I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE PLANTS-“Monster Under My Bed” (2013).

I found this song on the WXPN Kids Corner 25th Anniversary CD (WXPN plays it a lot, and it’s a good Halloween song).

The song opens up with a lot of horns—a kind of horn solo section.  When the actual song melody starts it has a vaguely spy theme feel, although the main verse is a little sillier.

Lyrically, the song is all about the real concern that there is a Monster under the singer’s bed.  The song is fast and bouncy—especially the verses, so you know it’s not meant to be too scary.  But then the song slows down and we get the big surprise of what the monster actually is.

The song is pretty funny.  And the final verse—”monsters are nothing but make believe” is a very satisfying one.

[READ: October 12, 2013] Goofballs #2: The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue

I didn’t love the first Goofballs book, but I really enjoyed this one a lot.  It’s possible I was a sleepy dad while reading the first one or maybe it suffered from first book in a series stiffness.  But this new book hits its stride and doesn’t stop until the end.  What I especially liked about this book was that it knows its audience.  So it is a detective mystery, but the mystery isn’t too complicated, nor are there tons of impossible to figure out clues.  While I don’ think any kids would figure out who did it (I didn’t), the trial and error of figuring out the culprit is what’s fun.

It is Badger Point School’s 100^th anniversary and there is going to be a huge party which includes the unveiling of a statue of the first principal.  Everyone is very excited.

Until the principal went to look at the statue and discovered that under the tarp that was covering the statue was not a statue at all—it was a stack of chairs.

Well, the Goofballs are on the case (without even the principal asking them).  They start finding clues—a broken pencil, a scrap of paper that say HEES GRATE (we had fun guessing what that could mean) and even a splash in the school’s pool.

The detecting take a back seat to the jokes, which are very funny—Like  Brian’s goofy invention—a laser helmet of earmuffs, tiny mirrors and a scuba mask with no glass in it.  One of the funnier jokes came at Brian’s expense when Sparky the Goofdog stole his pants (on several occasions).  We also really enjoyed the running gag about the multipurpose room the Cafetri-Audi-Nasium.

And the speaking silently trick (when you are hiding from bad guys) was not only practical, it was very funny, although that was hard for me to read aloud.

The actual detecting plot was sort of beside the point by the end, but I had enjoyed it very much by then.

And my kids loved it too.  They laughed out loud at a number of jokes, recurring and otherwise.  It was a very satisfying read.  And I’m really looking forward to the other boo  ks in the series which we have just put on hold.