While You're Waiting For Me To Write Something Substantive

I have more Getting Serious About Humor posts to do, but they require a little more thought and effort than I have in me right now, because I am within weeks of finishing the first draft of a book I've been working on for four years. I truly know what that saying about horses picking up the pace when they're within sight of their barn means. It's all I want to put time and work into right now.

In the meantime, I can tell you that I've been reading Julia Child's memoir, My
Life in France . When I started it, I wondered when Julia would mention her cat, Minette, who got her own book in 2012 with Susanna Reich's Minette's Feast. (What happened to my copy? Je ne sais pas!) She mentioned her very early on, and Minette keeps coming up.

On a kind of related note, I've been becoming friendly on Facebook with one of my second cousins in Ottawa. I've known her mother, my first cousin once removed, I believe, for years. Yesterday she mentioned Frenglish, in which she says her family is fluent. As in she can toujour  tell when sa mere is speaking to sa tante sur le telephone, because she never uses a complete sentence dan either langue. My French est plus mauvais, so maintenant I'm thinking peut-etre Frenglish should be my goal.

However, there is something else called Franglais, and if you scroll down on this article, you'll see it's not the same as what is spoken in Canada, presumably the Frenglish of which ma cousine spoke.

I may be becoming more confused. I should just go back to working on that livre.

A Lovely Surprise About Light

Copy provided by NetGalley

Publication Date: April 18, 2023

Christine Layton followed me on Twitter earlier this year. Before following her back, I checked her out and saw that she is a writer with a book publishing in a few months. Wouldn't you know it, Netgalley was offering an ARC. As I have said before, sometimes social media interactions work.

Light Speaks, by Christine Layton and illustrated by Luciana Navarro Powell is a beautiful book, both visually and in its short, poetic text. It deals with the many ways humans experience light, beginning with the light that comes from the sun to wake us in the morning. It covers both natural light and humanmade. It would make a terrific read-aloud, both for a group but also one-to-one, with an adult who can talk about things like the satellites, lightening, and fireworks that appear in the book. 

Light Speaks may end up being a gift for a child in the Gauthier family. 

The Bad Mood

Copy provided by NetGalley

Publication November 16, 2021

The Bad Mood by Moritz Petz with illustrations by Amelie Jackowski looks as if it was originally published in 2004 in Switzerland. In fact, the end paper says it's a "beloved classic."  It's a beautiful book about a badger who wakes up in a bad mood and thoughtlessly spreads it to everyone he meets. He then has to fix things.

What I particularly like about this book is that Badger's mood lifts, not because someone points out the error of his ways, but because the mood "slipped right off him" while he's working outside. There's no lecture here about the value of physical activity on the mind, but we do see something positive happening.

Nor is there a lecture on making things right with those you've wronged. Again, we just see it happening.

Show, through story and image, don't tell. A lovely book.

Another Badger book is coming next April.
 

Finally Read One Of My Christmas Books

Last year I asked for and received a copy of Company's Going by Arthur Yorinks with illustrations by David Small. It looks as if it was a 2001 publication that was rereleased in 2018. I finally read it a couple of weeks ago, because, you know, reading a picture book is so much effort.

I'm sorry to have missed Company's Going the first time it was published, because it's a sequel to Company's Coming, which also appears to have been rereleased in 2018. Company's Coming had a huge impact on my life, as I explained in a 2015 OC post. Basically, what happened was:

"The day after I read it to my sons, it inspired my short story, How Mom Saved the Planet, which was later published in Cricket Magazine. And another version of How Mom Saved the Planet became the first chapter of my first book, My Life Among the Aliens. I may not have had a writing career, if not for Company's Coming."

So, yes, big deal for Gail.  

Company's Going picks up with the same characters from Company's Coming, except now Moe and Shirley's alien guests are so taken with Shirley's cooking that they invite her to cater a wedding back on their home world. It's just as terrific as the first book.

Interesting point: My Life Among the Aliens also had a sequel, Club Earth. Both books were a series of stories about Will and Rob, whose mom's over-the-top healthy cooking attracts aliens. In their case, though, the aliens came to them. 

Another interesting point: Both the Company books are examples of picture books with no human characters and no animals characters filling in for humans. I don't see that a lot.

Both of what I call the Will and Rob books have human characters. And aliens, of course.