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LM Montgomery Week Tag Answers
I’m linking up here at Hamlette’s Soliloquy for her LM Montgomery Week.
1. Who introduced you to L. M. Montgomery’s writing? Tell us the story!I think it was when friends of the family gave us some of the Anne books. Specifically, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne’s House of Dreams, and Rainbow Valley. I didn’t actually read Anne of Green Gables until several years later, I don’t believe, and Rilla of Ingleside much later after that (the forgettable Anne of Ingleside sometime in between I think). My original favorites were 2,3, and 7.2. What LMM books have you read?All eight Anne Books, the Emily trilogy, the Pat duology, the Story Girl duology, The Blue Castle, A Tangled Web, Magic for Marigold, Jane of Lantern Hill, The Road to Yesterday, Chronicles of Avonlea, and Further Chronicles of Avonlea, The Blythes Are Quoted, Kilmeny of the Orchard, Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories,3. What movies or shows based on her books have you watched?The 80’s movies. Not a fan. Green Gables Fables (season one, season two,unfortunately Storify has been shut down, because once I discovered that, that is how I experience the story. All the characters tweets, subtweets, photos, vlogs, etc. in Chronological order, and they were perfect!)4. Which LMM character is your kindred spirit, the one you’d like to hang out with in real life?I’m not sure, I’d just sort of like to fit in that world generally.5. Which LMM character do you relate to the most? And why?I don’t normally feel like I “relate” to characters. I’d love to be like Donna though, so I could have Peter. And honestly, her dull life of waiting and dreaming, does fit me. Also why I relate to Pat. A lot of the other heroines are ambitious, I’m not.6. Have you ever been to Prince Edward Island?No, but I REALLLY want to. Definitely a bucket list location.7. Who is your favorite LMM heroine?I like the main ones all really (though Pat and Emily especially need some sense knocked into them regarding their swain), that is why she is a favorite author. I have a hard time reading if I don’t like the heroine.8. Who is your favorite LMM hero?Peter and Barney.9. Do you have any fun merch related to her books? If so, please share some photos!My Anne and Diana pins (my instagram post) from A Story Seamstress Art.10. What are some of your favorite LMM quotations?The romantic and meaningful ones are nice and all but I live for the humorous scenes, and if they combine both as with Peter and Donna, perfection! However since by quote collection skills need work and Goodreads doesn’t do well on anything not famous or subtly humorous, I’m limited. Also, I’m brain dead, so I’ll leave you with this.“Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and hurled him through the doorway and over the garden paling with as little apparent effort as he might have employed in whisking a troublesome kitten out of the way. “The next time you come back here,” he bellowed, “I’ll throw you through the window – and all the better if the window is shut! Coming here, thinking yourself God to put the world to rights!” Valancy candidly and unashamedly owned to herself that she had seen few more satisfying sights than Uncle James’ coat-tails flying out into the asparagus bed.”
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What I Read July
I didn’t do a jot from my July reading goals, although I thought I’d be finishing Far from the Madding Crowd. Yeah, no, Hardy is not for me. This was a 2nd try after years of growing up. Nope, CANNOT stand that sort of thing. Everyone makes very obvious terrible choices or is a terrible person and its all presented sort of fatalistically as if they couldn’t help themselves, woe are they. They most certainly could have helped themselves, most people manage to be able to avoid the extreme level of wreckage a Hardy character seems to relish (kind of an exaggerated Ethan Frome experience except these characters have even more agency and choices and so its more infuriating). It’s crazy how some of the same choices or plots can, by another author’s hand, evoke such a different response.
I reread Jane of Lantern Hill and Magic for Marigold. Both of them charming and magical as always. However, Jane’s “mummy” is infuriating. Hmm, might have to do a post about that, it connects with other thoughts I have for a theme.
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. Enjoyable at first but with a taste or warning or undercurrent of, hmm, issues. And then the last section, oh, my, stars. So, gave this a one. Just not comfortable with the content.
Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson. Very enjoyable and funny.
Greenwillow by B.J. Chute, I got confused posting my June reads so late, but I read this in July. Also enjoyable, in a sweeter way.
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My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts and Relatives; and The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell
I’d read My Family and Other Animals but by the time I watched the show The Durrells, I didn’t remember much of the details of the stories, so I decided I wanted to reread it as well as the next two: Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods. I’d read that the show was fictionalized and I could tell Larry was greatly changed, and I felt that the tone and atmosphere of the TV show was waaaay more modern (stereotypically so and what they did to Leslie . . . urgh!) than the book. I remembered many of the main characters from the book, but I couldn’t remember the various stories and wanted to know how much was fictionalized.
