Narnia media mania! Chronicles,Movie, Companion, Game!

Bought the movie companion collectors' book at Keplers the week before the movie came out because I could not resist. Also bought the Nintendo DS game a couple weeks earlier as well (partly for work research :-)





Reread Chronicles of Narnia right after seeing the movie (starting Dec 9)

Read new edition of Companion to Narnia after getting it for Christmas from my lovely sister...

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
I'm so happy to see so much about Narnia all over the place, it is now actually somewhat "trendy" to know about Narnia.
I always felt when I was a kid just like the Pevensies felt when being teased by their pre-dragon cousin Eustace - "Kids who talk and talk about Narnia tend to get barmier and barmier..."
It seemed as if no one knew what I was talking about and now people can come out of the woodwork and talk more about having liked Narnia in the past and the present.
It was quite fun to revisit the whole series again after having seen the movie, but of course we always read them in the original order (not the new post 1994 order) - the true order beginning with "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" not with "The Magician's Nephew".

I also really enjoyed reading the "Companion to Narnia" by Paul Ford as it is a new edition from the one I read a while ago, with new maps and new essays, plus a whole discourse that underscores how much better it is to read them in the original order!
Very hypertextual to read as it is in encyclopedia form and you are led from entry to entry either by whim or because you suddenly remember a character or idea and want to hear more about it.

The Tale of Urso Brunov: Little Father of All Bears

Dave and I fell in love with this book several months ago when we saw it in a little store in Oakland. Apart from the confident story, it also has an animation on the upper right corners of the pages of Urso trudging along!

Urso Brunov is "The Little Father of All Bears" and sets off on a rescue mission when four of his bears are found missing when he wakes up from his hibernation a little early.

At every point he faces up to foes much larger than himself, and states to all who might not believe his might, "Believe me, for I am Urso Brunov!"

After buying the book, I read it out loud to Dave (and to Kevin when he got home) as Dave was cooking in the kitchen. It was really fun to do the voices, and by the end I was really getting into the "Believe me...!" refrain.

Urso fighting a large goat by bending its horns backwards!

Urso in a rare moment of low control!

This all inspired me to create a very beloved City of Heroes character, named Urso Brunov also.
His picture is below:

Solveig's Polysyllabic Spree - February

In Homage to Nick Hornby's columns:

February 2005 (Feb. 22 on)
Books Bought:

• The Polysyllabic Spree, by Nick Hornby. Bought on Feb. 22 at 826 Valencia Pirate Store. Signed up for Children's Book Writing and Publishing Seminar for Kari and I.
  
• Talking Back: What Students Know by the students of Leadership High School in conjunction with 826 Valencia. Also purchased at the Pirate Store. I then walked down Valencia looking for a bathroom and for The Time Traveller's Wife. I stopped at Modern Times Bookstore, found a bathroom and also found The Time Traveller's Wife, but it was a new copy.
  
• Continued on down the street and stopped at DogEared Books where I found The Time Traveller's Wife used. Blog to come when I read it. I was also looking for Pat Murphy and Lisa Goldstein but did not find them even in the fantasy bookstore that is also on this street.
  
• How to Make Your Child a Reader for Life by Paul Kropp. I also bought this at DogEared Books as research for teaching literacy to families. But then the next day I missed the tutoring orientation for the literacy program because my job interview went too long! When buying the DogEared books, I realized that I had left the other 2 books in the bathroom at Modern Times, so I went back up and got them on the way back to the car.
  
• E-Learning Book by Michael Allen - I don't remember the exact name of this book but I ordered it because I was going to apply for a job at Allen Interactions (the company founded by Michael Allen). It looks good but I haven't applied for the job yet so the book may be less practically useful than I thought.
  
• The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy. Ended up checking this out from the library to reread as I could not find it used on Valencia
  
• Dark Cities Underground and Travellers in Magic by Lisa Goldstein - also checked out from the library with the Murphy book on Thursday. I started reading Dark Cities sitting on the floor in the library stacks because I was so curious about how in the world she is going to blend children's stories, BART, etc. It is really cool - she also has Egyptian deities in the book as well.
  
• The Sign of the Book by John Dunning - I found a signed copy of this at "A Clean, Well Lighted Place for Books" while attending the SARK reading Friday 2/25, there. Dave and I really like the Bookman series but neither of us knew this one had been published. So it was a good surprise for Dave. I also bought another copy of SARK's Creative Dreams book to serve as a present for someone else.
  

