Jellyn’s Collection of Curiosities

More Voyager later. I still have some on the Tivo to watch. But Spike has been messing with the schedule, so who knows when or if I’ll be able to resume after I finish the.. 8, I think, that I have left on the Tivo. Stupid Spike. In other news, I have Torchwood and all of the Highlander TV series on DVD. Which I may need, since the new Fall season has been a big disappointment.

Anyway, onward! To my review of two Halloween books that didn’t have “Halloween” in the title, so I couldn’t review them over on Triple Take.

Oh, wow, lie! This does have Halloween in the title. Whoopsy.

Old Witch Rescues Halloween by Wende and Harry Devlin (1972)

I grabbed this because it looked familiar. But after having read it, it didn’t really ring any bells. Maybe I read other books in the series?

Rich white guy declares there won’t be Halloween, and people listen to him, because he’s rich. And a white guy. But Old Witch is having none of that. So he kidnaps her and locks her up. But a crow helps her get a broom. And then she shows up at his rally, or whatever. And he dumps his pitcher of water on her!!

But, fortunately, she doesn’t melt. Fyew.

She turns him into a frog. She rallies the townsfolk to fight for Halloween. Then turns him back. And he’s all ‘yay halloween’. And then they have a party.

And it’s really kind of a weird narrative (ack, I just used the word narrative in a sentence) because there’s this sort of detachment from Old Witch, who seems to be the protagonist. She doesn’t say a whole lot. She sings a little song, she talks to herself and the crow (9 words total there), she chants a spell. Then she’s got 2 lines to psyche up the crowd. And then like 4 words at the end of the book. None of what she says is part of an actual conversation.

It does add to the picture of her as the eccentric old woman who nobody in the town talks to and then hangs as a witch. Except.. she seems to have friends, and the townsfolk aren’t against her.

In the end, a better book than some of the other ones I read.

The Candy Witch by Steven Kroll (1979)

I saw this on the booksale rack at the library and I was all ‘I remember that book!’ I flipped through it briefly and decided ‘I liked this book!’ I didn’t buy it quickly enough before it vanished. (I had had a brief thought that I should save it for some other kid to find and love.)

But then later I saw it in the children’s room, sans dust jacket, but in recognizable orange with the candy witch embossed in a corner of the cover. Hurray for books that don’t require a dust jacket to be recognizable.

Maggie is a witch, in a family of witches (and warlocks). She likes sticking candy in people’s pockets and filling fridges with food, but her family doesn’t notice the good deeds she does. So she gets fed up and sets out to get noticed. She starts playing tricks on people. Lizards out of bathroom faucets, frogs in pockets, milk turning into flowers. Nothing too malicious or dangerous, but not very nice either.

But her family still doesn’t notice! So she waits until all the kids have gone trick or treating and then steals their candy bags. They get sad. She feels remorse. She talks to her family. Then she throws a candy festival to make it all better.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what appealed to me about this as a kid, but I’ll try.

The colors of the book are shades of orange, black, and purple. It’s really inspired, I think. Perfect for a Halloween book. Maggie is drawn so simply I think even I could reproduce her. So definitely accessible and appealling artwork all around.

She sticks candy in people’s pockets! And there’s one scene where she has all the trick or treat bags piled up on a rooftop with her. What’s not to love about that? Candy!!

Unfortunately, with my 2010 old-fogey eyes, I did notice a flaw. There’s two questionable costumes the kids are wearing. One’s dressed as the typical ‘Indian chief’ and another looks to be a gypsy fortune-teller. If this book were to be republished today, I hope they would skillfully modify or excise those two, but leave the rest of the book untouched.

I find it a little odd that the costumes are all generic. That is, there’s no Spiderman or C3PO. But the candy specifically references Hershey’s kisses and M&M’s. Also, who has peppermints and jelly beans on Halloween? Weirdos! And she’s got fountains of lemonade at her party. Lemonade and candy? Gross. Why wasn’t it apple cider?

Anyway, I still love this book. And that’s why I had to review it somewhere. And that’s why I’m kind of sad I didn’t buy it from the booksale after all.

I started reading this book from an edition borrowed from the library. Published in 1983 and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark (ISBN 0517420627). Because I didn’t want to lug the book with me to my parents’ house, I finished reading it online at Page by Page Books.

I have vague memories of watching the cartoon of this on television. As I recall, I found it odd and boring. The book isn’t quite so boring, but it’s still odd. As a child, it seemed to me there should only be one story of Santa Claus. Oh, I suppose it could vary a little, as people tell stories differently, and some could get certain facts wrong — adults are frequently fallible this way — but the story should be essentially the same. And this one just falls far outside what I knew to be true about Santa Claus.

This Santa doesn’t have 9 reindeer, and their names are all wrong. He doesn’t have any elves. He doesn’t even live at the North Pole as far as I can tell!

I suppose I should give a summary before I continue. A nymph is bored one day and discovers and abandoned child and ask the great Ak if she can keep him and raise him as her own. Thus is born Santa Claus, an orphan raised in the woods by a bunch of Immortal creatures. When he’s older, he gets his first glimpse of mankind and decides the children need his help. So he slowly sets about his life’s work of making toys and delivering them to the kids. And this story relates how he gradually accrues various things he needs to help him.. mostly involving deer and a sledge.

This story just has the wrong feel to it. It may be a fantasy story, but it’s a fantasy mythos that doesn’t fit in with the Santa Claus one. At least not the Santa universe that I know. His reindeer don’t even fly!

