I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PHARRELL WILLIAMS-“Despicable Me” (2010).

After coming back from Universal, we watched Despicable Me again.  I had totally forgotten that Pharrell Williams, that “Happy” guy, had written this song about “having a bad bad day.”

Now since this is an open credit sequence, I think he can be forgiven for repeating the two verses FOUR TIMES.

Of course, that makes it insanely catchy (I’m havin’ a bad bad day), and the melody is a nice combination of bouncy jingle and suspenseful spy type movie.

It’s nice to see Williams run the gamut of emotions in these two songs (“Happy” comes from Despicable Me 2).

[READ: November 7, 2014] You Have to Stop This

This is the final book in the “Secret” series.  It has been quite a while since I read book four, so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t remember what was going on.  And I really didn’t, but that didn’t matter too much, because I immediately jumped right back into he plot and figured out the details as I went along.  And I flew through this (it was a great vacation book).

One of my favorite things about this series is the way that Bosch plays with the conventions of storytelling.  I’m not even sure if young readers can appreciate the jokes at this level (have they read enough to know what is being spoofed?).  So when chapter one begins with a pick your own beginning, it made me laugh because of the types of opening lines you can choose, but also because of what the answer is.

And then in chapter 2, the narrator promises to reveal the Secret right away…

but he can’t.  And that’s pretty funny as well.

In the last book Cass learned more about the Secret and was told that she couldn’t share it with anyone–not even Max-Ernest and Yo Yoji.  And so the book explores the inevitable tension between protagonists–something I simply don’t like in stories like this but which I know is really unavoidable.  Cass and the boys work so well together that it’s a shame that Cass can’t say anything more about the Secret.  And that Max-Ernest is feeling isolated from her.  Yo-Yoji, the ever cool dude, is there for moral support of course, but even he is a little frustrated with what’s going on.

But a lot more has to happen before anything more can be revealed.  Like that the kids are off to the Museum of Natural History to see the Mummy exhibit (which is an excellent coincidence since Cass found an old piece of papyrus and they are definitely thinking Egyptian as far as the Secret goes.  (There is an outstanding footnote about King Tut’s missing privates which I assume is true but I love it too much to even look up to verify).  Cass believes that there’s a slight chance that the mummy in front of them is actually the mummy from whom the papyrus originated.  And when she takes a closer look–something dreadful happens (in hilarious fashion).  And it is destined to become an international incident.

They are also in trouble with Albert 3-D (so called because he has three degrees, archaeology, anthropology and Egyptology), the head of the museum.  He happens to be the father of Daniel-not-Danielle (a boy with long dreadlocks who we may have seen before, but I don’t remember him).  He is a casual friend of our gang and I was happy that he found his own plot thread by the end.  Albert doesn’t think our gang did anything intentionally to damage the mummy, but their principal sure does.  So they were brought in for a punishment session (of tedious work with broken pots).  The kids sneak over to see if they can find any other clues about the mummy.  But when they sneak back into the room to look–it has been stolen!  And of course, they are the prime suspects.  (Daniel-not-Danielle is instrumental in helping them out).

The kids assume that the Midnight Sun is behind this (and they are).  We even catch a few glimpses of some of the creepy characters (and a particularly creepy seen with a woman in bandages, but I had forgotten all the details about her so I was rather confused by that scene).

They are determined to set things right, so they sneak back into the Museum to try to figure out what is going on.  But when workers come, they hide in some boxes, boxes which are being transported to Las Vegas for a huge magical mummy show.  A show in which the Midnight Sun may just try to bring the mummy back to life.

This extraordinary live show is pretty great–it would be visually stunning if it were ever made into a movie. I enjoyed the way the kids were involved (and how they got their money and what they spent it on).  And I also enjoyed how M-E was able to steal the show.

Although I admit to (again) getting a little confused with just what was happening with the finger and the ring and the magician–I may have been too far removed from the action to keep track of just who the bad guy was.  But that didn’t matter, I enjoyed it very much.  And the ending had a satisfying payoff (although who gives graduation speeches in middle school?).

I may have to quibble with the actual Secret of the series, which I wont give away but which I will say–really?  After all that?  And yet, he did find some interesting depth in what could have been a very poor joke.

This was a very enjoyable series and I see that Bosch has a new book out which may be part of a new series.  I’m will certainly be giving that a read one of these days.