I have a dilemma. Well, sort of a dilemma. I’m knitting away on the Chevron scarf V.2 (I frogged the one I was doing in the Mirasol Hacho - the love for the little dashes of color did not outweigh the folding and the not-so-softness and the not-enough-color-differentiation-ness) and I’m on the second balls of each of the two colors I’m using. I have four balls of each. I am thinking that I really need to use three balls of each to make the scarf a good length…especially given the width of the sucker. (For some reason, wider scarves need to be longer to me to look right…to balance the proportions.) But that would leave me with only two balls of yarn…one of each color. With which I could do…not much. And would make the scarf pricier than the usual scarf I do for Readervillagers….
Ah, heck. Writing this all out helped. I’m just going to keep knitting until the scarf looks right. That’s the only way I’ll be happy with it. And I got the yarn at Webs' Closeout sale for heaven’s sake.
There, that’s solved.
Current Reading
I finished There Is Room For You last night and got into a little crying jag. It’s a beautifully written book about mothers and daughters and the unknown sides of families. And gives one a great portrait of India, both in the present (well, 1992) and in the last days of the English rule …clearly communicating the chaos and crowds and poverty but still making it seem understandable that someone could fall in love with it.
But in one of the last scenes…the main character, Anna, is in the airport in Calcutta to meet her mother, who was born in India to British parents, and her brother. And her seeing her mom and realizing how she’s aged but how much she needs to see her and giving her a hug…well, it just tipped me over the edge.
Anyway…I’d recommend the book. But you’ll probably want to hug your mom when you’re done.
Fortunately for my mood, the mailman bought a pile of boxes from Amazon and Powells yesterday and, while most of the objects therein were Christmas presents for others, there were two books for me…and one of them was The True Meaning of Smekday. I had read a review of this kid’s book in the NYTBR and the review had made me laugh out loud so I had high hopes for the book. The reviewer also said that readers who loved Terry Pratchett would be fans of this book. Well, that sold me.
So I started Smekday last night and let me say…the reviewer did not lie. It is a bright and funny book with (so far…I’m only on page 155) a great spunky heroine, an endearing alien side-kick, a cat and a flying car, more aliens, a tribe of lost boys living in the (deserted) Happy Mouse Kingdom…oh, just buy the book and read it.
The illustrations are great, too. Kaethe, this book is a sure fire hit for you and the girls. Oooh, Erica, you guys might like it too.
Later
I finished Smekday. I loved it. I wish it wasn't finished. Make sure that you don't miss the last illustration in the book. I finished the book and immediately shot off an appreciative note to Adam Rex. I hope he's working on something else. What a fun book!
7 comments:
Hi Rooie! Can you guestimate an age range for that book? Would my 11 year old like it?
I read and obey. Placed my order yesterday in fact.
Becky - I would think so. But let me say a couple of things...the main character, Tip, is an 11-year-old girl. If your 11-year-old is a boy, he might not like that. (I know some boys don't like reading about girls...on the other hand, J.Lo, the alien, is a boy.)
There are some uses of mild profanity ("hell" and maybe "damn") but Tip always says "Pardon my language." I would say the language isn't anything that your 11-year-old hasn't heard in the halls at school. There are also two uses of "boob" by some of the boys in the book...with Tip rolling her eyes over the weirdness of boys.
But the book is so funny and so well-written that I can't imagine a kid not liking it.
I call Smekday appropriate for anyone 8 or 9 and up. Usually you can take the main character's age and subtract 2 years to figure out the beginning age range for a book.
And the book could definitely be a great read-aloud to smart younger kids. I'd kill to have a kid young enough to read this to. I keep threatening to read it to Rachel, but at 19 she's insisting she'd rather read it on her own sometime. I mean, really!
It's horrible when they won't just sit still and listen, isn't it?
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