Sometimes it also felt like the author was going out of his way to explain this or that inconsistency. Like, oh yea, and sometimes when the parents are kind and loving, Santa just drops the toys down in a heap and lets the parents arrange them nicely. Or, if the kids aren’t satisfied by what they got on Christmas, then Santa’s left some toys in toy stores so they can go and buy them(!).

I know this is an older story, and maybe he shouldn’t be expected to have the names of the reindeer ‘right’, and Rudolph’s absence is understandable, but.. where’d Mrs. Claus go? There’s not even any room for her in this story, because Santa uses up the only chance of any mortal becoming immortal.

Throughout the story, he’s known as Claus, which I had a lot of trouble getting over. In my head, I kept pronouncing it Klaus. Which just conjures up the image of a fish in a bowl.

The illustrations in the edition I started reading were rather annoying. There were spoilers! There’d be a picture of a cat with a bow, before the toy cat ever got a bow. There’d be pictures of dolls before Santa had ever made a doll. And there’s even a picture of a toy soldier. It doesn’t seem to fit with the text to me. I don’t think this Santa would be making toy soldiers for the kiddies. Especially ones that looked 18th century European. So bad marks on the illustrations all around.

One final thing that stood out to me, which isn’t unimportant, is that there is never any mention of what Christmas is. This head of all Rhyls guy just decides he’ll only loan his deer out to Santa on one night a year and that night will be Christmas Eve. And I’m wondering at this point, does Santa even know what Christmas celebrates? He wasn’t exactly raised by wolves, but almost may have well have been.

There is mention of a being who created all the Immortals, so God is definitely mentioned, if not by that particular name. You’d think there’d be some nod to Jesus. Some link between Christmas Eve and Santa other than it being a conveniently close date for the Rhyl King dude to be a jerk about. I mean, if I wanted to be a jerk about granting the request for the use of my deer, I’d pick the shortest night of the year, not close to the longest. (Being northern hemisphere-centric in that remark, yes.)

So, all in all, eh.

Was I still giving out stars? He almost doesn’t deserve a Christmas star for this, but I’ll give him 2. Okay story, but it’s not Santa, I don’t feel any Christmas magic, and it’s not a light-hearted romp or anything particularly enjoyable or amusing.

My official books read total for 2007 is 161. This beats the year before by 75 books. o.O And that was with Clarion in the middle for 6 weeks, where I only finished reading one book. (HP7, of course.) Boggle with me some more.

That means my one and only New Year’s Resolution for 2007 was done and done! See the old post for reference.

I’ve put the 2008 page up. Need to get cracking, since Jun set me a challenge of 250 books!

Now how about those psychic predictions for 2007?

I should’ve been paying closer attention to the news all year and perhaps checking them off as I went along. Here’s the ones I know for sure. Feel free to comment to help me prove my psychicness on the others!

* There will be controversy surrounding the release of Harry Potter book #7. Not to mention problems with the American edition.

Rowling was a little late on this one, announcing Dumbledore’s 1337 gay status well after the book was out. Are there problems with the American edition? Probably.. anyone know for sure?

* A new bestseller may threaten to eclipse Harry Potter.

I Am America (And So Can You?)? Well, probably not. :)

* Torchwood will show up on the Sci-Fi Channel, but they’ll edit it.

BBC America, not Sci-Fi. Though I hear it’s edited anyway. (Moment to squeal for impending Torchwood Series 2!!! Squeeeal!)

* 7th Heaven STILL won’t be cancelled, but Veronica Mars will. (Sorry, Jun!)

Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it looks like 7th Heaven finally bit the big one. Hurrah. Sorry about Veronica Mars though, Jun!

* The UK show Fortune Million Dollar Giveaway will have a US version. Probably on NBC, but possibly ABC.

Just pause a moment while I ponder why it was Million Dollar anyway. Eh? Did my America brain translate it when I was posting this? Bad American! No biscuit! No cookie either!

Anyway, I haven’t heard anything yet, though they’ve gone and stolen a French game show in the meanwhile.

* The news media is going to salivate over a court case that’ll drag on forever. It’ll involve a pretty white girl who’s been victimized or killed.

*coughAnnaNicolecough*

* Violence in schools will hit public attention again.

Been there. Done that. I mean.. not me personally..

* A new superhero movie will be announced. A gay superhero.

If so, they didn’t announce it very loudly. Heck, there isn’t even one on Heroes as far as I’m aware.

Anyway. Goodbye, 2007! I’ll miss you with your lucky number 7 and your googly eyes. (Moment as I go look at Google’s logo for the day.) And now we speed ahead into the future!

Lots of new photos in my photo album. Highlights include shots from Albacon with Peter David, more kitties, Christmas, the ice storm, and pengi-sans!

If you forgot the password, just ask. :)

Happy New Year!

Fyeeeeee!

K talked me into adding the children’s books I’d read in an effort to get some new reviews in at Epinions. So suddenly my December read list is much longer!

I read 86 books in 2006. That’s 6 more than the year before. This year, 100 books! Yupyup. That will be my one and only New Year’s Resolution. And I’ve already read 2, so that’s only 98 to go! That’s one every hour so far!! At that rate, I could read 8760 books in a year. Though I’d likely die of sleep deprivation before I got that far.

Let’s get in the spirit of the season. The winter season!

Some of you have seen this before, but it’s worth a revisit.

Make your very own snowflake with Make-a-Flake.

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(^My lame ascii flakes.)

Why the turkeys should be happy, I don’t know.

Here’s a holiday cartoon for y’all.