King Kong lives again!

Perhaps you have heard the thrilling and tragic tale of King Kong, the gigantic ape that was discovered on mysterious Skull Island and dragged to New York to thrill the masses as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

Kong made a special connection with a young woman named Ann Darrow, and, after a romantic rampage through the island of Manhattan, he took her on a sightseeing trip atop the Empire State Building, where he sadly met his doom.

There have been several cinematic versions of Kong’s teary tale, and my current fave is the homemade film made by a bunch of kids in Hyannisport, Maine and Riverside, Connecticut in 1978. Warning! Kong’s rampage is GRUESOME.

Happy Fourth of July!

Fireworks are a Fourth of July tradition. Some people find them too noisy to enjoy. I love their big bangs and brief, brilliant flashes of light. Here’s a video taken one Independence Day where Mother Nature showed up to join in the fireworks display!

Reading room

I love all libraries, but my favorites have a special look and feel to them—in other words, ATMOSPHERE. If I could travel back in time, I would love to spend some quality time in a library at sea. Just looking at this picture of the library aboard the United States Lines’ S.S. America makes me want to sit down and open a book.

I could have my pick of chairs to read in here! Image found Out There.

This is the S.S. America, the ship that contained that sweet reading space.

Full steam ahead! The library's open. Image found at cruiselinehistory.com

Now, what book would I choose to read in such a salty situation? How about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!

1001 reasons to smile

If I thought about it really hard, I could probably come up with the names of twenty children’s books I consider to be immortal classics. Never in a million years could my feeble brain think of one hundred. Author Julia Eccleshare describes an incredible 1001 of them in her new book, 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.

1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up is the best guide to classic and contemporary children’s literature today. Organized by age group in nine hundred and sixty pages of glorious full-color illustrations, each title is reviewed by a top-notch author (Judy Blume, for one!) with mentions of related books readers might like. Included are many foreign contributions to children’s literature, such as France’s La Vache Orange (The Orange Cow) and Sweden’s Visst kan Lotta Cykla (Lotta’s Bike).

This heavy hardcover is much more than just a reference guide. It will take you on a journey of discovery into fantasy, adventure, history, and much more, introducing you to, or reminding you about, books that enable you to travel to some of the most famous worlds imagined, such as Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You may fall down a rabbit hole, as Alice does to reach Wonderland, get swept up in a cyclone to Oz, or crawl through the back of a wardrobe to experience the snowy wastes of Narnia.

Above all, this book is fun, fun, fun. Every one of its nine hundred and sixty pages brings a smile to my face.

Fantastic Mr. Dahl

The tall Mr. Dahl.

Six foot five-inch tall writer Roald Dahl is one of the Immortals. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his other great books will live from now until the end of time.

Two of Mr. Dahl’s books have been made into stop-motion films. Stop-motion is a form of animation where moveable models are photographed in incremental movement. A model is photographed, then repositioned and photographed again, and again and again until a required action is completed.

The first of Mr. Dahl’s books to become a stop-motion adventure was James and the Giant Peach in 1996.

James and the Giant Peach—the book.

Grasshopper and James mid-adventure in the stop-motion film version. Photo (c) cinefantastiqueonline.com

Now Fantastic Mr. Fox has received the amazing stop-motion treatment.

Fantastic Mr. Fox—the book.

A scene from Fantastic Mr. Fox, the stop-motion film. Photo (c) bbc.co.uk

Wes Anderson is the director of the filmic Fantastic Mr. Fox. He talks about bunk beds and toy trains—the inspiration behind one of the scenes in the movie—here. Included is a sketch of his ideas, and a clip of the scene in question from the new film.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox on the set of their new stop-motion film. Photo (c) huffingtonpost.com

A peach that grows big enough to live in and a fox that talks may sound crazy, but not to those who enjoy having fun. “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men,” Mr. Dahl was known to say.

The Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the great writer. It is the current home of Mr. Dahl’s writing chair, where James and Mr. Fox came into being. Not everyone gets to sit in Mr. Dahl’s chair, but author Val Tyler can boast of having done so.

Mr. Dahl in his chair. Photo (c) Roald Dahl Museum

Ms. Tyler in Mr. Dahl's chair at the Roald Dahl Museum. Photo (c) valtyler.co.uk

No wonder she looks so happy. She’s probably picking up a lot of great ideas!

Dream team

One of my favorite books of all time is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer, published in 1961.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer, is published by Random House.

Who can forget such lively characters as Tock, the faithful watchdog, and the Humbug, who was so sure of himself while being wrong about everything, and Faintly Macabre, the Not-So-Wicked-Which? And what could be more terrifying than the Demons of Ignorance, particularly the Horrible Hopping Hindsight, the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, and the Overbearing Know-It-All?

