D is for Duncan, Lois “Song of the Circus”

Song of the Circus by Lois Duncan

D is for Duncan, Lois “Song of the Circus”
Reviewed by Evan Banned

Summary
The reader is introduced to the world of the circus, a magical place filled with a myriad of complex and interesting characters. As the story progresses, two children must face a most ferocious beast and prove that carny children are both creepy and weird.

The descriptions and illustrations help to bring the world of the circus alive with a child’s view. The words are in poetic verse, as the title suggests, simple and filled with whimsy and fun. The illustrations are fashioned as a child would fashion them, with odd angles and disproportionate bodies that give an innocence to the work and the atmosphere it creates.

The characters are not very fleshed out as we are given only the briefest of introductions before the story begins revving towards the climax. The protagonists of the story are given very little to do, making their sudden turn to heroics wholly unbelievable. What makes this story even more unbelievable are the introductions so late in the story of plot centric characters such as the Bareback Riders and the Fat Lady’s elephant.

The message of the story is a simplified telling of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience with a circus background. The models of childhood and the tiger are clearly taken directly from Blake’s work, yet given a hero’s slant as a confrontation with the tiger (i.e. adulthood, experience) have the children ban together and triumph, giving the clear message that carny children never grow up. I can get behind this.

As in the other book I reviewed by Duncan, Killing Mr. Griffin, the author has retained the same writing style, albeit in verse form. The structure is the same, with introduction to characters followed by action and resolution, yet the pace is daunting. Duncan also does not trust the reader, giving exposition on each page rather than simply in each chapter as she did in Griffin. As this book has significantly less pages, this can be forgiven. Also, I liked the art. It was kinda cool and stuff.

Why was this book banned?
I am not sure is there has ever been any formal efforts to ban this work, but it does have to children overcoming a tiger by shouting at it so that’s not a very good life lesson. Also, there’s scatalogical humor. Poop. Heh.

C is for Charleton, Nancy Lee “Derek’s Dog Days”

Derek's Dog Days by Nancy Lee Charlton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As read by Barry and Garry, Illiterate Twin Man Children

Barry’s summary:
On the first couple of pages you got this cat on a couch getting scared by a kid because he thinks the kid’s gonna, I dun know, pull his hair out with tweezers or something. Which you should not do to cats cause they bite. Anyway, there’s this picture of this dumbass kid that looks like the time Garry peed on Grampa’s electric fence, all “Blaaaaeeeerrrrrggggg.” Haha.

Then... what the hell, this kid’s eatin a shoe. Who does that? And it looks like he’s got bodies stuffed in his nightstand. Now he’s lickin the floor and taking poops outside? What kinda sick book you got me reading fella? Holy crap, he’s naked. This is some kinda trap, right? Look, I know I clicked on that picture on the ‘puter but I didn’t mean to and I seen on the TV that you can’t trap me like this. I’m done, I’m never reading a book again!

Garry’s summary:
There’s a dog on a couch with a door open. The dog is on the couch and spooked and the kid is sticking his head out the door. The kid, at least I think it’s a kid, has a tail and is howling at the moon. There’s a shocked little boy that’s a werewolf or a dog from earlier. It’s also in watercolor.

Child on a bed, crayon pictures of dogs, one looks like Spud Mackinzie eating a penis. Child has no sense of perspective. Has a lamp of spotted dog. Whole dog theme. It looks like there’s a femer in his bed side table. And he’s eating a shoe, not sure if that’s manic insanity or werewolfism. Crazy shoe chewing child is running around a hallway on all fours with his butt out. I think he’s sexually abused or a dog person. Dog from earlier is clearly running in terror. It’s not a dog, though it looks like a cat or a fox, so I’m calling it a cog. Or a dat.

The crazy wolf child is drooling all over the floor and the cog is staring at him in shock and terror. I am fascinated by this child. His pajamas have turned red, leading to possession or the devil. He’s digging, but it looks like dirty mashed potatoes piled on a bunch of stuff that he sacrificed to Lord Satan. Next page, the child is now naked and shaking. He’s either a)drying himself off like a dog or... I don’t have anything. I bet the cat/dog monster dumped water on him to fix his werewolfism.

