The Cheshire Cheese Cat

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale, by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright with Drawings by Barry Moser, is a delightful read. People who are familiar with Charles Dickens' writings will be amused by the clever use of him and his works. People who are not will still have much to love in this book.

We begin by meeting Skilly, a street cat who has a past he'd like to forget and a secret that he doesn't want to share. His introduction rings familiar to audiences everywhere: "He was the best of toms. He was the worst of toms."

With every protagonist (hero), we must have an antagonist (villain), so we then meet Pinch. Also a cat, he's the worst. Pinch is mean and nasty, a cat you wouldn't like to cross.

Then we have Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. This is a pub, famous for the best cheese in London (Cheshire cheese, of course), and a place where writers (such as Charles Dickens) liked to sit and write. The Cheese (as the pub is known) is looking for a mouser. It seems there are a surplus of mice living in The Cheese, and the landlord would like to keep them under control. Skilly takes a bold approach and enters (with a notable author) through the front door. He succeeds in catching a mouse nearly immediately, and is 'hired' on.

Now, we meet Pip. After catching his first mouse, Skilly finds privacy in another room to finish it off. Only here's where things get interesting. Skilly has no interest in eating the mouse. In fact, he lets him down, unharmed. The mouse is, of course, Pip. After the initial shock and fright leaves him, Pip and Skilly have a chat. Pip discovers Skilly's secret, and the two of them come to an agreement as to how they are going to live peacefully in The Cheese.

But that isn't really the half of it. There's adventure, suspense, surprise, mysterious visitors, authors with writers-block, bravery, and great acts of heroism. It's a great read, full of twists and turns at every corner. Just when you think you know what's coming, there's something new ahead of you. This is a great book that is recommended for readers ages 8 to 99 (or higher!). It's a fun little story that will have you turning the pages for more. For younger readers (or those who need a little brush up on their vocabulary) there is a glossary at the end that will help with some of those words that may be new or unfamiliar. It is certainly a book that I will be reaching for again.

Bradbury Friday: Night Call, Collect

Night Call, Collect is found in a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury called I Sing the Body Electric! and can also be found in The Stories of Ray Bradbury. 

This story takes place on Mars in the year 2097. Sixty years earlier, in 2037, the atomic wars started on Earth, and all people were called home from Mars to help. Emil Barton was left behind. Twenty years old, left alone on an empty planet. So, here sits Barton, eighty years old, alone for 60 years, when the phone rings. It is Barton. Twenty years old. Young Barton explains how he passed the time, living in all the houses, plenty of food and books. He began creating recordings of his voice. Set it up on timers and relays, with voice cues to allow him to have a conversation with himself.

There were a thousand voices created, put out on speakers to make it sound like there were people in towns. And then, he set up recordings, to call himself sixty years later. But it seems that young Barton was rather cruel, not realizing that he might actually still be there, the conversations not entirely friendly as he called old Barton.

This story is one that really makes you think. You have to feel sorry for a man who's been alone for a lifetime. No one to talk to but himself. And yet, maybe talking to himself wasn't such a good idea...

Here is the introduction from the NPR Broadcast. If you are interested hearing in the whole recording, you can buy it at twilightzoneradio.com, just click on the Bradbury 13 link and select the story you want.

ThePianoGuys: Linus and Lucy

I think this may be my favorite video.

Bradbury Friday: The Martian Chronicles

We are going to take a little side trip from the Bradbury 13 stories. Here is why. The story I was going to do today is called "Night-Call Collect." I had written on my notes that it was from the book I Sing the Body Electric! and based on a story by another name in The Martian Chronicles. While I was at the library looking for books, I did not find I Sing the Body Electric! But I did find The Martian Chronicles. So I pulled that book. I noted the story "The Silent Towns" was in this book, and thinking it was "Night-Call Collect," I brought it home.

Monday this week, I pulled out The Martian Chronicles.  I read the introduction, written by Ray Bradbury, and was intrigued at the prospect of the book as a whole. Mr. Bradbury had not intended to write an entire novel of Martian stories. He merely had written, over a few years, what he called "Martian pense'es, Shakespearian 'asides,' wandering thoughts, long night visions, predawn half-dreams. I laid out my pense'es in no special order or plan and entombed them with two dozen other tales. ... Walter Bradbury (no relation) suggested that I might have woven an unseen tapestry. 'All those Martian tales,' he suggested, 'can't you needle-and-thread them, stich them up into The Martian Chronicles?'" So he did.

Well, this idea that here was a book of collected stories, which could stand alone, are woven together to complete a whole story compelled me to read the book in its entirety. So, I did. I began on Monday. "The Silent Towns" is near the end of the book. I figured I'd reach it on Thursday and be ready for my post today. Well, I did. But "The Silent Towns" is not "Night-Call Collect." The story starts somewhat the same, but the outcome, the phone calls, all that makes "Night-Call Collect" what it is, well, it isn't there in "The Silent Towns." Basically, if we are calling it 'based' on "The Silent Towns," well, it's loosly based.

So then I debated about whether I should hurry to the library today and find out if they have a copy of I Sing the Body Electric! or do a story from the other book that I have. But that one is also a "book-of-stories-pretending-to-be-a-novel" that I wanted to read from start to finish, too. So, I decided that I'll just tell you what I thought about The Martian Chronicles today, and next week, we'll get back to our regularly scheduled program.

The Martian Chronicles is a very interesting book. Some stories are chilling, some are thinkers, and some make you take a good hard look at how we live our lives. It is set from the year 2030 through the year 2057. It's funny to me to think how little our world looks like Ray Bradbury thought it would in the 2000's. Automated houses, rockets leaving Earth all the time, people striving to find another planet to live on, censorship, tyranny, wars. Bradbury had the books burned, starting in 1999 through 2006. We're past that time frame, and thankfully, censorship isn't so strong that books are no longer allowed, even in a private home. And yet look at some of the technology that we have, which was something of science fiction in 1948.

In 2030, Earth sends a 2 man expedition to Mars. Scout the place. See if it's livable. They never hear back from those men. Six months later, the next rocket has 4 men. When Earth doesn't hear from them after they touch down on Mars, they prepare a new rocket. 8 months later, the third expedition arrives, containing 17 men. But there is still no word. The next rocket arrives more than a year later, this time with 20 men. This has to be it. The mission must make it! Well, Captian Wilder and his men find a dead planet. Cities full of old Martian homes, some long dead, others with bodies. Only dead a few weeks. What killed them Martians? The medical examiner has discovered Chicken Pox has wiped out these thriving Martian cities. So, the other men did get here! Brought a foreign disease, and wiped out the natives.

The rest of the stories range from people on Earth, planning to move to Mars to get away from war, and people on Mars, living their lives, and perhaps wondering if they'll have to return to help with the war. As always, there are twists and turns. Each story could stand on its own, but they are woven together, reference one another, and form a novel. The ending is strange, somewhat tragic. But each story holds a little bit of magic. There is something about a really great story. And this book if full of them.