Molly's reading

[naomikritzer]

I keep a record of what Molly reads each week. (Some may have spotted these posts occasionally when I forgot to filter them.) In the last week, her reading suddenly took a turn for the meatier. Her favorite books for a while were the Boxcar Children; more recently, she got really fond of The Babysitter's Club. She also really liked Trixie Belden. Generally, however, she prefered series books.

This past week, she read a couple of Cam Jansen books, but also The Phantom Tollbooth, The Great Brain, and Coraline. These all involved some significant branching out for her. Phantom Tollbooth and the Great Brain are both books with boy protagonists, which for a long time she wouldn't have anything to do with. And Coraline is fantasy -- dark, creepy fantasy. I pointed out Coraline to her at the library, warning her that it was a scary book, and she said she liked scary books and checked it out. Neil Gaiman has said that adults find Coraline much scarier than children do, because they read it as a child-in-peril story; kids read it as an adventure, and since children's literature generally obliges with happy endings, they expect it all to work out. And my experience vs. Molly's seems to bear this out. Molly found it creepy but not too scary. I found it so scary that I actually had a nightmare based on the book, the first time I read it.

In the last couple of weeks, we've been going to the East Lake Library instead of the Nokomis Library. The East Lake Library is the one closest to our house, and was my prefered library for quite a while, but was closed for two years for renovation. It re-opened in early March, and I thought it might be nice to make that our home library base rather than Nokomis. (This requires more advance thought than you might think, because I have all my requests sent to whichever library I'm expecting to go to. Ed also has all his stuff sent there and has me pick it up for him. So just going by the whim of the week doesn't work so well.) East Lake has a really poor selection of juvenile paperbacks, which is frustrating to Molly because all the Babysitter's Club books are paperbacks. (I was also kind of dismayed by the fact that they spent vast amounts of money and enlarged the building but don't appear to have expanded the collection even slightly. They made the aisles wider and they added a bunch of computers, but there aren't any more books.) However, lacking Babysitter's Club options, Molly actually explored the rest of the juvenils stacks this week -- in the past, she has focused on the series books and the revolving racks at Nokomis that hold the paperbacks. She's welcome to read Babysitter's Club or even the Twelve Candles Club if that's what appeals to her, but it's nice to see her expanding her horizons.

So long as she doesn't read this or this or this or this. I just about hyperventilated when I saw them on the shelves. Kids who see the movie and want to read the book should read the actual book. And its six sequels. They're excellent books, and they're not particularly difficult despite the scaaaaaary British vocabulary. I can think of absolutely no reason for that "Peter's Destiny" and "Susan's Journey" tripe. (Given the limited space and budgets of this library system, I can't believe they're wasting space on it. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.)

Comments

[racebannon42.livejournal.com]

I absolutely loved the Great Brain books when I was a kid.

[naomikritzer]

Me, too.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Has she read "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" yet? Thats the book I credit for getting my started on SF.

Yes, East Lake has fewer books than before the renovation. It sucks. And the "Marketplace", aka New, books can't be renewed; I found that out the hard way.

[naomikritzer]

Not yet. Last week she actually took some book recommendations from me; maybe I'll see if they've got Mushroom Planet at the Lake Street library.

I'm sorry to hear it wasn't just my imagination that they have fewer books. And I got tripped up by the No Renewals thing, too.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

RE: Coraline, I'm glad I'm not the only person who had nightmares after reading that. Oy.

RE: Great Brain, those books are great! I loved them when I was a kid (although I think I was a year or two older than Molly).

RE: movie-based Narnia marketing-ploy tripe, I'm hyperventilating with outrage just thinking about it. This is what publishers are publishing?! (And I actually quite liked the recent movie; but when a movie is based on a book, there should not be marketing people pretending that the reverse is true. That pisses me off SO MUCH.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm only not hyperventilating with outrage because I have recently used my inhaler anyway.

This makes me think of traditional Celtic tortures for traitors.

Libraries should not buy those books, and children should not read them, and the US should get a healthservice and welfare system already so that people cannot be made to be sufficiently desperate as to have to write them.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

You know, on principle I am opposed to library censorship of all kinds. But if libraries are going to censor something, it should bloody well be this kind of stuff, not Harry Potter or
Newberry Award winners that happen to have the word "scrotum" on the first page. (http://naomikritzer.livejournal.com/144317.html)

[naomikritzer]

Yep, my first response to seeing these books was an overpowering desire to start a book-banning campaign. Followed by, "OMG what am I thinking?" Followed by, "Maybe in this case it would be justified..."

