So, I finally discovered why I love this site so much:
This was one of my favorite books when I was about 2 years old. Best part was when it got to the climax of:
Millions of fingers. Millions of thumbs. Millions of monkeys, drumming on drums.
Can we imagine anything more adorable than millions of monkeys drumming on drums? Parents, buy this for your monkey children post-haste.
my favorite story(according to my parent's baby book) was something called "The Little Boy in The Big Woods" which I've yet to see anywhere.
The same book says that my favorite toy was a "large plastic fork" so who the hell knows?
I think you're thinking of "Little House in the Big Woods" where Laura Ingalls plays with an inflated pigs bladder and burns buffalo chips. Which I originally thought were like potato chips. When I found out the truth, I was horrifed. I did like the maple syrup part, though.
Posted by: witchstone on October 7, 2002 05:25 PMUmmm, nah it wasn't Laura Ingalls. I was still in the playpen at this point, so it musta been some kinda storybook.
Although I now feel traumatized and deprived that I never had a pigs bladder as a kid.
Heh, just one more reason why I'm a dysfunctional neurotic loonball.
I thought I knew all the Seuss and Seussish books extant, but apparently I don't.
Brandon is (in 10 days) 10 years old. Too old for this, I'm sure. Well, he's just going to have to cope.
"John, does the monkey have a laser?"
My favorite book as a little tyke was "Are You My Mother", and I will quote from a helpful reviewer exactly why I loved it:
"The "plot" concerns a baby bird who hatches while the mother bird is out of the nest. Baby sets out to find his mother, and asks everything and everyone he sees, "Are You My Mother?" The "Snort" reference comes when the baby bird asks a huge piece of digging equipment, and...'The big thing just said SNORT!'"
Millions of fingers. Millions of thumbs. Millions of monkeys, drumming on drums.
I've said that out loud about seven times since I read it. Wonderful stuff!
Thanks witchstone, no tikes, yet great ideas for me when shopping as a monkey's uncle. Plus I think it's great of you reminding the folks of a great gift for all kids, reading out loud to them wish I could make this a law.
Posted by: Thomcatspike on October 7, 2002 06:38 PMHow bout
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
That shaped my worldview into the little whiny bitch I am now.
Apparently, Viagra is about 15 bucks for 100 mg in Cancun.
Oh.
Oh, dear.
and before the shitstorm of why aren{t you out drubk on tequila somewhere, checking in on how jasper is doing is much cheaper with email at 12 pesos an hour, than on the phone at 10 pesos a minute. (9 pesos = 1 dollar).
?excuse the fubked up punctuation. whereñs the damned apostrophe¿
I love that people are so fond of the monkey-house, that when lounging in some wonderland (europe, cancun) they still feel compelled to check in.
Favorite childhood books: The Lorax, Where the Wild Things Are, Shel Silverstein's collected works, and (lord help me) The Stand. I can't swallow Stephen King now....
For the adults in the audience, Shel Silverstein's Uncle Shelby's ABZ's still has a place in my heart....
I had my son on my lap in a very crowded airplane years ago, and noticed that all around me the dark-suited business travelers had fallen silent and were hanging on every word of "The Cat in the Hat."
When I read the final "... and what would you do if YOUR mother asked YOU?" suddenly all the next pages of all the temporarily-forgotten Wall St Journals rustled back to life.
[rant]
While were on the subject of nostalgia(kinda), Am I the only human being who finds that this "80's revival" bullshit gives him a case of the squirms?
I mean I lived in the 80's and I didn't like 'em one bit. Ugly clothes, Reagan in the White House, horrible synth music, the legitimization of naked greed. Even a teenager could see this stuff blossoming and be nauseated.
I was watching Boogie Nights this afternoon. Remeber that scene where Mark Wahlberg and his little pals are ripping off the rich freebase-head and everything erupts into a giant gun battle while "Jessies Girl" and "99 Luftballons" blares in the background? That sums up the 80's to me perfectly--faux wholesomeness and gratuitous wealth hiding decadence and senseless violence.
The 8-s weren't a simpler mor innocent time any more than the 50's were.
[/rant]
There, Now I feel better.
Actually, Jon, old buddy old pal, I quite enjoyed the 80s. Of course, my ass looked fabulous in leather pants and I got laid a lot (possibly as a result of the whole fabulous-ass thing, but maybe not), so that tends to tilt the scales heavily in favor of "pleasant nostalgic feelings" rather than "screaming in horror at being forced to remember".
Posted by: Crash on October 7, 2002 09:37 PMThis is probably the first time I'm too embarrassed to comment. My favourite childhood books were all written in the 1920s, if not in the bloody 19th Century. To this day, I regard illustrations as a waste of space and like my books thick, in cheap paperback (no wasting cardboard on something that's going to be read by the end of the day) with really small text, lots of footnotes (lists of other books) and no fuckin' pictures!
Sick, isn't it? I've never met anyone who understood.
jon, you were old enough to recognize the bad stuff about the 80's, but you weren't old enough to enjoy the good stuff about the decade. A crucial distinction, and precisely why I hated 70's nostalgia.
Oh, and another vote for "Are You My Mother?" here, with a side of "Go Dog Go!".
Adam's in Cancun?!
Quick, go vomit copiously on the side of the DJ booth at Dady Rock for me, Adam!
