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Apr. 26th, 2013 11:41 pmToday I wound up doing that thing where I went into the library. This is only a bad plan insomuch as I seem incapable of exiting the library with fewer books than when I entered. At least this one had a couple of quickies --an elfquest comic, a photo book, Old Possom's Book of Practical Cats-- in addition to the full length novels.
In light of my bibliophilia, it occurs to me that while I have mentioned The Pirate's Mixed Up Voyage to many readers of this journal, many times, I have never given a proper review or synopsis. This is a grave oversight, and I wish to rectify it now.
The Pirate's Mixed Up Voyage (hereafter abbreviated "tpmov") is my absolute favourite book. It's a children's chapter book aimed at the...oh, probably 8-12 range, but I am horribly biased and think it's quite silly enough for younger children, and quite awesome enough for much older. There are some beautiful pieces of prose within its confines, and vocabulary one must occasionally look up.
The story is of Lionel Wafer (as hairy as he is handsome, and as handsome as he is hairy!) who owns a tea-shop themed around pirates. Not content to having piracy be merely a theme, he and his three employees cast off, rechristian the ship (from Ye Olde Pirate Tea Shoppe to The Sinful Sausage), and become Actual Pirates! This is a decision predicated on wanting to live a life that is simple and free, without any of those pesky real-world nuisances like library cards and parking meters.
As you might imagine, things remain simple for about a chapter (and chapters in this book are very short, often no more than two or three pages) before they come up with the bright idea to become millionaires by stealing the diamond doorknob from the house of famed inventor Humbert Cash-Cash. They rapidly encounter witches, firedrakes, flamethrowers, stubborn orphans, puzzle pieces, detectives, encyclopedias, a hot air balloon, true love, and a genuine bone fide desserted island. Oddly, the romantic piratical life is a lot less simple than they thought.
My favourite character from the book (besides the tall, thin, nervous pirate named Brace-and-Bit, who recites in rhyme when he gets scared) is Mrs. Hatchett, a Doctor of Literature and schoolteacher who joins their crew through convoluted circumstance. She carries a saber and a gun, wears a spiked belt and the hood and cloak of a Doctor of Literature, and if the illustrations are to be believed (though it is not made explicit in text) she has long hair she wears in a bun and hair braids looped around her ears, and a polka-dotted dress.
I want to cosplay her so hard I may explode.
The prose is elegant and clever, with a few truly poetic turns of phrase. The end of the very first paragraph reads "He was tired of real life with all its rules and regulations, and in his heart he dreamed of being a pirate", a phrase which has adorned more than one piece of my clothing. The whole book is lighthearted and funny and occasionally quite intelligent (such as when Humbert Cash-Cash gives the scientific explanation for his diamond doorknob).
I will not be giving spoilers, but I do own three copies (one of which I believe is currently at Kent State...I should get that back from Ria someday) and I will happily loan them out at the drop of a hat, so long as I always possess at least one for myself. It is my security blanket in book form, I have been known to, after a truly crapflapnasti1 day, collapse in a puddle under my favourite grey blanket with one of my copies. "For in times of great stress a good book is often all the comfort you can reasonably expect to find."
I have met very few people who've heard of or read the book before I pressed it into their hands and warned them how special it is to me. All of those people are _the best people ever_. Most of them are from New Zealand, which I think is the homecountry of the book's author, Margaret Mahy.
She's written lots and lots of other books, but I've pretty much only read the ones that fit in the same canon as this one. The Great Piratical Rumbustification, for instance, and The Librarian and the Robbers. When I have a child, Mahy books will make up a not-inconsiderable part of their library.
So I guess all I'm really saying is that I really love this book, and if you ever see it for sale somewhere cheap, you should let me know or buy me another loaner copy or buy it for yourself or whatever. If you want to try reading it, you should definitely do that --I can get through it in about an hour and a half, I wouldn't expect it to take much more than five or six (from someone who reads slower2 and has not read it many times before.)
~Captain Katarina Sublime, of the good ship Sublimity
MOOP!
1: I have been reading the Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians books. They're excellent. I am very sad Branden Sanderson has not come out with a fifth yet.
2: I read faster than everyone I've ever cared to compare myself to except for my friend Rohan from high school, a fact we determined when the hour to read three chapters of Animal Farm3 got me to the end of chapter seven, and him to the end of chapter nine. Grr!
3: This is such an egregious waste of class time it makes me angry. One hour, for a classful of Gifted and Talented kids to read three chapters of Animal Farm, which is _not a difficult book_. Part of the charm of AF is the juxt
I just realized Animal Farm and Artemis Fowl have the same initials. I smell crossover!