Books Read:

• Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree
  
• Talking Back I just finished on 2/25 and about to blog it...
  
• New Yorker - I have a free subscription from KQED membership and have been reading it religiously along with the Newsweek free subscription.
  
• Library books get priority so the Goldstein books may be next. I still need to find Moominsummer madness and return to library... sigh...
  
• Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein - 2/26
  
• Travelers in Magic by Lisa Goldstein - 2/27
  
• The City Not Long After by Lisa Goldstein - 2/28
  

WonderCon, William Stout, Dragons, and Dinosaurs

Yesterday Dave and I went to WonderCon and saw William Stout, among many others, including Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca in "Star Wars".)
Stout illustrated the book Dinosaurs which I have from its early edition and now is rereleased as The New Dinosaurs. I could have bought a signed edition of this book for $100 at the con but since both Dave and I are unemployed, I instead had Stout sign the free "Dragons" poster above, and I bought a copy of his 2nd Dinosaur sketchbook (below).
The Dragons poster is to promote the Animal Planet series coming out on March 20 which will have CGI representations of dragons and research on the question of whether or not dragons (as pictured in world story and mythology) actually existed. Check out the link on the poster graphic above. The Animal Planet website is quite awesome and has a lot of footage from the show.

Here's Stout's Dinosaur sketchbook #2 which I bought for $15. Right after I bought this, a guy came up behind me and asked "Do I need to pay money to get your autograph?"
Stout replied, "No..." but unspoken was perhaps the thought "No, but I wish you would _want_ to buy something just because you admire my work enough to ask for an autograph."
Dave got a lot of autographs yesterday and of course we couldn't buy something from everyone but I think he tried to at least buy a couple sketches, especially from people that he admired. After I had bought the book and had Stout sign my poster, Dave arrived separately (when we were trying to meet up again after separating for awhile) and Stout also signed Dave's historic "Daily Bugle" notebook - he did another short dinosaur sketch in the book but it was one of the most detailed that anyone had done previously.

The Dinosaur sketchbook is quite awesome - it has several sketches relating to the Disney Dinosaur movie. The most interesting is to read Stout's notes in the margins about all the details of the dinosaurs he's drawing - for example, he lists the various points of difference between a female dinosaur and a male dinosaur in one drawing of a female.

Other WonderCon stuff:

(Dave also has autographs of "Jay and Silent Bob" aka Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes in the book of record, as well as Sergio Aragones, Joss Whedon, and many others). He caught Kevin (above) and Jason at the escalator as they were trying to go somewhere but had been mobbed by fans.
During Kevin's talk, he had said "I wish I could hear from more people who are just moderate fans and aren't afraid to say so" in response to one of the many questioners saying "I'm a huge fan..."
So when getting his autograph, Dave said "I'm a moderate fan..." and Kevin retorted, "Then you're certainly wasting a lot of time here then, aren't you?"

We did not get Christian Bale, star of Batman Begins and previously adored by my sister Kati. He was at the show to promote the movie and in the midst of a huge room full of people waiting to see the Batman preview, I felt unable to spend the time to tell him as directed by Kati and Julie, "There are two women in Minneapolis who are still big fans of your performance in Newsies!"

first post - Moominland Midwinter

This is my first post on my book review/reading list blog. I'm right now reading "Moominland Midwinter" by Tove Janssen.
I re-discovered Moominvalley while looking around in a Japanese stationery shop - very surprising to see that they had at least two different sets of Moomin notepaper.
Our Finnish LT tester visiting at work confirmed that Moomins are still very popular in their native Finland and in Japan.

I have four books checked out from the library right now and this is the last of them - the other three already devoured were "Tales of Moominvalley," "Moominpappa's Memoirs" and "Moominland Midsummer."
In "Moominland Midwinter," Moomintroll unexpectedly wakes up from his winter's hibernation and finds a odd snowy world - with few others awake except for Little My, the tiny Mymble, Too-ticky, and Snufkin, who is far away to the south. (He leaves every fall to migrate south - Moomintroll is trying to follow him).
Although I've already read most of these books before, I'm still surprised by various twists and turns and ingenious details that Ms. Janssen pops into these stories.
Also, having talked to some friends who are interested in writing and illustrating children's books - it sounds like these days people who can and want to both write and illustrate, as Ms. Janssen did, are soundly discouraged. Books like this could be a rarity in the future....
Unfortunately Tove Janssen passed away in 2001 at the age of 86.