I was absolutely correct about the tone and Larry plus the show writers, in addition to the bizarre modernization and adding of dysfunction (the family fought and all in the book, but the show added a level of something else) leached much of the humor and depth out of the episodes and replaced it with soap.
A lot of the more recurring or minor characters in the show were actually in the book, and in the book much better or quite different. Unfortunately though, with Captain
LechCreech, we got his whole, horrid self in both versions, although he just didn’t show up with quite the frequency in the book as in the show I think. And the tv show left out a highly entertaining character, the marvelous French count. I don’t see how they could have left out someone so hilarious, but then again, the show seemed to prefer soap to wit. Also, since the show writers apparently felt the need to reduce Leslie to the narrow-minded stereotype (understand that both ways if you please) the French count labelled him as being, they couldn’t very well appreciate the sarcasm.There is a beeeyouteeeful several paragraphs about the Count which I had to shorten for space:
“Three days later the Count appeared. . . we soon found that the Count found himself so attractive he felt it necessary to change his clothes about eight times a day to do justice to himself. . . Combined with this narcissistic preoccupation with himself, the Count had other equally objectionable characteristics. . . His English was limited, but this did not prevent him from expounding on any subject with a sort of sneering dogmatism that made everyone’s hackles rise. His philosophy, if any, could be summed up in the phrase, ‘We do it better in France’, which he used repeatedly about everything. . . He arrived, unfortunately, in time for lunch, and by the end of the meal, without really trying, he had succeeded in alienating everybody including the dogs. It was, in its way, quite a tour de force to be able to irritate five people of such different character apparently without even being aware of doing so, inside two hours of arrival. . . To Leslie, he offered the information that anyone who was interested in hunting must assuredly have the instincts of a criminal. . . “
And then a bit later, this gem:
‘I’m not sure I shall last the course,’ said Larry. ‘So far about the only thing he hasn’t claimed for France is God.’ ‘Ah, but they probably believe in him better in France,’ Leslie pointed out.
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But, then with the reaction to Emily of Paris, it does seem that some French don’t seem to understand that yes, you are on the same plan as us other peons, and if we can be teased and stereotyped and caricatured (Hello, have you met Hollywood? They would think I’m from Deliverance. Cah-rye me a river!). Maybe this section (of one person) is too demoralizing for those sorts.
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“Like so many Americans, they were possessed of a charming naïveté and earnestness and these qualities, as far as Leslie was concerned at any rate, made them ideal subjects for practical jokes.”
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And there is more in the same vein, I have so many quotes from these books. I highly, highly recommend the books, they are so atmospheric and unique and hilarious and perfectly Summer-y.
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What I Read May 2021
A classic heavy month. I didn’t read many books, but most of the ones I read or at least finished this month were classics.
Villette by Charlotte Brontë. I finished this this month. I enjoyed rereading this in a readalong well enough. But the self-indulgently emotionally tumultousness in this style of Romanticism (or maybe just Romanticism period) is not my thing. I was quite over Lucy’s frequently self-imposed (and seemingly rather enjoyed) sufferings and smugness.
And So I Began to Read: Books That Have Influenced Me by Faith Cook. A family friend gave this to me. I found it interesting, but she only mentioned religious books which I’ve little interest it, theological works I mean.
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. I wrote my extremely flattering in this post.
Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. Definitely a Trollope fangirl. I though I might have enjoyed this more than some of the Barchester Chronicles. So now I have the luxury of enjoying the rest of the series.
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë. I started this as the next book in the same group as Villette. But oh, I forgot just how much I loved this, in the kind of love that makes me want to hold it close and not share too much. Someone in the group mentioned how Charlotte wrote more in the realism style rather than Romantic (Romantic proper, it is still romantic, of the still-waters run deep kind that I absolutely adore).
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What I Read: February 2021
We are 1/4 to 1/3 into March and February feels SO far away. I read 13 books, yay me! (And if you didn’t read that in London Tipton’s voice, I don’t know what your problem is).
3 Rereads
I finished my HP rereading with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
5 Nonfiction (!)
Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations by Garson O’Toole. Very interesting to see different quotations and the various ways they got to be misattributed, however, I thought it was too long.
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa. Absolutely fascinating. I love when nonfiction is so evocative and descriptive. However, sensitive people skip page 290 and all of 291.