I hope C.S. Lewis's ghost shows up to haunt whoever thought they were a good idea.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

From your lips [fingertips??] to C.S. Lewis's ghost's ears...

[naomikritzer]

Have you read The Great Divorce? On the way home from the library today (the fake Narnia books were all missing, hopefully because some adult followed one of my impulses, which was to hide them in the accounting section) I was thinking about how the authors who wrote these monstrosities are going to have to apologize to C.S. Lewis when they take that bus ride to heaven.

(If you haven't read The Great Divorce, it's actually my favorite of his books, even over the Narnia books. It's hilariously funny in a "oh my gosh, I know that person! And that person! And ... oh dear, that one's me..." sort of way.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't read that one. ::goes off to search for it in library catalogue::

I hope very much that, as someone suggested, those authors were very hard up for cash, because otherwise there's just no excuse.

[naomikritzer]

The premise of The Great Divorce is that every day a bus runs from hell to heaven, and anyone who'd like to can hop on board. Of course, most of the people who go to heaven can't deal with staying there, because once you get to heaven, you encounter (sometimes in very tangible form) the reasons that you went to hell in the first place.

If anyone else had written it, it would be unbearable tripe. Since it was written by Lewis, it's hilariously funny. The people getting off the bus are startlingly recognizable, not as types but as individuals I swear to God I've met. (And of course, some are recognizable as me. I think most people reading this book have that experience, which is a lot of what makes it so brilliant.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Well, I will look forward to reading it, then :D

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I am outraged at the Narnia adaptations. I don't know if Michael Flexer wrote them out of financial desperation, or misplaced love of the originals. I just had the disturbing thought that he might have been trying to make them into more obvious Christian allegories, for evangelical reasons. (I have no evidence for this, and it's a horrible accusation to make. I've just been tripping over religious propaganda elsewhere so it's on my mind.) I haven't read them, though I saw one on the shelf the other day (in an elementary school library. It's horrible!) At Boskone, I met a 6-year-old who said he loved the Narnia movie and was reading the books all by himself. I mentioned how much I loved the books, and asked what he thought of _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. He had not even HEARD of that book. I thought he must be starting with _The Magician's Nephew_, and was only mildly puzzled. As Boskone tends to be distracting, I didn't figure out what was going on.

[naomikritzer]

Hopefully he was just starting with "The Magician's Nephew." *shudders at possible alternatives*

[naomikritzer]

My first response to seeing these books was an overpowering desire to start a book-banning campaign. Followed by, "OMG what am I thinking?" Followed by, "Maybe in this case it would be justified..."

I hope C.S. Lewis's ghost shows up to haunt whoever thought they were a good idea.

[squigsoup.livejournal.com]

Is she beyond "Paddington"? They are a series of books, of which I have fond memories.

[naomikritzer]

She hasn't picked it up, but I've seen them on the shelves.

[pumpkin-soup.livejournal.com]

Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle) was the book that really got me into reading period and SF/Fantasy in general. I still have my first copy - taped up and falling apart, but still grand.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, yes. Also The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher -- although I did prefer the L'Engle books because they've got actual female protagonists in them.

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, I left that, with some of the other children's fantasy I've saved over the years, on Molly's desk last week with a note saying she was old enough to read them now if she wanted. She hasn't read any of them yet, though.

Egad!

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Man I was already thinking the world is going to heck in a handbasket because of the political crap going on and Windows Vista, and now you had to show me those hideous Narnia adaption things?

That's it, I'm putting a profanity-laced rap playlist on the MP3 player. It's what hip middle-aged white chicks do to express their rage, you know.

The only thing that made me feel better was that Molly read "The Phantom Tollbooth." See, the world isn't completely rotten because kids still love the good books. On the bad days my kids, and the kids of other cool people, they just rescue me. I know it's corny to say that kids give you hope but that doesn't mean it's never true.

Hey Naomi...can I ask what the Minicon panel called "Minions and How to Acquire Them" is about? My son asked me and I had to tell him I have NO idea, lol. He's thirteen and I think he would really like to have minions, but I told him I suspect it is about something literary rather than real-world.

But hey, if it IS about how to acquire real-life minions, I'll be there. I could use a few. Do minions do laundry?

Re: Egad!

[naomikritzer]

You know, that's a really excellent question. (What it's about, that is.) I should probably figure that out before I show up to be on it, don't you think?

I want minions who do laundry. Also floors and windows.

Re: Egad!

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, me too. And minions who bag my groceries and, most importantly of all, clean my oven.

Re: Egad!

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well now I'm going to have to show up just to watch you wing it!

