa's Memoirs, which I'm reading thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myntti and generalblossom (and madybooks too). It's just wonderful. The Mymble asks her children where they stopped in their bedtime reading, and gets this answer:
The children chorused, '"This - is - One-eyed - Bob's - sanguinary - work" - remarked - Inspector - Twiggs - pulling - a - three-inch - nail - from - the - ear - of - the - corpse - "it - must - have - happened" ---'
Quite, quite, as the Mymble said in response...
Just finished Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which was the first of the upcoming course books I picked up to read/reread. It was fun, and the critique of (human) society more pointed than I might have expected from a v. popular children's book written in 1971 (though no equivalent feminist awareness!), but not so sure I see quite why it won the Newbery Medal. Yet. It may or may not become apparent later. But mid-way through I suddenly noticed how surprisingly many of the books are anthropomorphic: Watership Down; Aesop's Fables; The Wind in the Willows; The Mouse and his Child; The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh, Mrs. Frisby, Black Beauty, Blitzcat (I think, from reading the description on Amazon - don't know about Yaxley's Cat) and Charlotte's Web. That's leaving out the Potter and other picture books, which are more often talking animals/dolls/whatever, I'd have thought. 10 out of 14, and possibly 11. Yet there's no other type of fantasy immediately apparent, and just the one science fiction. And there's plenty of fantasy in later courses. Okay - that was stupid, as there are collections of fairy tales, but nothing else in the chapter books.
Want to take on DWJ on Hilary McKay's Permanent Rose, but now is clearly not the time, no matter how much absencia she might be in. Instead I'll content myself with an entirely apropos quote about appropriate children's reading from Moominpappa's Memoirs, which I'm reading thanks to
myntti and generalblossom (and madybooks too). It's just wonderful. The Mymble asks her children where they stopped in their bedtime reading, and gets this answer:The children chorused, '"This - is - One-eyed - Bob's - sanguinary - work" - remarked - Inspector - Twiggs - pulling - a - three-inch - nail - from - the - ear - of - the - corpse - "it - must - have - happened" ---'
Quite, quite, as the Mymble said in response...