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts by Sally M. Winston. Not as helpful as I was hoping, I think I’d arrived at some of the realizations already, and just the framing did not work for me, it wouldn’t have helped if I hadn’t found my own way, its just wasn’t in my “language.” I disagreed with parts, and so I felt like, ironically, a lot of it felt like false comfort. The tone felt like an adult talking to a young child, which maybe as a teen I’d find that comforting, maybe, but it felt not condescending, but I don’t know, made me feel childish?
OCD: Freedom for the Obsessive-Compulsive by Michael R. Emlet. I read phamplet to counter-act the parts of the above book I disagreed with. I think Overcoming was too amoral (not the word I want) and pseudo-psych-y while this book was too traditionally, not anti-medical just perhaps downplaying it too much. Anyway, each kind of balanced each other out, kind of both missed the mark.
Pomeranians by Joe Stahlkuppe.
5 New to Me Fiction Novels
Psmith, Journalist by PG Wodehouse. I feel like the first Psmith I read, I didn’t find super funny, but this one was loaded with hilarious bits, I’m devoting a post to some of the gems. It wasn’t the plot (the Jeeves and Woosters have hilarious plots, comments, etc.) just some of the asides and such and then Psmith is such a chatterbox.
Questless: In Which Molly Embarks on a Quest by Amanda Kastner. Whimsy and graphic novel, and oh, I can’t WAIT for the next installment. This reminded me of Howl’s Moving Castle a bit, just the art and the world. Which is funny because I first learned about Howl’s moving castle from posts with fanart and/or movies stills from the author’s sister’s blog years ago.
The Moorchild Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Whimsical, fey (literally) middle grade. I learned of more McGraw books (if you read any read Mara, Daughter of the Nile, that is an overlooked GEM) from this blog, and I’m determined to find them.
Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart. My last Stewart novel left I think. Not a tip top favorite, but middling top. It started out a bit ho, hum (because I’m easily fooled) and then came the, ah, yes, and here’s the fun.
Torch by R. J. Anderson. Waited 7 years, and I definitely should have reread at least Nomad. I think I’d read the first 4 three times maybe, I just think I forgot portions of Nomad, so I was disoriented. And well, I was disappointed (oh, no, nothing of the sacrilegious Penderwick sage variety). I think I’d conveniently or simply forgotten parts of Nomad that didn’t make sense, and I didn’t love as well. And Martin, well, he wasn’t quite the same, and there wasn’t enough of him. Nevertheless, I did manage to find some old style Martin-esque quotations to savor. My sisters and sister-in-law all queued up as soon as I told them I’d pre-ordered it, so once they’ve all read it, then I’m free to discuss it (I want their opinion, I tend to fly high on expectations and crash hard with reality, hence how it’s better for me to go into things blind).
I leave you with the Martin-isms to tantalize you.
” ‘All I know is that Broch showed up at the door tonight with your half-dead fiancé and begged me to let him in.’ ‘So you know about the-‘ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. ‘How?’ ‘I pried it out of Broch, but it wasn’t all that surprising. I’d guessed your people would want a Jack to go with their Joan, and I knew you’d feel duty-bound to oblige them.’ He folded his arms. ‘He’s a good-looking fellow as piskeys go, and clearly cross-eyed with love for you, so why not?’ ” p. 123
“v’I like your Matt, too.’ He turned toward the barrow, a lean silhouette against the cloud-rumpled sky. ‘If I get myself inconveniently killed at some point, you might consider giving him another chance.’ ” p. 172
” ‘So by all means, let’s cause a scandal. If nothing else, it will give Dagger something new to take offense at.’ ” p. 180
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My Favorite Narnia Books
I’m trying to go through my drafts again, especially since I’m seemingly devoid of many opinions or post ideas that aren’t complaining at the moment. This should have been finished last fall closer to when I finished rereading the last Narnia book.
I left a comment on a post somewhere that I thought would make a decent blog post draft, and I finally finished my rereading of Narnia. I wanted to measure what I used to think about the books vs. this reread.
My Dad read these twice to us when I was a child and preteen. I “think” I read all of them on my own as an adult.. So my favorites have to do with nostalgia and how I felt as a child as well. Dad read them, I think, in the order they were published? Anyway, he started with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I loved it, and the Horse and His Boy. I hated Prince Caspian at first because everything was changed, but love The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The Silver Chair, The Last Battle, and The Magician’s Nephew freaked me out.