The child is dead. He is on his back while people stare at him. Wait, no, not dead, just dreaming he’s a mutant dog freak running through the woods with stray feral dogs looking to hunt down the blood of the innocent or others to convert to their dog cult. He is now wearing clothes with, ooooo, a lunch box with a bow tie. He looks like that Problem Child kid but in the second movie. He don’t look right. He looks shocked, like he’s pretending to be straight. I bet he’s been beaten. He’s now with other kids, dancing in a circle and has a evil grin. I bet he’s convinced them all to join his dog cult. I’m pretty sure these kids are supposed to be ethnic, that girls definitely Hispanic.

Now he is standing in front of a chalkboard where he has written “Derek Dog” and he has either a) killed and/or dominated the teacher or 2) is turning the dog cult into a city street gang and “Derek Dog” will be his street name, his tag if you will. He is now standing in a blob of tie dye holding up sharp fingers surrounded by the numbers one through six. I think this has all been a rabies fever dream and now he is “Derek Dog, Grand Hippie Wizard of the Dog Cult.” Now he’s running through a field with flags with a look of madness. One flag seems to be tortured, the next is a rainbow which means love knows no bounds cause love has no gender. He’s on his bicycle and his mouth is all cat-like, domineering as though he is looking down at his subjects. The fever either has taken him or he’s really taken over with his demon witch powers.

He’s now in the hospital, or got pajamas from somewhere, while he’s stroking the cat/dog fox thing that looks terrified, which may be some type of animal erotic rape. Now he’s wearing a plaid shirt, possibly sent out in the woods to become a lumberjack and drink pure bacon grease and maple syrup. Now he’s flashing the cat/dog/fox thing after becoming the king of the lumberjacks and showing his... parts to the world as is his nature.

He’s in bed, but there’s the liquid... I bet that’s his drugs that the parents slipped him when they sent him out in the woods. The parents are running because I would too if my son was either a demonic witch king of the lumberjacks or a rabid exhibitionist.

Finally he is in a chair and seems to be aware I am here, or at least the words are. This scares me. Crap, he just popped out from under a table and scared the shit out of the cat/dog/fox thing. I know he had his way with it by the lecherous look. It looks fucking terrified. And he’s back in plaid. He wasn’t a lumberjack, he was still in the gang! The meds didn’t work. That cat/dog/fox thing is his bitch.

We cut back to the cat/dog/fox thing on the couch terrified. The door is shut now, which means evil could be lurking anywhere. The back cover has a hidden conclusion they didn’t want you to think about. It’s pretty messed up shit. He’s taken a piece of cardboard and put his head through it and is terrifying a small dog. That dog looks stupid.

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

B is for Belle, Jennifer, Animal Stackers

Animal Stackers by Jennifer Belle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As reviewed by Drunken Hobo Chet


Whosa what now with this book? I’m flim flamed to wonder what was the though process behind making a book so full of nothin’, yet chock full of the jibba jabba. Let me tell ya what I’m talking about:

This book’s all messed up. See, what happened was the author and the illustrator went the Marvel approach with this, it seems to me, but don’t worry about that cause I’m a simple hobo. The rails are my lady and my lady is fine. What I mean to say is that they came up with this alphabet, and instead of thinking “Hey, there’s a song about that, why not leave it at that?” they decided to get those letters, you know the one’s... There’s “A”, then “B”, and so on going all’s the way to “Y”.

I hear ya, “What about ‘Z’?” you yell into the cold night, the lonely night where the alphabet has no meaning. It should end in “Y” cause that’s the only question worth asking. But this book don’t. It ends in “Z” so all that don’t mean nothing.

Any whoozle, these people took the grand tradition of the alphabet and they made a picture book slash poem book out of it. At least that was the grand design. The whole thing works like a the way the old comic books used to do, the Marvel way. See this lady took the alphabetical order and she thought of all the words that could go along with that. Then she takes the letter of that word for that letter, and then she throws other words at that one to make some macka packa whatsa doodle that I guess passes for poetry. The picture guy, he takes them words and makes them a picture. While a picture is often one thousand words, these are around ten to twenty, if you take my meaning. That don’t make the pictures bad, just all nonsensical and gobbledy gook.

They all like that, all crazy like a dog that ate the chili on Sunday in church, ‘cept once or twice there’s some subterfuge a happ’nin. Fer example:

"Down in Chinatown
Roaring at all who pass,
And accidentally passing
Gas as flames shoot
Out of her
Nostrils."

That’s verbatim word for word DRAGON poetry, but if you look, you can see the devil in them DRAGON words. No Bilbo Baggins trickery here, just a subtle nod for you and yours to think the word “ass.” And that ain’t right. But the dragon's drawn all scary, so that's nice.

Got some windows you need washing? I’ll work for some nice apple pie!

Thanks, Chet!
Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

A is for Allard: 100 Books, The Stupids Have a Ball #atozchallenge

The Stupids Have a Ball by Harry G. Allard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Stupids Have a Ball by Harry Allard and James Marshall, as reinterpreted by Betty Lou from Circulation

Beware, Thar be... you know what? Forget it. Onward!

The book begins with a scathing indictment of the national education system as well as parenting as both children seem to be doing poorly yet their lack of effort is praised. They are even rewarded for their ineptitude with a costume ball, the preparation and execution therein complete the narrative.

The authors make a point to show how the tactics of the rich and moronic upper class force the lower class, in this case a cat and dog, prepare balloons, punch and invitations. The upper class, i.e. “Parents”, only include themselves in the final activity and have difficulty doing even that, mocking the upper class’s inablility to do even simple tasks.

As we near the party, we are exposed to even more extremes the rich and idle go through to waste their moneys. Costumes such as “George Washing Machine,” a bastardization of our nation's noble leader, show the depths to which the upper class reach to shame our great nation. Other costumes are clearly metaphors for how the rich and poor should interact, including Ma as “spaghetti” being all wrapped up in herself and the dog as “The Bone Ranger,” a call for the unwashed masses to take back what they can through vigilante means if they must to reach a state of justice.

As the guests arrive, you can see the extent the authors feel they need to go to chastise the rich and powerful. One guest arrives on a duck, which we all know as the Celtic symbol for transition, signifying a change in status quo is approaching.

A sad moment comes halfway through the book as Grandfather Stupid arrives down a chimney dressed as the Easter Bunny. Oh, this painful scene forces the reader to confront the idea that not only will we age and die, but we will collapse into the gaping maw of Alzheimer’s if our nation’s healthcare does not improve.
The final scene comes as a crushing blow not only to the reader but to society as a whole when we learn that, despite everyone wearing costumes, none but the Stupids themselves were aware this was a costume ball. By forcing us to look back into ourselves, this revelation begs the question, “Are we all at a costume ball where no one wore a costume?” Think on that, dear reader.

I can only recommend The Stupids Have a Ball to the most studied among us. True, juveniles may find the embellishments humorous, but true scholars will find so much more beneath the surface.

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

Check out my 100 Book Challenge under the Book Reviews tab.

Books For Morons: Review

Books for Morons by Banned Library Books

5 out of 5 on the Awesome Meter of Awesomeness (*****)

Yet another wonderful entry in the "For Morons" series, Books for Morons is half tell-all, half instruction into the seedy world of "books" and "reading".  Full page pictures show how to choose a book, get the book home, and then enjoy reading the book.

Pop-up pages are sure to delight as they spring from the page, often accompanied by a sound of pages turning.  New "scent producers" sewn into every page allow you to choose a variety of reading environments, such as subway, bus and library, to prepare you for the diverse areas one may enjoy a "book."

I must stress that despite containing full color illustrations and audio/video capabilities, this helpful tome is not for the young.  Anyone under the age of 18 should be supervised due to the ideas contained withing these "pages."  As Books for Morons will tell you, books can lead to creativity, ideas, and learning, activities that can be harmful to some.

Add Momma To the Train: Porno Review #atozchallenge

The opposite of this,
but less boobs

Add Momma to the Train starring Bruno West, White Mama Church and introducing Dr. Don Slapalot.

3 1/3 out of 5 Thumbs All Up In (***1/3)

****Beware, Thar Be Spoilers****

Summary
Bruno West stars as Mike Hardbone, professional architect and librarian.  Everything is going Mike's way until a chance meeting with a beautiful stranger, White Mama Jones played by White Mama Church, throws his world upside down.  Jones suggests they take a trip north on a train, and they ride the hell out of that train.  At the same time, there's a doctor having sex in a Winnebago.

There are pieces of art, then there are ways to put the audience in the lap of the actors and watch them live and breathe.  Watching Add Momma To the Train, the audience believes they are a part of the train with every shake, twist and gyration.  From the cabins decorated with historical accuracy to the people coming in and out of every shot, the world is made complete.  Only great direction and casting can make such a tour de force push the audience to such climaxes.

The characters form a narrative that if not taken from Shakespeare, should cause The Bard himself to bow his head in subjugation.  From the rich and flowing dialog to the subtle pauses in action, each actor gives it his all to the actress or actresses in every scene.  The transformations in movement as the story progresses rivals the best love stories of all time, kicking the shit out of Romeo and Juliet.

