New Books

With it being the start of our school year, today saw me being Last of the Big Spenders with the credit card. I've taken to giving the kids a little 'kit' of fun things to start off the year with, nothing very expensive: toiletries, a book, new erasers, maybe something in the candy line. The glee with which they are received is probably the reason I don't begrudge buying the odd incongruous item. Besides, who doesn't like a gift bag to start off a new adventure?

Today we went to a local bookstore and everyone chose a book as a part of the whole Going Back To School venture. I had only one rule: it couldn't be a comic compendium that we could find for $1 at the second hand store (which ruled out a surprising number of choices, surprisingly, even though it was a rule I'd thought up on the spur of the moment when someone thrust a Garfield book into my face).

One of these choices I picked up to supplement an outside class one of us is taking. I'll leave you to guess which book and which of us will be using it...

FDPG had a gift certificate from Guides for this same bookstore so she bought several more of those Warriors books. Since they all look alike to me I didn't try to find a book cover to include in this post. Suffice to say that there were cats on the cover - earnest looking cats with odd yet deadly serious names like Masher and CloudKiller and Ferocity. FDPG likes this series. She seems to have about 300 of them, but still they appear in the bookstore - and each time FDPG exclaims "Gosh! I have to get that one!" I used to love this enthusiasm of hers, but since she can read one in an evening my fascination for finding new Warriors books has paled somewhat. Anyhow, she struggled mightily about settling on just one book. She passed up Binky To The Rescue, Amulet: The Cloud Searchers (we already ordered this from Amazon), a couple of cute anime books about cats, Ottoline At Sea (an excellent series), The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and about a billion others, with HUGE regret at each and every one because she really wanted each and every one, but when we got home and I was asking Dominic why he hadn't chosen the Binky book she shrieked "WHAT? THERE WAS ANOTHER BINKY BOOK? WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME?"

Some of us like a lighter vein of reading. Quick yet engrossingly odd facts we can blurt out at the dinner table. Statistics we can impress/revolt/charm/shock our friends with. Pages with short and easy to read sentences. Lots of pictures.

Ahem.

Fortunately some of us also like engaging our brains a teensy bit more than that. This is a short read, but so far it's been almost as popular with the masses as the Perplexus.

And some of us like the truly odd item. Here is a math calendar. A math calendar. One of us chose a math calendar. I assumed it was because this person knew about the Penrose book we have in the bookcase, and had a fondness for that poorly drawn yet personable feline, but no, this person knew nothing about that Penrose book in the bookcase. This person was shocked and amazed when I pulled out the Penrose book, from the bookcase, and exclaimed "WHAT??? That's the same cat?!! How could that be?" I shouldn't be surprised, really, because this person is a quirk of nature. A charming but quirky quirk of nature. Just like their father (another charming but quirky quirk of nature). So I left out the Penrose book and said "Why not compare the two?" and this charming little quirk said "But that's not a calendar. I like the calendar because then I know what day it is."

Um. Right. Sure thing, little quirk.