Punch with Judy

Punch with Judy by Avi

A boy is orphaned and ends up with a traveling troop. This includes a girl, Judy. They find themselves in trouble with the law. They try to reach the New York state line, but don't quite make it before the law catches up with them. However, by the time they are reached must of the crimes are irrelevant. (Judy got married and now has a different last name.) Only Punch, being an underage orphan is in trouble with the law. However, they hatch an agreement that he will be free if they make the authority laugh. They put on a show that will use a "slapstick" as part of the comedy. The stick will make a loud sound by not hurt. However, in the middle of the show, the "block" that makes it work comes out, and Judy ends up slapping Punch for real. All is good because the cops have cracked up and they are now free. They were a "real life" Punch and Judy show. The historical setting made it a bit hard to get into.

Wag the Dog: A Novel

Wag the Dog: A Novel by Larry Beinhart

This was originally called American Hero and later reissued as Wag the Dog after the name of the movie based on the book. This is something about politicians staging a "fake war" to help get re-elected. However, this part barely appears. Instead, it is mostly about a detective and a movie star. It rambled on and tried to blur the line between fact and fiction. 

The Danny and the Dinosaur Treasury: Three Huge Adventures

The Danny and the Dinosaur Treasury: Three Huge Adventures by Syd Hoff

This treasury includes

Danny the Dinosaur (1958)

Happy Birthday, Danny and the Dinosaur (1985)

Danny and the Dinosaur Go to Camp (1996)

I'm a bit baffled about the dates. Everywhere I see claims the Goes to Camp was copyright 1996, yet this treasury was clearly copyrighted in 1993. There is no additional copyright date shown for the two additional stories.

The original story is half the book. The other two are half the length of that book. There is a huge gap in time from when they were written, yet the stories could easily fit in the same time line.

In the first, Danny runs into the dinosaur in the museum. It is just natural for everyone to do things with the dinosaur.

In the next, Danny is celebrating a birthday, so the dinosaur does too.

In the final, the kids go to camp. The dinosaur makes camp a lot of fun in a different way.

The later stories do continue in the same spirit of normalcy with the absurd.

Magic Tree House Books 1-8

Magic Tree House Books 1-8 by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie stumble across a magic tree house near their home in Pennsylvania. There are books there. When they look at a book and wish they end up in the place shown. They need the book of their home to go back. They go on some adventures and see they are accompanied by some animals. These often help them, and may be people in disguise. They discover that this is a set up form Morgan Le Fay from King Arthur time. She was a librarian with many books and they are able to help her escape from a curse. The books have some charm, but start to get old when read together.

1. Dinosaurs Before Dark - they see animals including a TRex

2. The Knight at Dawn - they go to the time of knights with 40 pound helmets

3.  Mummies in the Morning - they explore mummies and get lost in false passages in a tomb

4. Pirates Past Noon - they help pirates read a map to find treasure. They leave before getting the treasure due to a storm

5. Night of the Ninjas - they see boy and girl ninjas

6. Afternoon on the Amazon - in the amazon, they need to watch out for dangerous animals

7. Sunset of the Sabertooth - back in the time of sbertooth tigers

8. Midnight on the Moon - a future trip to a moon man before they finally free Morgan Le Fey

Junie B. Jones Collection, Books 1-4

 Junie B. Jones Collection, Books 1-4 by Barbara Park

The books in this collection:

#1: Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus:

#2: Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business:

#3: Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth

#4: Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying

Junie B. Jones is an opinionated young girl who is starting kindergarten. In the books she learns that things are a bit different when you start kindergarten. She interprets things a bit too literally. One day she really needs to go to the bathroom. It is an "emergency", so she pulls the fire alarm. When she gets a new baby brother, she hears grandma call him a cute little monkey and assumes that her brother really is a monkey - and has classmates pay her for the privilege of seeing the monkey brother. She also learns to not jump to conclusions. She sees her teacher eat a grape and assume she is a criminal that will go to jail. She tried to hide the secret, but accidentally blurts it out. Junie B. can be funny, but does get annoying.

Barnyard Dance!

Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boynton

The animals do a barnyard dance. It is a type of called-out square dance with different animals in each role. It is not very memorable. 

Donkeys Can't Sleep in Bathtubs and Other Crazy Laws

Donkeys Can't Sleep in Bathtubs and Other Crazy Laws by Susan Dach and Patrick M. Reynolds

The book lists a number of crazy laws. Many of these are things that can't be done on Sunday or details of interactions with horses. These were probably more relevant when there were blue laws or horses were primary means of transport. Others are "made funny" by pointing out what is left out. (One mentions many animals that can't be had in apartments, but notes that elephants were not excluded.) It is a short book that can be picked up and read in any section.

Little Red Riding Hood (Favorite Fairy Tales)

Little Red Riding Hood (Favorite Fairy Tales) by Rochelle Larkin (Retold) (Author), Alan Leiner (Illustrator)

The illustrations in this book are bright and simple. That is the best thing it has going for it. The tale of Little Red Riding Hood has a happy ending. Instead of eating the grandmother, the wolf just puts her in the closet. Then a hunter comes to rescue Little Red Riding Hood and the Grandma when they screen. Doesn't this defeat the moral of the story?

Gecko Hide and Seek

Gecko Hide and Seek by Gill McBarnet

This is a "find the gecko" book. There are 10 scenes (from 1 to 10) with the equivalent number of geckos. Then at the end there is a 1-10 count of geckos. It can be fun to count the geckos, but that is all that there is.

The Kissing Hand

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, illustrated by Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak

Baby racoon doesn't want to go away. Mom kisses his hand, and now he can feel his "kissing hand" any time he feels lonely and needs comfort. The illustrations are nice, but the book tries too hard to have a message.

Amazing Animal Babies (Eyewitness Junior)

Amazing Animal Babies (Eyewitness Junior) by Christopher Maynard

Each page has a bigger picture of a certain animal, with a number of smaller pictures. It has a lot of text, making it more like a reference book. We just identified the main pictures of animals and skipped most of the text.

2010 books read: Candide, Undaunted Courage, Speaker for the Dead, Arcadia

[Separated out from original post from 2/24/10]

 Voltaire - Candide. (1759) Life is a Journey, not a destination. Everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong, yet Candide remains an optimist. He even gives up on the city of gold and peace to try to find and marry the girl of his dreams. Through it all, he keeps on a face of naieve optimism. Alas, even that starts to go wrong, but he remains happy until he finally sinks in to a dull life on the farm. Finally the "lack of something bad" becomes the one thing that makes him question the "best of all possible worlds". It turns out that bad things actually kept life interesting. It is monotony that is the true bad.

Voltaire takes hilarious jabs at royalty, church hierarchy, society, and just about everybody. Its amazing that it survived all these years. As I was going through it, I kept hearing Bernstein's Candide overture in my head. So, I listened to the CD and ... well, I still don't have anything more than the overture going through my head.

Stephen E. Ambrose - Undaunted Courage. (1996) This is primarily a biography of Merriweather Lewis, with extensive coverage of the Lewis and Clark exploration. The superlatives and endless complements of Lewis get tiring. It reads more like a family tale, attempting to place the family member in the most positive light, with his adventures being the most important in the world. The laudatory prose gets very tiring.

Orson Scott Card - Speaker For the Dead (1986)
This is much better than Ender's Game. The story telling is much more "together" and riveting. It presents some interesting questions. Humans secure intergalatic peace, and in doing so bring their technological and social evolution to a veritable 3000 year stand still. When they do encounter other intelligent life, they look at it through there own condescending eyes. They don't realize that the others may have many abilities that they don't recognize. Furthermore, they also expose the futility of an "observe, not disturb" mantra in science. Any observation will lead to some change in the observed, even if the observer does not notice them.
Then there is the human interaction aspect. A quest to eliminate potential harm may bring about many external damages - while still letting the undesired harm take place.


Tom Stoppard - Arcadia (1993)
This funny play is filled with mathematical references, while at the same time taking jabs at literary critics and biographers. History is storytelling through the eyes of the historian. Their biases and time period can have a significant impact on the story that they tell. I think I'll be exploring other Stoppard plays.

Introduction to Graph Theory (Dover Books on Mathematics)

I think I liked the original title, Dots and Lines, better. However, Introduction to Graph Theory was what I was searching for. This book is getting close to 50 years old. However, the basics of graph theory still remain. Perhaps the only part that caught me off guard was the mention that the 4-color problem had not been proved. Alas, when I got to the end, the author corrected this with mention of the proof. (It came out right around the time this book was published.) 

The book targets a more general audience than just mathematicians. However, it does not skimp on rigor. The opening chapter starts with an introduction to "pure mathematics". The author desires that we can find the joy in math that mathematicians find, and not get bogged down with mechanics.  There are plenty of detailed proofs and exercises in the book. At times the book gets pretty deep into the nitty-gritty. However, it will often then bounce back out to more easily acceptable prose. I found it to be a good introduction to graph theory. It contained enough detail to fill in basic understanding gaps and seems to have a good chunk of problems to go through on a re-read.

Story of Electricity

History has been understood to some extent long before Franklin and his kit flying. There was some confusion in how it worked (with Amber and electricity seeming similar.) This audiobook presents a quick run through of the discovery and understanding of electricity. A basic understanding was used for a traveling sideshow performances. (Of course - entertainment is the first venue for new tech.) The audiobook provides dramatized voicing to help enliven the history. Unfortunately, it comes across as just a rushed recitation of facts rather than a coherent story.

Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold

The Imaginary Cuckold is a short Moliere comedy. An event occurs. Somebody sees it out of context and interpret it as something different and then overreact. This causes others to overreact, and soon everything spins out of control. In the end, everybody comes back to their senses and the girl marries the boy of her dreams.

It is simple, short and funny and very accessible.

Forward the Foundation

Forward the Foundation is the final book that Asimov published. It deals with Hari Seldon as he ages and develops his psychohistory. Along the way, he sees almost everyone close to him leave this world before him. His wife is shown to be a robot and destroyed by somebody that didn't like her. (This book hints at her super-human strength and lack of aging, but he appear to not know that she is one until her destruction.) The "robot" minister leaves (leaving Hari as the minister.) The emperor is assassinated. His closest psychohistory coworker dies from overwork. His adopted son dies in a rebellion, while his daughter-in-law and one daughter are "lost in space." Hari himself eventually dies at the end.

The galactic empire gradually starts to fall apart. Asimov appears to be espousing some of his politics in the view of how it happens. The beauracracy (and especially taxation mechanism) grows too big. Dissafection and corruption within lead to major events without. Police and security become too independent. Democratic institutions slow real progress.

Eventually, Hari discovers that his granddaughter is a mind reader. She locates some other "mentalics" and these people are used to set up the second foundation. They also use their power of persuasion to help get access to the library and get the funds needed to set up the first foundation to create the galactic encyclopedia at the end of Galaxy.

The "science fiction" in this story is rather weak. Computers are seen as something through the "mainframe age", seeming to be less advanced than they are today. Asimov's obsession with robots grants them strange significance. Psychohistory does seem somewhat plausible. However, it is more an issue with getting all the needed datapoints than crafting intricate equations. (and why would people care so much about it?) Mind reading and pushing? Yeah I guess that could be interesting.

The story is, however, more about growing old. Hari is concerned with his age. We have sections as he reaches each decade of life. The "big picture" events in the plot all seem a little too contrived to be believable. A few people always seem to know exactly what needs to be done at a certain point in time, whether for good or for bad. The dumb luck and predictive power play too important of a role to be believable. In the end, Seldon manages to survive to create the foundation that can save the world from millenia of fighting. But, he still dies. It makes for an ok story. (At least he wasn't hunting for earth!) However, missing it is no great loss.