Bookshelf Archives
I wonder whatever happened to the monkey. And the horse …
Two thoughts that occured to me when I heard that Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking (or Långstrump, as she was known in Swedish) died yesterday at the age of 94. I mean, remember that horse — the one who would follow the little redhead around, with a look on his face like he knew that somehow he’d get blamed for something? How the heck did the 14-year-old daughter of a South Sea pirate get a horse? That South Seas connection means the monkey make more sense, but then I’m forced to wonder where a kid gets monkey food in Western Europe. (I was going to put “in the suburbs of London,” ‘cause I’d always thought that’s where the books were set. On reflection, though, it’s more likely to be the suburbs of Stockholm or something, right?)
Anyway, I think I enjoyed the books because of those note of utter bizarreness — the gold coins, the monkey, the horse, the coffee fetish. All in all, you gotta admit, Pippi is a kinda strange role model for librarians to be pushing on kids.
Actually, I wonder how old Pippi is now …. hey, if you know of any freckle-faced red-haired girls that swill coffee and hand out gold coins, let me know
I really don’t get this. I don’t understand their thought processes, I don’t understand their publicity-grubbing ways, and I really don’t understand their hatred of Harry.
The only thing I can understand is their motivations: the typical rationale behind such activities is a desire to “please God by getting rid of things that don’t please God.” What absolutely confounds me is the thought process that leads to the belief that tossing Disney videos, Harry Potter books and items containing “witchcraft things, the paranormal” on a bonfire is the way to meet this goal. If you don’t literature dealing with fantasy themes, fine; don’t buy it. (And just to make sure you’re never offended, don’t get anything by Christian authors and scholars such as, say, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien or Stephen Lawhead.)
So what do you think about book burning?
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a…fraid.”
Wow. 01.01.01. Welcome to the new millennium.
Now, I want a personal jet pack. I was promised a personal jet pack.
Heck, we already have Captain Kirk’s communicator and robot dogs. So somebody had darn well better get me a jet pack and — oh, yeah — a treadmill leading to my flying car. And I wouldn’t mind a time machine that looks like a phone booth or a guide to touring the galaxy on five Altarian dollars a day, either.