Black Stallion by Walter Farley
A boy and a horse survive a shipwreck. They go together and the horse becomes extremely fast. They try to find a pedigree but cannot. He eventually races and beats the fastest horses. It is an underdog rags to riches tale with a horse.
A family of ducks makes a home in Boston. After the ducklings hatch, they march down the road to return to their favorite water. The police force all scramble to help them cross the road. It has nice stories and illustration.
Jorge el Curioso by H.A. Ray
This is Curious George in Spanish. It doesn't go easy with the words. Some I didn't recognize. (But perhaps I didn't know the dialect.) The pictures are all the same. It is fun to read out loud to practice Spanish reading. "Monocito" just has a nice ring to it.
Curious George (1941)
Curious George Takes a Job (1947)
Curious George Rides a Bike (1952)
Curious George Gets a Medal (1957)
Curious George Flies a Kite (1958)
Curious George Learns the Alphabet (1963)
Curious George Goes to the Hospital (1966)
This collection has all the original Curious George books. They are of a higher quality than the newer stories by other authors. They also have various elements that would not be considered appropriate today. In the first book, George is found by the Man with the Yellow Hat in Africa. He smokes a pipe and then eagerly goes to the zoo. In all the books, George gets in trouble in various ways due to his curiosity. However, he always manages to get out of the trouble - often by using some of the same skills that got him in trouble in the first place.
These stories are quite old. Some look data. In Curious George Gets a Medal, George is the first animal to bail out of a rocket in space. This was before the space program had really taken off. In others, they just show a time of the past. In Curious George Rides a Bike, George gets a bike that he rides around. He later takes over a friends paper route, breaks his bike, and then joins an animal circus. He gets banished from the circus, then rescues a bear and gets to join. Everyone in the town knows each other and forgives him for not delivering their papers.
While he sometimes seems to be in a bucolic small town, other times he is in the middle of a big city. However, everyone still seems to know each other.
The collection includes CDs that include the audiobook versions of the stories. These include background music for almost the entire time.
The "Learns the Alphabet" was my least favorite. It seemed to be too slow and the pictures formed with letters was forced. For my favorite, I'd pick the first, though the early ones were all good.
The Long Ships (originally Röde Orm in Swedish) is a viking epic set around AD 1000. The vikings have what would seem today as naive view of the world around them. They have a great sense of loyalty, and take what comes to them. The main goal is to seek out plunder and women to support themselves and their crew. However, with this lifestyle comes the likelihood of death or slavery.
The protagonists of the main religions of the day. A Jew helps lead them to a a great deal of plunder. However, they later fall victim to a Muslim leader who enslaves them. They take what happens. One viking is able to pick up the language. The vikings fight valiantly for their Islamic leader, adopt his religion and save his life. Eventually, the time arises for them to escape and they commandeer a ship to return home.
Back home, there are bouts of armed combat to resolve issues (often leading to the death of the loser.) Christianity has come to Scandinavia and many vikings convert. They often take a practical view to the religion. In Iberia, they convert to Islam as that god seems strong there. Later they convert to Christianity to restore their luck. Sometimes there are bits of confusion with the different religions. The strong loyalty to family and one's word is often the predominant factor in guiding their life decisions regardless of the current religion.
The book is episodic, with many of the sections easily standing alone. The style seems to have been an inspiration for the Brotherband books by John Flanagan
I like Borges' style. I expected something much more pretentious, but I was pleasantly surprised. Borges has a playful knack for blending fiction with "nonfiction". The characters in a story may talk with an author. He may also provide a backstory for events in fictional works or even describe how something really happened. Characters may suddenly have something "magical" happen in a realistic story. This seems to be at the roots of magical realism, yet it is also reminded me of Kafka. In this collection we get the famous "Library of Babel" as well as many other "stories". There are a few that fall flat, but even those have their redeeming points.
On our recent roadtrip, we listened to Freddy and the Ignormus. (Surprisingly, Amazon doesn't even list this CD audiobook, but they will try to sell you the Audible version.) The narrator was the same narrator who did Kafka, so it was a little getting used to him doing a kid's book.
