I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: L.A. SALAMI-“Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 17, 2017).

L.A. Salami’s full name is Lookman Adekunle Salami.  I really enjoyed Salami’s song “Going Mad As The Street Bins.”  His delivery is great and there were some rather unexpected chords.

For this performance of “Day to Day,” he is standing on the balcony of the Hilton Austin hotel overlooking the downtown skyline.

I usually try to pair kid-friendly songs with books, but there’s some curses in this song).

The music is basically the same for 7 minutes (although it does build by the end), which means you must focus on the lyrics. And they are pretty dark.  It talks about boredom on public transportation as well as gruesome deaths on the news.  There’s talk of mental health, like this section:

Went to work for the NHS –
Mental health, people depressed.
Met Joanne – Scared of living,
Afraid of dying, terrified of being.
Then met Paul, a schizophrenic,
Shaking limbs, paranoid fanatic –
Unwashed 10 days in a row –
So afraid almost paralytic.
I tell them that I do the same –
In certain moods, on certain days…
But despite the sane ways I can think
I could not do much to convince them…

But mostly I enjoy his delivery which has his slightly accented voice and charming mannerisms.  The first time I heard this I wasn’t as drawn to it as I was his other song, but each listen unveils something more to like about it.

[READ: June 1, 2016] Explorer: The Mystery Boxes

This is the first in a series of short graphic novel short stories edited by Kazu Kibuishi the creator of Amulet.

Sarah brought these home for the kids to read and they were sitting around our house for a while so I picked one up.  When I flipped through it and saw all the great authors in it I knew I had to read them.

The three books are not related to each other (aside from thematic) so it doesn’t matter what order you read them in.

This first one is all about “mystery boxes.”

EMILY CARROLL-Under the Floorboards
This was a great start to the series.  In this story a little girl hears a knock on the floor.  She pulls up the floorboard and finds a note.  The note is from a tiny wax doll.  The end says “whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine.”  The doll starts doing all kinds of helpful things around the house–including the girl’s chores.  But soon, the doll gets bigger and starts acting up.  And suddenly the doll has the same shape as the girl–and even tries to grab her hat.  What can the girl do to this brash doll?

DAVE ROMAN & RAINA TELGEMEIER-Spring Cleaning
This pair (they are married) seem to be in every anthology I read, and I love that they are.  This story was also great.  A boy is told to clean out the old toys in his closet.  He discovers a cube and tries to sell it online.  But no sooner does he put it online than a wizard shows up offering to buy it.  And then another and then a third.  What could it be  And how is the boy going to get away from these hungry wizards?

JASON CAFFOE-The Keeper’s Treasure
I loved the look of this story.  The other two were great classic cartoon style.  But this one was a bit more fantasy oriented.  A boy is on a quest and he talks about all of the things that have gotten in his way that the map didn’t mention–dinosaurs, mud pits, a labyrinth.  And while he is looking for the magic box, he finds a big scary looking creature with horns.  He tries to fight it off, but it proves to be very friendly. And while the boy wonders whats in the box, the creature does too.  The contents are exciting for one but rather mundane for the other.

RAD SECHRIST-The Butter Thief
This is a Japanese story (or at least the grandma is Japanese).  She is trying to capture an invisible creature who is stealing their butter.  The granddaughter doesn’t believe it until her grandmother says she actually captured the thing.  When she goes out to look at it, it escapes and turns her into a tiny creature like himself.  Can she get turned back?  Will her grandmother try to capture her too?  And why is butter such a big deal?

STUART LIVINGSTON-The Soldier’s Daughter
This story was the most complicated, and I felt a little confusing.  A boy and girl are devastated to hear that their father, a soldier, was killed in battle.  The daughter plans to seek revenge even Pugh the boy thinks she shouldn’t–that their dad wouldn’t want her to.  She meets a man with a box who shows her something that might change her mind.

JOHANE MATTE-Whatzit
This was a fun story set on a spaceship.  The adult in charge decides to give checklist duty to his grandson.  The other guys are jealous of the “teacher’s pet” so they plan to challenge him.  The “job” is to match boxes with the checklist.  But the other guys have given him a box with a ? on it.  And the Whatzit proves to be harder to deal with than he imagined.

KAZU KIBUISHI-The Escape Option
Of the seven, this one is the most formal looking.  It is also the most intense.  A boy watches a giant box float to the ground. When he gets closer, an arm reaches out and pulls him aboard.  The alien aboard tells him that the human race is doomed and he is the only one who can save the world   The alien offers him a way to avoid the crisis or to stay and help.  What will his decision be?

This is a great collection of stories, and so are the other two.