This leads us to the plot.  Oh, sweet sunny Superman, the plot moves as a ballet dancer moves along a tight rope, should that ballerina be a gymnast that really likes ropes.  Just as the story feels like it is going off the rails, something gets railed but good, and twists and turns to land directly where it should be.  Back to front, up to down, left to left to right to left, this goes beyond a character study and becomes an audience study, turning the meta aspect into a deeper penetration of the human soul.  

Only one thing can give pause during every tantalizing moment of this journey.  The fact that this is only a movie, and a pornographic one at that, drops this film down in rating.  Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, this film reaches the depths of the Uncanny Valley and does not pull itself out again.  This film is too close to real life and therefore can not save itself from its own inadequacy of perfection.

Why was it banned?

It's a porn.  There's sex and naked people.  More than the whole of all of Judy Blume's writings combined. Some may also question the religious and evolution inquiries various actresses ask during climactic parts, including dialog such as "Oh, God, yes, my monkey man, do me like that.  Yes. Yes."  Such items may ask questions that parents are not ready to discuss with their children.

Explanation: Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) I will blog using the alphabet as my guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

P.S. April Fool's. Have a great day!

100 Books: Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story is centered around five teenagers who plot to kidnap but accidentally kill their English teacher, Mr. Griffin. No real spoiler, it’s the title. The kids attempt to cover their crime throughout the novel, suffering mental and spiritual breakdowns as each of them shows a bit of character.


The actual location of this novel is forgettable at best, helping to boost the tone that this could happen anywhere yet touches of location keep the reader wondering where this is taking place, much like an internet story without a dateline. To keep the novel current, the edition under review has been revised to include such items as cell phones, the Internet and other technology that were not present in 1978. The update damages the novel, almost forcing the questions of “why don’t they just look it up/call their cell?” that would have been evident yet forgiven to modern audiences. Modern audiences are aware, subconsciously or not, that modern conveniences update at a rapid pace and do not expect them in literature/film. This would be like giving the Lone Ranger a car, yet having Tonto still ride a horse. The inclusion is inconsistent and painful to read.

One can forgive the characters their technological follies as they are both bland and compelling, a contradiction that one can blame more on the author than the characters. We are told more about them than we actually see, making this novel a dated edition of the teen genre rather than the more nuanced characters that we see in modern teen fiction (prices and participation may vary). Example: the main villain is said to be a master manipulator, yet the only time we see him really manipulate someone he seems less reasonable and more demanding, an effect of peer pressure rather than his own charisma. The characters are reacting to him from their own past experiences, not from what the reader has seen. If this character was selling drugs, kids from the 80s would be yelling “Just Say No” at him and running away.

The rest of the cast reads the same way, walking through situations much in the same way a character in an after school special soap opera would. To their credit, they all have motives that shift and grow as the novel moves, but have no room to breathe within the narrative. The best I can say is the characters feel real in the way reality television feels real, bland people forced into a narrative that could be compelling if the editor finds just the right moments.

The story structure follows the same frustrating pacing as the characters. Skipping around from person to person, we find the characters forced to react to coincidence and circumstance. Our characters do something, something happens between chapters, our characters react. At times, we get the jarring narrative of someone on the periphery, like the character’s parents, that seems almost filler yet is included to provide character information that should be given by the character’s actions. Running rampant throughout the narrative are large chunks of exposition to scenes that the reader has just read. I almost want to believe this novel was serialized month to month in “Seventeen” magazine by the constant need to update the reader. I think this may be a trend in teen fiction to keep the younger reader present in the narrative, but other writers seem to hide this practice better than this book does.

Overall, this book is more of a character study than a narrative. What would Average Joe Teenager Kid do if he accidentally killed somebody? If this book had been written today, the pitch for it would be “What if the Breakfast Club killed Principal Vernon?” The same type of stereotypes exist (athlete, brain, basket case, princess, criminal) yet are made more real through their reactions to each incident that arises. The problem with the book comes when the reader is told that action rather than having the characters, I dunno, act it out.

Why was it banned?
The main characters kill their teacher. Sure, they do not mean to, but even thinking about kidnapping your teacher is frowned upon in today’s school climate. The usual argument of fighting authority could be applied, as kidnapping/killing your teacher is a rather anti-schoolin message. The kids also drink beer and do drugs, so the PG rating is well earned in that regard.

View all my reviews