It can't be worse than it was when I was trying to talk intelligently about romantic vampires at Marscon . . .hehehe.

Re: Egad!

[naomikritzer]

OK, I found the panel description (which was e-mailed to me by jiawen before I volunteered for it.

So you’re an evil overlord, or a tentacled elder God. Hordes of minions
or worshippers are an absolute necessity. Where do you get them? Is evil
really appealing enough to attract worshippers? What talents do you
require? Are you better off outsourcing? Will you have enough capital
left over to make that doomsday device?

I have always wondered about this. Back when I was in a long-term D&D campaign, evil gods always had hordes of followers, and even my excellent and very world-building-oriented DM (hi, probably_lost) mostly didn't address questions like, Do these people have children and bring them up in the faith? Do they have slacker adherents who show up on Sundays only because the coffee hour is a social outlet? Does the Church of the Doom God have a coffee hour, or do they gather around after worship for some festive human sacrifice, instead, and if the latter, where do they get the ongoing supply of sacrifices without the neighbors getting suspicious?

The fabulous book Good Omens actually addresses some of these questions. And the Imperial Storm Troopers turned out to be clones, which answers the question of "how" with "grow them in a vat." But a lot of the time it's just this obvious given thing, the Evil Overlord has Minions, and what the minions get out of the deal is left to the imagination of the fanfic writers.

Re: Egad!

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, well this should be a fun panel! Hope to see you there. :-)

Re: Egad!

[jiawen]

The final description has changed slightly:

Minions and How to Acquire Them
Being an evil overlord is a lot of work, and you can't scrimp the human (inhuman?) resources. The ways you use to recruit your minions will affect how loyal they'll be, and you can't have disloyalty in your ranks, can you? Remember, minions do not like being blown up, so the issue of certain death must be addressed by trickery or force. Are you better off outsourcing? How will you ever have enough capital left over to make that doomsday device?
Magenta Griffith, Naomi Kritzer, David D. Levine (m), CJ Mills, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, DavE Romm
Sat 11:30a-12:30p, Krushenko's

But it's still basically the same thing. Ultimately, it's up to the panelists what it's actually about, but us programming minions were thinking primarily of minions in fiction, rather than real-world minions.

I find it very interesting that a lot of people seem to have immediately thought that "how to acquire minions" really means "how to run a convention".

Re: Egad!

[naomikritzer]

Well, I would imagine that running a convention is much easier when the minions are plentiful...

Re: Egad!

[jiawen]

Definitely. It's just interesting how strong the association of "minion" is with "science fiction convention volunteer".

Re: Egad!

[joykins1.livejournal.com]

You should read Charlie Stross's _The Jennifer Morgue_. A delightful book. Evil overlord keeps his minions with stock options.

Re: Egad!

[probably-lost.livejournal.com]

Hi, Naomi!

I'll have to admit that when I was running the campaign in college, I didn't put a lot of thought into the private lives of the evil cultists. Which may have been for the best, because when college students are blowing off steam by slaughtering the evil cultists, they may not want to hear about how, in between evil-cult activities, the evil cultist likes to go for walks along the river with his/her spouse and two cute little kids.

You've got me thinking about Followers of the Evil God in general. Organized groups of people whose religious faith is based around doing evil deeds and thinking of themselves as evil seem pretty rare, outside D&D campaigns, fantasy literature, and Indiana Jones movies. Most religious groups see themselves as the good guys. But since D&D has absolute morality, this isn't really an option for the Followers of the Evil God. When a level-one "detect evil" spell confirms that yes indeed, you are evil, and so are those people you hang out with, there's not much room left for argument. So what kind of psychology would these people have?

Instead of making this comment any longer, I'll continue musing on my sadly neglected blog, where no one will read it.

Re: Egad!

[dtm]

Hey! Your lj is on at least two different friends pages!

So, you know, not no one, unless you have a non-lj blog I don't know about.

Re: Egad!

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, when are you going to continue musing?

I seem to remember you getting clearly irritated by the whole alignment system at various points, which may be why you chucked that aspect of gaming entirely out the window when you set up your own universe for the Fantasy Hero game. Along with the "Detect Deception" spell.

[trinitysite.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Those fake Narnia books are scary. I loved the series when I was a kid ever since my mother read "The Magician's Nephew" to me (and yes, I read them in the "wrong" order.)

...fond memories of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Greensky trilogy...

[kellymccullough.livejournal.com]

Interesting point on Coraline. Turns out I read young adult/children's lit as a young adult or child would. Cool. I wonder if that's part of why my YA writing is much darker than my adult stuff.