Part of the charm is the juxtaposition between the relatively simple turn of phrase and cute animal content (making it seem like a book for juveniles) and the higher level parallels between the farm and Soviet Russia. Great book to study in school where you can really hyper-analyze the crap out of it. I still reread it for the cute animals.
In light of my bibliophilia, it occurs to me that while I have mentioned The Pirate's Mixed Up Voyage to many readers of this journal, many times, I have never given a proper review or synopsis. This is a grave oversight, and I wish to rectify it now.
The Pirate's Mixed Up Voyage (hereafter abbreviated "tpmov") is my absolute favourite book. It's a children's chapter book aimed at the...oh, probably 8-12 range, but I am horribly biased and think it's quite silly enough for younger children, and quite awesome enough for much older. There are some beautiful pieces of prose within its confines, and vocabulary one must occasionally look up.
The story is of Lionel Wafer (as hairy as he is handsome, and as handsome as he is hairy!) who owns a tea-shop themed around pirates. Not content to having piracy be merely a theme, he and his three employees cast off, rechristian the ship (from Ye Olde Pirate Tea Shoppe to The Sinful Sausage), and become Actual Pirates! This is a decision predicated on wanting to live a life that is simple and free, without any of those pesky real-world nuisances like library cards and parking meters.
As you might imagine, things remain simple for about a chapter (and chapters in this book are very short, often no more than two or three pages) before they come up with the bright idea to become millionaires by stealing the diamond doorknob from the house of famed inventor Humbert Cash-Cash. They rapidly encounter witches, firedrakes, flamethrowers, stubborn orphans, puzzle pieces, detectives, encyclopedias, a hot air balloon, true love, and a genuine bone fide desserted island. Oddly, the romantic piratical life is a lot less simple than they thought.
My favourite character from the book (besides the tall, thin, nervous pirate named Brace-and-Bit, who recites in rhyme when he gets scared) is Mrs. Hatchett, a Doctor of Literature and schoolteacher who joins their crew through convoluted circumstance. She carries a saber and a gun, wears a spiked belt and the hood and cloak of a Doctor of Literature, and if the illustrations are to be believed (though it is not made explicit in text) she has long hair she wears in a bun and hair braids looped around her ears, and a polka-dotted dress.
I want to cosplay her so hard I may explode.
The prose is elegant and clever, with a few truly poetic turns of phrase. The end of the very first paragraph reads "He was tired of real life with all its rules and regulations, and in his heart he dreamed of being a pirate", a phrase which has adorned more than one piece of my clothing. The whole book is lighthearted and funny and occasionally quite intelligent (such as when Humbert Cash-Cash gives the scientific explanation for his diamond doorknob).
I will not be giving spoilers, but I do own three copies (one of which I believe is currently at Kent State...I should get that back from Ria someday) and I will happily loan them out at the drop of a hat, so long as I always possess at least one for myself. It is my security blanket in book form, I have been known to, after a truly crapflapnasti1 day, collapse in a puddle under my favourite grey blanket with one of my copies. "For in times of great stress a good book is often all the comfort you can reasonably expect to find."
I have met very few people who've heard of or read the book before I pressed it into their hands and warned them how special it is to me. All of those people are _the best people ever_. Most of them are from New Zealand, which I think is the homecountry of the book's author, Margaret Mahy.
She's written lots and lots of other books, but I've pretty much only read the ones that fit in the same canon as this one. The Great Piratical Rumbustification, for instance, and The Librarian and the Robbers. When I have a child, Mahy books will make up a not-inconsiderable part of their library.
So I guess all I'm really saying is that I really love this book, and if you ever see it for sale somewhere cheap, you should let me know or buy me another loaner copy or buy it for yourself or whatever. If you want to try reading it, you should definitely do that --I can get through it in about an hour and a half, I wouldn't expect it to take much more than five or six (from someone who reads slower2 and has not read it many times before.)
~Captain Katarina Sublime, of the good ship Sublimity
MOOP!
1: I have been reading the Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians books. They're excellent. I am very sad Branden Sanderson has not come out with a fifth yet.
2: I read faster than everyone I've ever cared to compare myself to except for my friend Rohan from high school, a fact we determined when the hour to read three chapters of Animal Farm3 got me to the end of chapter seven, and him to the end of chapter nine. Grr!
3: This is such an egregious waste of class time it makes me angry. One hour, for a classful of Gifted and Talented kids to read three chapters of Animal Farm, which is _not a difficult book_. Part of the charm of AF is the juxt
I just realized Animal Farm and Artemis Fowl have the same initials. I smell crossover!
Part of the charm is the juxtaposition between the relatively simple turn of phrase and cute animal content (making it seem like a book for juveniles) and the higher level parallels between the farm and Soviet Russia. Great book to study in school where you can really hyper-analyze the crap out of it. I still reread it for the cute animals.