When I wrote the comment I mentioned my favorites are still The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I said that I’d warmed up to Prince Caspian since the first shock, and that I loved aspects of The Silver Chair, The Last Battle, and possibly The Magician’s Nephew, but I felt that they are “colder” and “darker” and that I thought this was partially the overall atmosphere/tone of the books and plot and partially the emphasis on fewer people.
Since then, I’ve read all the books in story chronological order (I think I may have done that a years back, but I’m not certain) in 2019-2020, and I feel that what I’ve always said about my favorites and least favorites is generally true, but I feel like the differences between are more extreme. Also, I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster recently, so this is based on my moods when reading.
I do have an absolute favorite: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I just felt my spirits soar and my heart sing when I read this book in a way the other couldn’t do. I think that I didn’t enjoy The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as much, I certainly dragged on that one, perhaps its too familiar; I felt like I enjoyed Prince Caspian more! I know that The Horse and His Boy fell from being equal with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
I think that perhaps The Magician’s Nephew is less dislike and more apathy while I feel like I actively disliked The Silver Chair while still liking the characters Jill and Eustace. The book is just so dull, dark, and dreary. The Last Battle is just . . . sad, it’s just a sad book (does Narnia really have to end?) . . . and boring at the same time. But again, I like some of the characters, King Tirian and Jill and Eustace and the old favorites who show up. I think I’d have to say The Last Battle is my least favorite because is just so sad.
I’m thinking that next time I don’t want to reread my least favorites, maybe only reread my favorite 4 or maybe just the (in Narnia chronological order) the first 5, ending on a high note with my favorite rather than a low note with my two least favorites.
So after my most recent rereads my favorites list is something like this:
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Prince Caspian and The Horse and His Boy
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Magician’s Nephew
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
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Inklings Link Up January 2021: “Harry – yer a wizard”
I’m linking up here and the prompt is “New Beginnings.”
So, I’m in the middle of reading Harry Potter, and I am really feeling that suddenly waking up to find out that one is a wizard and then getting whisked off to a magical world out of mundane, tedious (and in Harry’s case horrible) reality would be quite a refreshing thing.
Can you imagine? Especially after all the build up, Harry has been living in dull misery then he finally gets a letter, something of his very own, but after tons of tries and sitting in a miserable shack with his crazy family, he still hasn’t read it. Then a giant bursts in and starts talking about his family, tells him he is a wizard and gives him a wondrous letter, now that is a key to a fabulous new existence.
I know none of us is living under a stairwell, but well with the dreariness of the world even for those of us not seriously affected, doesn’t a magical world opening up tantalizingly before our eyes sound wondrous?! Especially with such a start as a visit to Diagon Alley?
I’ve been reading my sister’s illustrated versions (she has 3 and I’m going to get her the 4th as a belated grad gift so I can read it, I’m going to wait for myself until they are all out). I think these really bring the magic of Harry Potter to life. And I really needed something soothing to read.
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Narnia Tag
Narnia is so Christmassy, my sisters I think have made watching Narnia during Christmas a tradition.
I saw Katie do this tag, (origin of tag here) and I decided to consider myself tagged as I do whenever I like a tag.Rating My Narnia Fanatic Level
1. Nostalgic Fanatic — you read the book and/or watched the movies as a child and the word Narnia gives you a warm feeling
2. Serious Fanatic — you rediscovered the wonder of Narnia after you were older and have read the books and watched the movies
3. Maniacal Fanatic — you have lived Narnia from childhood, hid in closets on more occasions than is healthy, have read and watched all the movies including the BBC version
I think I’m between Serious Fanatic and Maniacal Fanatic.
Dad read the books to us twice as children (with the full color illustrations from the church library very important, but when we later bought them we got the black and white illustrations, do you know how important knowing the children’s hair color is, I kid, sort of, the full color illustration bring Narnia to life)
Then we watched several or maybe all of the BBC movies.
Then we watched the three new movies.
Then I think I read some of the books as an adult.
Then I read them straight through a few years ago.
Then I reread them straight through beginning last December to this fall.
The Tag Questions:
1. Who’s your favorite Pevensie sibling?
Edmund. The bad boy became the deepest, truest, sweetest one. This happened with Eustace too.
2. What is the most underrated Narnia book?
Aren’t most of them underrated compared to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? Probably The Horse and His Boy. Its not exactly part of the main story line, so I think it gets left out. But I like the unique look, and all the characters.
3. Who is your favorite Narnian king?
Edmund, obviously.
4. Who is your favorite Narnian queen?
Lucy.