Now, forty-eight years later, EW.com is reporting that Mr. Juster and Mr. Feiffer are collaborating again, this time on a book called The Odious Ogre, which is about a brutish ogre who meets a kindly girl and learns a lesson he will never forget.

“Norton and I agreed some time ago to do a book together every fifty years,” Mr. Feiffer joked. “Now that the first fifty are up, we are talking about our next venture after The Odious Ogre. Fifty years hence, look for either The Phantom Ogre or The Odious Tollbooth.”

Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes. The release for The Odious Ogre is scheduled for 2010. I’m counting the days!

The Rainbow Connection

Missouri rainbow photo by Dan Bush, found at missouriskies.org

Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?

Kermit the Frog asked this interesting question in song at the beginning of The Muppet Movie. Here are a few of the songs about rainbows:

(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow

I’m Always Chasing Rainbows

Look to the Rainbow

She’s a Rainbow

In Rainbows

… and that’s just SOME of them.

Why are there so many songs about what is basically simply an optical and meteorological phenomenon? Probably because the rainbow has traditionally symbolized good news, hope, the promise of a better tomorrow, and the ending of gloom. Certain gypsies say that to dream of a brightly colored rainbow means a happy change is coming.

At any rate, the song Kermit sang is called The Rainbow Connection, and I can listen to it happily at any time of day.

Listen to Jason Mraz sing it. He really gets into it!

The Rainbow Connection was written by Paul Williams, who is one of my favorite songwriters. Paul wrote the songs for the movies Phantom of the Paradise and Bugsy Malone, as well as many classic hits. He’s also an actor. He played the genius orangutan Virgil in the movie Battle for the Planet of the Apes, of all things.

In 2003, Sixth Grader Colin Reboy from Tonawanda, NY began to interview exemplary people for the closed-circuit TV station at Fletcher Elementary School. He has since collected more than 100 video clips of his various interviews, and they can all be seen at Studio Kaiju.

Visit Studio Kaiju

Colin interviewed Paul Williams in 2005 in Bradford, PA.

Watch Colin’s interview with Paul

And now … because I just can’t help myself …

here’s something that has a VERY WEIRD connection to rainbows …

RAINBOW TOE SOCKS.

Injinji rainbow toe socks, found at besportier.com

Gorey the Great

Photo of Edward Gorey by Michael Romanos

Edward Gorey is one of my favorite illustrators. He designed one of my all-time favorite book jackets for one of my all-time favorite books, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken.

Check out some of his other amazing drawings.

A gallery of Edward Gorey’s art

Bundled up against the cold, headstrong Bonnie and her delicate cousin Sylvia must ward off the winter chill, evil Miss Slighcarp, and a menacing pack of savage wolves in this ripping yarn. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re in for a treat!

Poetry is so poetic

In the interests of Cultural Enlightenment, I dedicate this post to a Master of Poetic Refinement, a Noble Philosopher who clearly elucidates the feeling and spirit of the Music of the Soul.

Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, give it up for Bullwinkle the Moose (and his faithful companion, Rocket J. Squirrel)!

(c) Jay Ward Productions

Bullwinkle recites

Blast from the past

Marianne from Palo Alto, CA writes:

Dear T,

I was the naughtiest child you could ever imagine. My goodness, did I ever get into mischief! I nearly drove my poor parents crazy. I haven’t a clue as to why I was so naughty. Misbehaving certainly didn’t make me happy. No, it was quite the opposite. It made me feel absolutely miserable. But I was a child possessed and couldn’t stop myself from breaking every rule I came across.

Fortunately, when I was eight or nine years old, I came across a book that changed my life for the better. It was the charming story of a brother and two sisters who share exciting adventures while helping their mother after their father mysteriously disappears. They move from their home in the city to a cottage in the country, and save a train filled with passengers from a landslide, and rescue a baby from a fire, among other heroic deeds.

This book taught me that there are nobler and more fulfilling pursuits in life than breaking every rule there is, and now that I am a grandmother with four naughty grandchildren, I would like to introduce them to this wonderful tale. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title for the life of me! Can you help?

T replies:

Welcome, Marianne! I’m pretty sure that the book you’re describing is The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. As it was written more than a hundred years ago, it had already been kicking around some by the time you read it at eight or nine years old. Although it takes place long ago in England — which means American readers must exercise their brains a little in order to understand the curious things about another time and place — the adventure is every bit as gripping as it was in 1905, the jokes are just as funny, and the children in it still show bravery, generosity, perseverance, and how to be good without being a total suck-up. I’m certain your grandchildren will enjoy it as much as you did. It’s a favorite of mine, too.

This is the 100th Anniversary edition of The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, with a jacket illustration by Caldecott medalist Paul O. Zelinsky.