F is for Frazier, Craig “Bee & Bird”

Bee & Bird by Craig Frazier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As reviewed by Jerry the Minimalist

Summary
A graphic designer visually tells the tale of a bird and a bee on a trip.

The visual style was as breathtaking as simple shapes can be. The lack of words first scared, then thrilled me. I live by my words, you know.

In my opinion, the bird should have gotten top billing as this is his book.

Why was it banned?
I could see the blind having a problem being discriminated against, but that’s dumb and did not happen here. If a place ever banned this, they would have to be bitten by a radioactive crazy person to become Super Crazy Person, Defender of Weak Bullshit.

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.

E is for Ehlert, Lois “Planting a Rainbow”

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As reviewed by a Friend of the Library and co-head of the Bannville Ladies Auxillary, Betsy Farmer


Summary
Oh, my goodness gracious, this book is the cutest thing in the whole wide world of sports, y’all! It’s all about this little girl that plants flowers with her mama and calls them rainbows cause of all the colors! Can you believe it? I almost cried because it was just like the time my mom took me to the Wal-Mart garden center and left me there to shop for three whole days til they got tired of me naming all the flowers and took me home. They let me keep my rose bush, Petunia.

Speaking of names, let me tell you all the gardening lingo you can pick up from this little pint-sized masterpiece. Your kids will be excited to learn words like “rhizome” and “tulip” as well as all the colors of God’s rainbow! I mean, I guess they would, I don’t have kids myself on account of the tumors, but it’s just wonderful to look upon.

The art in the book is what some would call “minimalist.” At least that’s what we call it in my studio downtown (Happy Artifacts, 325 Second St, right in the heart of Bannville, MS, come and see our Daisy Nights exhibition next week!), and what they taught me in that art class I took down at the Polytechnic. All these pictures are just so colorful! Makes me wanna run through the sprinklers!

Why was it banned?
I don’t know why anyone would want to deprive themselves and others of such a magical text. Well, I guess if your mother was dead and all it might be upsetting, but then who would tell you to read it while she went in the other room and took her happy medicine? It’s always better to read than watch the devil’s box, that’s what my mama said. I guess there might be something in there with a gay agenda, too, but that’s just silly billy talk cause this is about gardening with your mama, not the wonderful feel of another woman’s skin pressed against yours after a late study session at the Polytechnic. Um, I might need to pray about this book.

Thanks, Betsy!

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.

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.