5. Which non-human Narnian do you like best?
Hmm, maybe Reepicheep?
6. Which book deserves a movie?
Um, my least favorite? I dread book adaptations now. Filmmakers spoil things.
7. What is the one thing you did as a Narnia fan that you do not regret?
All of it!
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What I Read: October 2020
I read a whopping 3 books and two of those were rereads.
An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott. I just was not feeling the fiction I had from the library, and I really wanted a comfort read.
Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers. I dragged out this one since August. Not sure I was in the right frame of mind.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell. Not sure how to process this. The first story, didn’t make sense with the title, but the next explanation of his process and the next story, I started to think, “Ok, this is about how we don’t read people nearly as well as we thought.”
Eventually the stories started being about his analysis of the stories and what went wrong but wasn’t really tied to his point, and these stories were trigger warning crime scandals we’ve all heard of, so basically horrid events that I could see less and less a connection with his alleged thesis. And I don’t see how the suicide and coupling one had even the reading people aspect of it at.
Then I wasn’t so convinced of his alleged point, what even he meant By the end, I was wondering “What is this about, where is the point?” and feeling nasty for those stories. By the end of the book I’d forgotten the alleged thesis, it was so off track. He had a small section trying to tie his disparate side thesis or rather other peoples theses he had been exploring to the reading people bit, but it all felt random and nothing was really explained. So allegedly we misread people and don’t realize it, have a nice life. There was absolutely no hope or help besides the not really having a point most of the time
I had some perspectives/stats/theories (the drinking and suicide and coupling) that were interesting and good to learn, but know I don’t think I am convinced of all those (for this nondrinker the blackout stuff was enlightening), and again, those were side theories not the alleged main point of the book. I would not recommend. I think someone so high in esteem should write more responsibly about serious subjects. I was interested in reading more of his work, now I’m not going to.
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Quad not Trio: Ginny Weasley Should Been Part of the Inner Harry Potter Circle
One thing that really bugs me about the later Harry Potter books is how the trio doesn’t become the quad. That Ginny is unnaturally excluded or pushed to the side with people more naturally not part of the best-friends group. At the beginning it is completely understandable that Ginny isn’t part of “the” group. Towards the middle it looks like that is naturally changing, but then in the later books the progression stops and a weird barrier is put in place around the trio, as if it is more about the marketing idea of the trio than a realistic and satisfying portrayal.
Oh, bear in mind that I’m talking about book Ginny (Ginny in the movie is as much of a loser as movie Ron, don’t get me started on that subject).
Two young boys become best friends fairly easily as kids can do. Through unlikely circumstances they befriend a previously annoying young girl. They are all at an age when life is very boys vs girls, when a year’s difference in age is huge in their eyes, and when younger siblings are automatically annoying. So it totally makes sense when one boy’s kid sister isn’t included in their friend group. Add to that the fact that said kid sister has an awkward star struck crush on the other boy and it really makes including her unlikely. Since Hermione and Ginny get along and Hermione is around constantly, its pretty natural that those two become close.
In the middle books, when Ginny gets over her crush (or hides it well), when they are all at the age when boys and girls start becoming more interested in each other and co-ed stuff is more normal, and with the pattern of the four hanging out over the holidays plus many of the dark events affecting Ginny as much or more than the rest, Ginny is more included in things as expected. Obviously siblings in a friend group can cause some clash, as well as all the complex crush stuff, but she is more obviously in the midst of things.
Then Ginny is added to the Quidditch team, the DA is started, and Ginny and Harry are mutually interested in each other and then later, together. So it seems as if, with the four so close already, this would make Ginny their equal, right? Not in fossilized marketing fan driven writing land apparently (or whatever it was). No, the trio still have their inner circle catch ups that it makes no sense for Ginny not to be in, on no planet, no reality; she’s with them all the time, she’s sister to Ron, best friend to Hermione, girlfriend to Harry. She’s as smart as them all and braver than two.
The crowning insult is in The Deathly Hallows when the trio go off on their own, and independent Ginny is forced by Mum to go to school while the others are off on their own adventure, and Harry doesn’t do much to change that. She’s excluded from their plans for “safety” or whatever. She is just a year younger and acts older than Ron anyway. Its not merely that she doesn’t go with them, she is hardly in the book in that period, she’s not given as important a place, she’s just sort of “waiting” for Harry to appear like Prince Charming which is a role that doesn’t fit him or her at. all. Ginny Weasely meekly waiting?! As if.
