Frightening Book!

Daughter gave me a book for my birthday, and I am reading it.

It has me on the edge of my seat with anxiety.

Not because of the mystery, for it is a mystery book. It's not because of mystery trap doors in an alleged haunted house, missing keys, hidden passages, etc. It's because of the mother.

She has seven year old twins. She goes shopping in a four story department store, and she tells the children to look about the store while she shops for linens. They go off on their on. They are Seven. Years. Old.

After school, they leave and run about town with their siblings, who are also twins, age ten.

The kids all ramble around this deserted house, while a burglar is lurking. One of the children falls down the steps and is unconscious. No one calls an ambulance, or tells the parents. Instead one of the older kids goes back into the school and gets a wet towel to put on the unconscious child's forehead. The child, while in the schoolhouse, mentions it to the principal, who also does nothing.

There's a school bully who throws rocks and actually hits one of the kids in the head. Since no one will confess, no one gets in trouble, even though the teacher knows who did it. As far as I know, there is no sharing of this information with the parents.

See what I mean? Where is DFACS dealing with the neglect these children are suffering? Where are EMT's ambulances, etc. while a child lies unconscious? Where is school involvement with bullying?

I'm telling you, "The Bobbsey Twins of Lakeport" is making me a nervous wreck.

I don't know if I"ll be able to finish reading it; it's just too horrifying and hard on my nerves.

Bookworm

I admit it. I am a bookworm.

I have been a bookworm since I started reading. I was, really, before I could even read. I knew in my heart that's what I was, and I yearned to read so badly I could taste it.

I loved the book "Hiawatha", which was really a poem "The Song of Hiawatha", by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Of course, at age five, I didn't know that. Someone had taken the poem and put it in a child's book, illustrating it to look like a children's book.

I wanted it read every night. My mother got so sick of it, she hid the book and claimed she had no idea where it was.

Where is DFACS when you need them?

The first book that struck awe in my heart was "Winnie the Pooh", sitting innocently on the library shelf. I was in second grade. The book was 161 pages, a veritable tome.

I loved it. And I have loved big old books ever since. The bigger the better!

Some of my favorite big books: "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin, "Outlander" (and the rest that follow) by Diana Gabaldon, all the "Harry Potter" books, by J. K. Rowling, "The Stand" by Stephen King. The list could grow fat, too, like the books.

I actually have a list of very good books, so that when friends say, "Can you recommend a book to me?" I not only can, I do.

A friend and I were talking about books today, and we ahhed over many a book and many an author.

There are some authors that simply rise above the rest. Their writing is better than other writers. Craig Johnson comes to mind, whose first book is "The Cold Dish". You need to read his books in order, as they are about the life of a man. I understand they have been made into a TV show. I've not seen it. Don't want to mess up my books.

If you have a book that's the best ever, let me know.

I'm always open for one more friend on the shelf.

In fact, I can hardly wait!

My, How Things Have Changed!

When I was about six or so, I got hick'ry switched all the way from my neighbors yard into my house.

Abuse! I hollered (okay, not really, it was more like WAHHHH!) But you can bet nobody called DFACS.

I was switched because my buddies in crime, Bob and Meg, and I were in their grandmother's  yard on their swing set singing to the top of our lungs.

Now, the song we sang, for us, was pure bathroom humor. If you recall, that is the top of the line funny for  kids that age. I'm not sure why, but it is a standard truth. I bet kids one hundred years ago snickered about knickers and outhouses.

I certainly had no clue that it  had sexual undertones, because, a: I didn't know sexual from bat and b: I had no idea what an undertone was.

It was apparent the parents knew the meaning to both words, hence the hick'ry switching.

Close your eyes and remember the tune that you always hear the Indian (from India) play on his flute, as he sits, legs crossed, and watches a basket in front of him. Slowly a cobra comes swaying out, all because of that hypnotic tune. Remember it?

Okay, to that tune, here are the words to the song we were singing lustily:

There's a dance in France
Where the women wear no pants
And the  men go 'round
With their britches hanging down.

Now?

Now, it's just a fashion statement saying: Welcome to America! Our youth has lost it's minds and parents close their eyes!

Sigh.

I must be getting old.