Spent about 6 or 7 months there a few years ago. I'm still hungover.
Millions of cervezas, millions of whores, millions of canucks, puking on floors!
Posted by: stavrosthewonderchicken on October 7, 2002 09:54 PMIs there anywhere in the world, Stav, you've not been drunk in? I've slowly come round to regarding your past life as my plan for the future - travelling about with friends, writing, drinking, soaking it all in. I wish I'd happened to have been in the Algarve (Lagos, was it?) when you were around (I've never been there so I can't report on what sort of memories/babies/ruins you left). I'm planning on doing it all, except for the part ending up in Korea, that is.
Posted by: Miguel on October 7, 2002 09:57 PMBut that wasn't the reason I came here. I got to thinking of the relationship between text and illustration, so crucial to children's books (Maurice Sendak!) and was reminded of the many instances of ill-matched items you get on the Internet.
Only yesterday, researching a post on Afternoon Tea / High Tea, I came across this wonderful Gujarati illustration of the perfect English cucumber sandwich:
P.S. Made funnier by the fact that the recipe is spot on!
what Crash said about the 80s (it was all about having a fabulous ass!)
and there are tons of those not-quite Seussian books around...but
Harold and his Purple Crayon still rocks my world!
another perfectly silly read-aloud: Is Your Mama a Llama? ... wouldn't it be cool if we could send all these books in a big ol' box to Dejah for her new little one?
Posted by: whatnot on October 7, 2002 11:15 PMDarn you, amberglow, I had "Harold and the Purple Crayon" linked as my second example in my comment above, but pulled it back because I honestly couldn't remember if I was remembering me reading it, or if I was just remembering reading it to my younger sisters.
I have no doubt, though, that I did have my own Pat the Bunny.
yhbc--Danny and the Dinosaur was a goodie too!
Pat the Bunny i've only seen as an adult--kinda fetishy, no?
oh, and Are You My Mother always makes me wanna cry...
I can get baby swag (i work at a baby mag, which she reads!!) to send if you guys are going to do something for dejah...send me her info...
yhbc--we actually wore out our first copy of Pat the Bunny, I had to buy a new one for our new leetle monkey.
amberglow--excellent! Maybe us monkeys can figger out something for the new mom ... hmm ...
I vaguely remember a book called "Never Tease a Weasel." I believe it went something like:
Never tease a weasel
That is my advice
The weasel wouldn't like it
And teasing isn't nice.
I'm not sure. The only weasels I've encountered are the human variety, and most of them could have used a few sharp blows with a lead-filled pool cue. I do not believe that teasing would even be noticed by them.
When dejah's baby's born it will have to be our best post of all time. Should be send out for vacapinta or something?
Posted by: Miguel on October 8, 2002 12:58 AMOh and Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
I dug that one.
and, by the way
GIANTS! GIANTS! GIANTS!
woop!
I'm planning on doing it all, except for the part ending up in Korea, that is.
Ah, this isn't an 'ended up', just an extended recharge of the financial batteries. Many plans are still afoot....
Miguel, i thought vacapinta was only taking a week off from "the other place"...but he stopped posting altogether...??? does he ever come here?
(i miss him! *sob*)
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Presentwas a favorite when I was around 5 or 6. Perhaps too girly for the manly types around here. But I just discovered when I bought it for my niece, that Maurice Sendak had illustrated it.
A family favorite was Dooly and the Snort Snoot, which is now out of print. If you guys liked Are You My Mother because of the snort part, you would have been in heaven with this book. My brother found one on ebay a few years ago, but I can't find one at all now. It's all about a little giant boy who is not growing and now growing, and all the other kids make fun of him until the Snort Snoot comes to town and terrorizes all the giant children and only Dooly will face it and as he roars at it, he starts to grow.
You know, underdog wins and all that. Gets the love of Trina, the cute girl. The illustrations were great. I still remember the inflections in my dad's voice as he'd read it to us.
I also remember some rather surreal books about one Mr. Matthew Looney.
Oh and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I dug them Vermicious Knids. Roald Dahl also had a great collection of short stories called The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More that I really loved when I was about eight I guess. It had this great story called The Swan about a kid who is very alienated at school, gets beat up all the time, and loves to watch this beautiful swan. In the end, Bullies kill the swan and tie the wings to the kid's arms.
Wait a minute. Why the hell was I reading traumatic stuff like that when I was eight?
Speaking of Sendak, I always loved reading In the Night Kitchen. It's even creepier than Where the Wild Things Are.
Milk in the Batter
Milk in the Batter
We bake cakes
and nothing's the matter
*goes running for the shelter of my mother's little helper*
Posted by: kafkaesque on October 8, 2002 12:11 PMSounds like a 50s housewife's mantra.
Except that it's chanted by a bunch of phantom chefs who are about to cook a small child.
We're cinnamon and sugar shakers
Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers!
auugh! Earworm!
Except that it's chanted by a bunch of phantom chefs who are about to cook a small child.
Who look like Laurel and Hardy.
Sendak also did Higglety Pigglety Pop, which was (I think) a much less well known, but really great story about his dog Jennie.
i just looked into this site from a search engine and am wondering. because i have been hunting for the never tease a weasel book EVERYWHERE! anyone remember the entire book?
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on the matter, along with some solutions to the problem, can be found
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