Tag: monster

100 Picture Books: 65-61

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This is the first batch that Sweetpea is legitimately interested in the books. None of the ones in this batch are particularly geared toward her age range, but she did express an interest in a couple of the ones that were shorter in length. We also got a ton of books about being a flower girl and about death (nice mix, right?) for some timely concerns, and those have usurped requests for this batch. I guess none of them were super interesting for either girl, but we always have the next batch.

the-arrival65. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

So this book was bizarre. It had no words or context, just a variety of pictures. It was sort of like a graphic novel in sepia tones and with aliens or something. I had to describe what was happening in each picture to Peanut and it got to be a little tedious. Also, neither of us really understood what was happening. There was a family, with a father-type figure leaving for a new place, and the little cute monster depicted on the cover. Some kind of alien-takeover situation was happening. I really just didn’t know what was going on. I did my best at explaining it, but it was a blind leading the blind type of thing.

This book was written in order to hopefully eke out sympathy from his fellow Australians towards refugees. The author said he was also inspired by the 1978 book The Snowman.

King-Bidgood-cover (1)64.  King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood

Peanut enjoyed this book because it was silly. The premise is that the King is in the bathtub, and a variety of subjects try to encourage him to come out by suggesting a fun activity, but the King decides that those activities can just as easily be done in the tub! This means that his bathtub is huge, and he also bathes with his subjects. Pretty weird. Of course, kids don’t think a bunch of adults bathing together is weird, so it definitely works for this age group. In the end, the clever page just pulls the plug (glub glub glub!) and so the bath time shenanigans are over.

On the author’s website, she has a couple of photos of people that posed as characters for them to draw for the book, so that is pretty cool. There are three Wood authors, the husband and wife along with their son, and together they have created many popular children’s books, including The Napping House. Audrey Wood had a pretty interesting childhood spent among circuses, which probably has inspired her whimsical style of art.

91f9f3a8241804a93a682beac9d3f28263. The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss

Our first Seuss! This book had a bunch of stories in it, but the longest one was The Sneetches. To an adult, it is obviously a story about racism and class differences, and how we have prejudices that aren’t fair and use them to oppress and exclude others. I’m not sure that the point of it got across to Peanut (and Sweetpea could barely sit still through the whole thing), but we were able to get across that the behavior of the Sneetches was “not nice”. What else can you hope for?

One thing that I appreciated about the stories was that it wasn’t just pointing out and demonstrating poor behavior, it was actively saying it was bad behavior. I find some stories for children aren’t explicit enough in this, and then children are confused over what type of behavior is appropriate to emulate. It’s not enough for the bad characters to not be the heroes, or maybe not “win”, but the particular bad behavior needs to be labeled as such for the kids to get it.

Theodor Geisel (aka, Dr Seuss) said that the Sneetches story was satire based on how he felt about antisemitism. The Sneetches have also inspired a lot of musicians, as they have appeared in song lyrics by artists like Bikini Kill, Dead Kennedys, and Ben Cooper, among others.

GoAwayBigGreenMonster62. Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley

This was a regular picture book printed on regular pages, but I felt that it was a little too flimsy for the cut out style of it. The book starts with eyes, and as pages are turned, more features of the Big Green Monster are revealed. Midway through the book is the entire monster. Then, the book’s narrator (which seems to be a child from the voice, but is never clarified) starts telling each specific feature to go away, until the monster is gone. “And don’t come back until I say so!” The library copy that we had obviously had some wear, because there were a few rips on the pages. A cardboard page design would have been much better for this book. Both girls liked it; Peanut liked the story and the idea of telling the monster to go away, and Sweetpea liked looking at the disappearing and reappearing pictures.

Despite Emberley’s rather long bibliography, he mostly appears to make books that are instructional rather than for reading. He has several dozen books about drawing. I personally find it ironic that he has so many drawing instruction books when the art in Big Green Monster is very rudimentary.

How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas_cover61. How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

We’ve had this book awhile (and have enjoyed the classic animation many times). It was one of the first picture books that we bought and it took awhile for Peanut to be able to sit through the entire thing. It is pretty long. Peanut likes to recite Cindy Lou Who’s lines when she finds Grinchy Claus taking away the Who Christmas tree. Sweetpea is still too young to enjoy this, but I’m hoping she will grow to love it as well.

This book was apparently simultaneously published on its own and in an issue of Redbook magazine in 1957. I find it interesting that Geisel wrote the book in a matter of weeks except for the ending, which stumped him for several months! His wife was ill during the time that he wrote it, but she was able to help with the editing. The Grinch is such an integral part of our culture now that we refer to just as many Christmas curmudgeons as Grinches that we do Scrooges. (There is a semantic difference though – Scrooges generally imply some kind of greed or lack of generosity, while Grinchiness seems to be just general grumpiness. I feel like there may be a thesis paper in there somewhere.) I found it surprising to learn that Geisel considered the Grinch to be modeled on himself. Hopefully, his own heart grew three sizes after completing it.