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Top Ten Tuesday Freebie: Some Favorite Childhood Illustrated Books
I’m linking up with Top Ten Tuesday. I had this in my drafts as a spin-off of an earlier TTT childhood favorites, I think I went more middle-grade/preteen on that first one.
In no particular order. A lot of these were from the Five and a Row Series based on the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling, definitely the ignition of our love of good books. I’d love to remember all my favorites, I know we loved lots of the little golden books (loved them to shreds), and my grandparents had lots of books we loved including Sesame Street ones that told other stories using Sesame Street characters. And then of course the illustrated series like the Francis books (which I bought my niece when she was born, I wanted to get her a black and white striped badger to go along with it, but I couldn’t find a cute one, I could barely find any badgers, and most were all grey or something), Frog and Toad, Mr. Putter and Tabby, Amelia Bedelia, and Henry and Mudge.
- Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall
- The Seven Silly Eaters (Mom gave me a copy of this for Christmas, she’s started to give us some of our childhood favorites for our own current or future children).
- Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
- Corduroy by Don Freeman
- Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews. I remember learning about color temperature in this book, this book features lots of cool colors.
- A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
- Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. I vividly remember listening to this on tape, we would go to the library and pick the plastic bags that had little hangers attached to the top, in the bag was the book and the tape. We got this one so often I even remember the narrator’s voice reading it.
- Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
- Warm as Wool by Scott Russell Sanders
Also, I have a favorite that I’ve been searching to find ANY clue about, but I don’t think I’ve kept up on the posts I’ve made on various sites about it. I don’t know the title, the author, or the illustrator, but it was beach/ocean/island themed with gorgeous watercolor. It is a sort of Cinderella meets Princess and the Frog (except prince is a large turtle or tortoise in this story). I could have sworn I saw it featured on Reading Rainbow (another thing from the mists of memory), but any list of books featured on the show didn’t trigger any memories. It featured a stepmother/enchantress, I feel like stepsisters turned into birds, and something about a rainbow fish bridge, and the prince as a tortoise carries the princess or maiden, she may not be a princess, to an island somehow, from a ship maybe. I’m not crazy, the sister nearest in age remembers this book too!
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Jane Austen’s Leading Men or Heroes Ranked (Tentatively)
Thinking about this after Katie’s comment on this post. But I’m due for rereads, so I may have to revisit this post. I know my top two. Also, movie portrayals matter, I watched many of the movies before reading and have watched the films many times sense. I think with many of the characters, the book leaves some openness in interpreting the characters (not all of them), actually, to me the some of the most famous (Darcy, Knightley, and Brandon) are that way. Because they are older/more reserved maybe?
- Captain Wentworth. Decisive, military, passionate, I do have to wonder though, how well this would work in reality. I mean does a Marianne-type character work with admittedly something of the male-equivalent in intensity.
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Henry Tilney funny, kind, honorable. This I know would work for me in reality.
Now for the others. I do think I’d pick Mr. Knightley next (or would I?), but I’d prefer John Knightley from the 2008 Emma. That smart-aleck and family loyal character is absolutely my style. I’m not sure what I think of Knightly, I’m not sure he’s as clearly defined, all the movie versions are sort of accurate in a way, but also not. He can seem a bit too, puppy-dog, like trailing after Emma which I don’t like. So maybe I would pick Bingley next although. Bingley and Edward Ferrars I kind of group together. I have difficulty respecting them, and I’m afraid I’d steam role right over them, but I’d pick them over the melancholy Brandon, or the boring (!) Darcy.
Bingley, precious and sweet but too easily led. But he doesn’t do anything wrong, and he does come back without prompting, I think, although with some hints maybe, or encouragement after seeing Lizzie. My understanding was Darcy said something to him after he came back, but like I said I’m due for a reread.
Edward Ferrars. Grow a spine dude. It’s not honorable to love another and stay engaged, sorry, that isn’t actual faithfulness. However, he is funny.
Edmund Bertram. Ah, Edmund, I loved you so much until I despised you so much. And yet, I still think I’d want him before Colonel Brandon. I mean if Edmund hadn’t fallen for Mary, or at least for that long and so hard. Early Edmund would be closer to the top.
Darcy. I belong to the Darcy is overrated club.
Colonel Brandon. I’m afraid the unfairly ancient and/or slimy casting of Colonel Brandon has forever tainted him to me. If Matthew McFadyen had played him (ala Arthur Clennam) as I think would have been ideal. I think he needed to be brought to life in such a way as too make him appealing. He’s too melancholy a person for me ideally.