Silver Shoes & Rabbit Holes: 2013-07-07

Weekend Reading

Library Day came a bit later this week - yesterday - and we have a fresh bash of books. Here are a few of the kid and teen variety that I checked out for myself, knowing full well I won't have time to get to these with the kids. (We don't have much farther to go on The Marvelous Land Of Oz, but we still have Winnie-the-Pooh and The BFG to finish, too.)

As for picture books, I have a gigantic stack waiting for us to finish, but these are the three I am most excited about!

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great,

written & illustrated by Bob Shea.

Hyperion Books for Children, 2013.

I love Bob Shea.

Here's the book trailer.

And...

Emeraldalicious,
written & illustrated by Victoria Kann.
HarperCollins, 2013.

Because both girls still love Pinkalicious Pinkerton.

Especially my youngest.

And...

The Mighty Lalouche,
written by Matthew Olshan,
illustrated by Sophie Blackall.
Schwartz & Wade, 2013.

No book trailer for this one, but you can read this bit about it at Matthew Olshan's website,

or you can read this post entitled "The Making of The Mighty Lalouche" at Sophie Blackall's blog.

I hope everyone of my readers has a beautiful weekend, full of books and love and happiness.

Our Fairy House

Dear fairies,

We hope we did the fairy house justice this year.

Hope you don't mind a little glitter.

Okay, hope you don't mind a lot of glitter.

We'd love to do a little more!

Really, we would.

Some miniature fairy furniture, perhaps?

A clothesline or tea set?

A proper little garden?

The first part of our summer was so beautiful!

It was lovely spending so much time outdoors last week.

Because now, it's too darn hot!

We'll stick to the air-conditioning inside now, thanks.

Hope you can make do with your fairy magic or whatever.

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Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

This is what we've been reading together this week. (Well, in addition to Oz.) We checked out the 2013 Special Edition Ripley's Believe It Or Not! book. It just happened to catch our eye at the library.

Last year, one of the stops on our Branson vacation was a visit to that town's Ripley's Odditorium. This tour was something I insisted we do. It's the fourth Ripley's museum I've visited (after Dallas, San Antonio, and Gatlinburg). I just love them. I love weirdness. The one in Branson is a bit more politically correct than I remember the others being, but then more than 15 years had passed since my visit to Gatlinburg. Perhaps they have all changed through the years...

The Ripley's Odditorium in Branson, Missouri.

We have an exciting vacation coming up in less than three weeks, but we thought it might be fun to relive a bit of last year's in this book. It really is a blast to curl up together and explore all the weird facts, pictures,and stunts in the pages.

You can find all manner of things Ripley's-related at the main website, including links to all the current books, attractions, syndicated cartoons, vintage Ripley, the YouTube page, the Weird True Facts blog, and the life story of Robert Ripley. (If you want to see some not-quite-fit-for-kids videos, check out the original Vitaphone Varieties from the early 1930s!)

I think we'll move on to the Guinness Book of World Records next!

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Return To Oz: Escape from the Witch's Castle (A Little Golden Book)

Return to Oz: Escape from the Witch's Castle (A Little Golden Book), based on
the motion picture from Walt Disney Pictures. (No author or illustrator given.)
Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1985.

This weekend, we hit the 4th of July sale at one of my favorite antique malls. For some reason, we bought a lot of dolls. I'm not sure why...

But we also bought a couple Little Golden Books! I meant to share this yesterday, as it would have made a nice little Obsessive Nostalgia Disorder Monday post, but I haven't felt well since Sunday night. Better late than never!

Oh, Return to Oz... such a strange little movie. They couldn't do an exact sequel to the 1939 Wizard of Oz, as Disney didn't own the rights to that movie, so they cobbled together a story with parts from L. Frank Baum's books - mostly The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz - making many, many changes along the way. The Mombi of the movie is a combination of the old witch Mombi in Land of Oz and Princess Langwidere in Ozma of Oz. Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump are introduced in Land of Oz, Tik-Tok, Billina, the Wheelers, and the Nome King in Ozma of Oz. Then to tie into the movie they weren't supposed to reference, they make the whole Oz thing a dream - I think - with the new characters in Oz mirroring the people and things Dorothy has just met in a real-life nightmare: she's been committed by her aunt and uncle to a creepy mental institution! (Or is it a dream... Were the scary Oz people actually invading Kansas? It's rather confusing...)

the original trailer

The whole movie is very creepy. That would probably be why my sister and I loved it as kids. We'd pull the heads off a bunch of Barbies and place them on a toy shopping stand for one headless doll to choose from. Rediscovering the movie as an adult, I admit I don't care for it as much now. However, my sister loaned the DVD to Big Sis as I was reading the books to her the first time, and my very small one latched on to it. For Little Sis, this was her first Oz movie. She was about a year and a half when she first watched it. She liked me to say, "Dooorrr-thyyyyy Gaaaaaale!" in my best Jean Marsh-as-Mombi voice.