How to Be a Conservative Rabbit Tale: On Polly Horvath’s Mr. and Mrs. Bunny–Detectives Extraordinaire
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I requested a review copy of Polly Horvath’s then-new children’s novel, Mr and Mrs. Bunny–Detectives Extraordinaire (2012). The quirky premise — a pair of rabbits taking on the role of detectives (duh) — gave me some strong The Rescuers vibes, and being a bit of a closet animal fantasy nerd, I figured it was up my alley. And then I promptly forgot about it until now. You’re free to call me a monster. The story splits its time between Madeline, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, and the Grand Poobah, who is mostly there to be the menacing villain. For Madeline, island life with her extreme hippy parents, Mildred and Flo, is no picnic, especially when it comes to her education and desire to fit in with “normal society.” But when her parents are kidnapped by what appears to be a car full of foxes and she discovers a note demanding to know the whereabouts of her code-breaking uncle, she must set out to save them. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, a couple of country bunnies who move to a more bustling bunny valley and decide to try their hand at being detectives, which they do by simply wearing fedoras. When they stumble upon Madeline, who can curiously understand them, they set out in their clunky way to help her find her parents and put an end to whatever the foxes are really planning. And meanwhile still, the Grand Poobah, the leader of the foxes, just wants someone to decode a set of coded recipe cards so he can make bank in his rabbit and rabbit by-products facctory. Hi-jinks ensue.
“Finding Hope”: The History Reading List
Not too long ago, I announced a little project called “Finding Hope in the Histories of the United States.” I set as a goal to begin with a series of general histories of the United States to see if understanding the full line of this country’s history can change how I understand the concept of “hope.” And now that project can finally begin! For the past few weeks, I’ve been waiting on the books I selected for the project to arrive. More particularly, the first two books in the chronology (listed below and shown at the top of the image). All the others got here in record time, but for some reason, the books I needed to even begin took a little extra time. But now the wait is over. Here’s the magic reading list for the first phase of “Finding Hope”:
The Bookening: New Reads in the Pyramid of Plenty
Alternate subtitle: A Bear Sits in My Woods! For those that don’t know, I’m a pretty big fan of Elizabeth Bear’s writing. So, too, apparently, my cat, who has spent a goodly portion of the time I’ve spent writing this post sniffing all the books. If my cat approves, then the books must be good, right! Needless to say, I bought a bunch of her books (in some cases, again). So here’s the list:
Book Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl
If Dahl were alive today, he might be particularly bothered by the fact that the 1990 adaptation of his 1983 novel, The Witches, has had the same (or, more probably, slightly more) cultural staying power than the novel it loosely adapts. Indeed, Dahl is on record as having called the adaptation “utterly appalling,” yet for a disturbing interpretation to his work, the film remains a cultural touchstone. Until now, my only knowledge of The Witches was my early experiences with the film, a product more deeply terrifying than its quirky and twisted literary predecessor. And, so, like many readers of Dahl’s works, I have a different experience of this particular work, moving backwards from adaptation to the original with a clear sense of bias towards the former. The Witches is a curious work, both quirky and a tad twisted. The novel follows an unnamed English boy who falls under the care of his Norwegian grandmother after the untimely death of his parents. The grandmother regales her newfound charge with all sorts of tales, the favorite of which are her stories about being a retired witch hunter. When his grandmother falls ill, they vacation in a fancy hotel in Southern England to promote her recovery, which turns out to be the location for the annual meeting of witches. The boy, naturally, stumbles upon the witches, discovers their dastardly plot to rid England of all the pesky children, and suffers a tragic fate that drags his grandmother out of retirement. It’s a story of evil witches and myth, children turned into mice, and the unwavering stupidity of English high society.
Project Announcement: Finding Hope in the Histories of the United States
Hope is hard to come by these days. The pandemic continues to take lives by the thousands, the U.S. political system is (at best) totally broken, Americans left and right hate one another and seem frequently incapable of agreeing on even the most agreeable things, and the various aspects of Civil Rights have not been realized. For many Americans, it all seems…hopeless. These are the same feelings I’ve experienced since 2016 on an almost daily basis. There’s this never ending sense that we live in a dystopian nightmare for which there is no end in sight. This is not helped by endless news cycles of terror and apathy and political punditry, by our social media cycles of misery, or even at the local level of politics. Hell, my small town made the news for being one of the first cities to vote to ban refugee resettlements. But is it really that hopeless? Is hope truly dead, or is there a a trend of hope throughout U.S. history that we’re ignoring? I’d like to find out.
The A-Z Book Survey: Or, Now You’ll Know My Secrets
The blog adventure continues. Today, I’m taking on the A-Z Book Survey, which I found on The Perpetual Page-Turner blog (run by Jamie!). It’s an oldie, but since it appears on the Blog Challenge Project masterlist, I figured fun should override currency. Below, you shall find some vaguely amusing insights into my reading interests and habits. You may use this information for nefarious purposes if you so choose. Here goes: