Mind Blown! My worlds just collided!

Ok, so I love Hugh Dancy. Anyone who's been around long enough and is a professed anglophile knows him as Daniel Deronda and I adored him as the prince in Ella Enchanted with Anne Hathaway. 

Yes, I've also seen him as Will Graham in the tv series Hannibal that, for me, just didn't work. I'd rather take the movie Red Dragon any day of the week than that series and not even Dancy could save it.

What I had never in a million years expected was for Hugh Dancy to become the new lawyer for the district attorney's office in Law and Order! First off, I didn't realize until recently that they had actually started it up again after a decade hiatus. That's impressive. So, naturally, the lawyer we left off with 10 years ago isn't going to be the same one now.

Hugh Dancy as Nolan Price

But HUGH DANCY! Wow, I totally did not see that coming.

He's a good actor and always seems to give a pretty solid performance so I'm hopeful for him here.

I hear rumors, though, of the series delving more into his character's personal life, so I'm not entirely sold on that idea. The unique part of Law and Order is that they just never did that, minus the occasional personal remark that let the audience get a glimpse of who they were outside the office. I prefer that businesslike approach to the series, so we'll see what my thoughts are as they traverse more personal roads.

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CCLP Reads: The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (1965)

To my surprise, I enjoyed The Black Cauldron more than The Book of Three. Some of my issues with the first installment weren't really a problem in the second. Eilonwy seems to be mellowing, but I suppose that only makes sense since it's been about a year between books one and two. Taran is as noble as ever. There's event a sense of Taran coming into his own, overcoming the stigma that comes along with being of a lower rank. There is more to heroism than being a warrior. Although I do still think Lloyd Alexander followed some of the same basic plot ideas as Tolkien. A fellowship of individuals who set out on a quest to retrieve an item of great power and evil and destroy it? I'm sure Tolkien isn't the first to come up with the idea, but still, I wish Lloyd Alexander had deviated just a little bit more. Even the "villainous" character of Ellidyr, who I do greatly pity just like Taran does, behaves quite a lot like Boromir.

Anyway, there is less objectionable content than in the The Black Cauldron Disney film, even with the three enchantresses who are a version of The Fates from Greek mythology. In the film, there are some serious issues, but in the book, there's no changing into frogs and no frogs falling into an enchantress's cleavage. So I was glad. It's a sad story, and a few of the companions do die, although not the main group of 4 characters from The Book of Three, so Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, and Fflewddur live to the end. A new favorite character of mine, sadly, didn't make it through to the end of the story, which is a shame. He was lovely, patient, and gracious.

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CCLP Reads: The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (1964)

My only prior experience with Lloyd Alexander is the rather terrifying 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron. I've watched it multiple times and still don't really like it. I was hoping that I might feel different about the book series, The House of Prydain, that the movie was based on.

Taran is an assistant pig-keeper for a pig named Hen Wen who can somehow tell the future, so she's called an oracular pig. Long story short, the Horned King is a terrifying enemy and a servant of Arawn, Death-Lord of Annuvin. When The Horned King comes close to Taran's home, all the animals make a run for it, including Hen Wen, and Taran, loyal boy that he is, chases her. He has one adventure after another, bumping into the cornw prince of Prydain named Gwydion. They travel together for a while, still searching for Hen Wen, but also now needing to reach Caer Dathyl, a home castle base as it were, of the Horned King's movements. Enter Gurgi, a bizarre, half-human and half-animal creature who is surprisingly loyal to Taran and Taran's develops a fondness for him, especially when Taran provides him with his "munchings and crunchings" as a reward for his help. There's a capture that happens, Taran's locked up, he meets a girl named Eilonwy who is by far one of the most annoying female characters I've ever encountered, but she manages to free him. It really just goes on and on, so for such a short book, it crams a lot into it.

I really wish I could say that I liked it, but all the way through I couldn't stop thinking that it was a poor substitute for Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I mean, it really is a bit of a knock-off. Maybe that wasn't Alexander's intent, but that's what happened, even down to these flying creatures who serve the Death Lord and Gurgi, who's a slightly tamer version of Gollum. It's interesting, but as a child if I'd read it, I wouldn't have liked it much. I don't like the idea of oracular pigs and word sticks being used to tell the future, especially not in children's fiction. And I genuinely disliked Eilonwy, the lone "good" female character. That girl prattles and rattles and believes she knows best and holds grudges, and is just downright obnoxious. She's arrogant and insufferable and one of the reasons I dislike her is because some of her traits are some of the ones I don't like about myself, so yeah, they always say the characters we dislike the most are the ones we resemble (even if it's just slightly), so there you go.

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CCLP Read: The Borrowers by Mary Norton (1952)

Yay, The Borrowers is my first read for the Classic Children's Literature Party that I'm hosting!

If you've never read this delightful book then I highly encourage it! I just bought the boxed set of the first four novels last year and did read them last year, and I can honestly they are some of my favorites, with the first book, The Borrowers, being an absolute classic. I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it this month.

The story follows a family of tiny people, known as Borrowers, who live in the houses of big people, meaning us. This family has Pod Clock, his wife Homily, and their only daughter Arrietty. They're probably the size of 1/12 dollhouse people, and so their belongings are a hodgepodge of items they've created, such as Arrietty's bedroom that's made of two cigar boxes, or things they've borrowed and repurposed, like the cog they use for their fireplace. They live under the kitchen floor in an old Victorian house, and their only entry too and from their home is under the enormous Grandfather Clock that must never be moved or it might stop working.

Arrietty is a lover of adventure, and a quite educated girl, for a Borrower. She even knows how to read and to write, and she has tiny Tom Thumb editions of certain books that she peruses regularly. Unfortunately for Arrietty, she has reached that frustrating age of feeling stifled, so just hitting the teenage years, which I myself remember quite well. Arrietty so desperately wants to be allowed to go borrowing with her father. Except, only boys are trained as borrowers. 

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Children's Literature Party Reading Ideas!

This post is written for the Classic Children's Literature Party for 2023!

Ok, so if you're anything like me, then there's a good chance when you try to think of classic children's authors, you draw a bit of a blank. Actually, anything that's more than 50 years old is pretty much considered to be a classic, and that widens your reading options considerably! If you also have a list of suggestions, I encourage you to share it on your blog and then add your link to the party!

I've read quite a few books from the Newbery Medal list and am always pleasantly surprised by the results. Here's some I gleaned from the list, names that I know, some of my sister's favorites, and a few of my own!

• Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel (1973)
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George (1973) 
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (1972) 
• Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell (1971) 
• Sounder by William H. Armstrong (1970) 
• The High King by Lloyd Alexander (1969)
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg (1968)
• The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (1966)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1963) 
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (1961) 
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1959) 
• The Family Under The Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson (1959) 
• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson (1957) 
• Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (1953) 
• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (1950) 
• Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (1946) 
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (1944) 
• Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (1936) 

And of course, there are always old series standbys like, some of the following series of children's books.

• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
• Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

We mustn't forget those incredible classics that we've probably read so many times that we forget about them being children's books.

• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald
• The Princess and Curdie by George Macdonald
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
• Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery

These are only a few humble suggestions, for my own benefit as well as anyone else who needs a handy list. Enjoy browsing through your bookshelves or raiding your public library or used bookstore for some new reads! Happy Reading!

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Welcome to the Classic Children's Literature Party for 2023!

Welcome to the Classic Children's Literature Party of 2023!

If it goes well, I may host it every year.

My personal experiences with children's literature when I was an actual child pretty much stayed in its own little wheelhouse of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Trixie Belden. And I read a lot of wonderful Christian children's series that I would check out from my church library. I honestly don't recall reading much else, and I really never delved into what we would now call classic children's literature. I did read Narnia, naturally, and I plan to read at least one book for this party, and I read The Princess and the Goblin, one of my favorite children's books by George Macdonald. But nothing else that would fall into the classic children's literature bracket.

My reading has expanded in recent years, and thanks to my sister, I have actually found a lot of wonderful children's classic literature that I wish I had read as a child. But there's something special about reconnecting with children's literature as an adult, finding a new story that sparks our imagination. That's my goal with this party, that your imagination would be sparked and that you would just feel warm and comfortable and joyful as you proceed through your reads.

I have some guidelines below that have been tweaked a little bit from my initial Announcement post, and we've got a Mister Linky for you to add your blog posts to the Party list. It's going to be very casual and I hope hope you have a wonderful time! 😘

• I consider children's classics to be in the Jfiction arena, so probably for elementary or preteen age groups.
• A common measuring tape using for classic literature is that it must be at least 50 years old. So let's stick with that measure, only books 1973 and older. I'm good with the publication month being after April in 1973. 
• Go wild with books from other countries and translations other than English.
• Since Ivy Miranda asked about movies based on classic children's literature, I will give that the green light. If one of your favorite movies is based off classic children's literature, by all means, please feel free to write about it.
• Once you've written your blog post, add the link to the Mister Linky below and comment this post.
• The party runs the entire month of April to give you ample time to schedule your reading and so we don't feel rushed!

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