 

Next time, we have more holiday books, which is timely, since the holidays are around the corner!

Review: Frankenstein

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The story of Frankenstein that is in the public consciousness is so far removed from the actual novel that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote, that I can hardly equate the two. I could see glimpses of things that are considered part of the Frankenstein lore, but it seems that the popular idea of it couldn’t be more off the mark of Shelley’s intention if it tried. So, if you haven’t read the novel (or at least a synopsis, although I’m not sure how you could really get an idea of the novel from just that), this is going to sound completely opposite to the idea of Frankenstein that you may have.

It’s popular these days to reiterate over and over that Frankenstein wasn’t the monster, he was the man who created it. But, is that really true? Sure, the creature that Victor Frankenstein assembled and brought to life never had a proper name (the wretch or fiend is the most common way it is addressed), but Victor himself is a very dangerous man. He sort of admits this in the narrative, but in many ways the horrors that he experiences are compounded by how little ownership he takes in the whole thing. Honestly, this male ego that he displays is still kind of around, most recently depicted in that terrible Gamergate nonsense. Instead of going after the monster immediately upon realizing that he should not have imbued a creature with life, he just pretends it didn’t even happen. Victor (I’m going to keep referring to him by his first name so as to not cause confusion) is able to delude himself completely until he receives word that his younger brother has been murdered.

He returns to the scene of the crime in order to grieve and make sense of everything, when he sees the monster in a flash of lightning, at a distance. He suddenly realizes that the monster murdered his brother. Then, when a servant (sort of, hard to explain) of the family is accused of the crime, he doesn’t even speak in her defense, despite knowing that she is innocent. He is too afraid to be seen as a nutjob to talk to the court himself and insist that he saw the murderer. So poor Justine receives the death penalty. Sure, he feels bad about it, but not bad enough to do anything. What a sociopath.

He goes on some sort of spiritual quest or something to be alone in the mountains, and comes across the creature. He insists that Victor listen to his story of what has happened to him since his creation. The story is pretty sad, because essentially he spies on some poor people that live in a French cottage, learn their language and customs, helps them out by supplying firewood every day, and then when he introduces himself those people get out of town as fast as possible. He realizes that he will never be able to have companions, and that he will be forever alone. He asks Victor to create a female mate for him so that he will have companionship. Victor suddenly grows a conscience and refuses (albeit partway through the creation of Mrs. Monster). The monster is enraged, and murders his best friend (although I seriously felt some homo-erotic vibes going on between Victor and Henry Clerval. Just me?), and tries to pin it on Victor. Victor is so distraught that he goes into some kind of catatonic episode for several months, waking to find himself in a jail cell or dungeon.

Through events that I couldn’t entirely follow, Victor is released into the care of his father, who asks him to put all this tragedy behind him and marry his adopted sister. (Ah, the 1800s when this wasn’t weird at all.) He agrees, mostly because the monster had threatened him, saying he would reappear on his wedding night, which, Victor assumes – since the world begins and ends with himself – that the monster is threatening to kill him. I don’t know if the readers of this book in the early 19th century saw this coming, but I know anyone reading this blog right now totally knows that Elizabeth is gonna get it. Afterward, Victor has one plan in mind, and that is revenge. Especially since his father dies days later, in apparent grief over Elizabeth’s murder.

He isn’t successful. He chases the monster pretty far north, and in exhaustion and from exposure, dies after conveniently telling the whole story to a ship’s captain. So not only was he not successful in killing the monster, he waited way too long to do it. He avoids responsibility the entire time. In some of his less lucid catatonia, he apparently wails about how he has murdered his family members and friends, but he doesn’t ever really own up to his part in this entire thing. His end goal after he is alone is to seek revenge. He never reflects on what damage he has inflicted on the creature he created.

Victor and his monster aren’t so different. When Victor has everyone taken away from him, he also turns to violence. The monster has nothing, so Victor’s object is to kill him. The monster wants revenge too, but mostly he wants Victor to really feel how miserable his existence is. I’m sure books could be and have been written about all of the themes in this book. It was seriously amazing.

The only slight detraction was the writing itself. Modern book publishing is an entirely different animal, and editing really helps get ideas across clearly and concisely. This book could have benefited from some editing, although it is way more readable than many other novels written hundreds of year ago. There are a lot of lengthy poetic descriptions of things and feelings that don’t really add much to the story. It’s not a fast-paced thriller like a modern day version would be. But the horror element is definitely not the core to the story. Science run amuck, personal responsibility, and what makes a true monster are much more interesting themes in this story.

4 stars.

This book completes the book more than 100 years old, and a book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t requirement for the challenge.