Favorite Fictional Character --- Sammy the Seal

Well it's my last day of vacation and I'm probably going stir crazy by now.  I'm probably wishing I had gone back to work today instead of extending my vacation to 6 days.  Now I could be completely wrong about that, but I doubt it.  After looking at the weather forecast I'm thinking my vacation will have been spent in really hot temperatures, which I don't like.  I abhor the heat and tend to avoid it as much as possible.  So while you are reading this, I'm probably staying in bed and watching a Buffy marathon.  I know it's an odd thing to do on the last day of vacation, but it's so relaxing too.  Who knows though, I may decide I love the heat and go for a run in the 100 plus weather we are supposed to have.  

I must admit that I'm feeling a little sad to be leaving some of my favorite children's book characters behind for a while.  This is the last Wed. of the month and next month I'm turning it over to some fabulous guest bloggers.  Once again I had to put some names in a hat and let fate decide who was going to be the last character featured this month.  Needless to say, I wouldn't have been unhappy with any of them, but I did get a little excited when I drew out the name of Sammy the Seal.  I loved him as a kid.  So with no further fuss on my part, I present to you Sammy, the seal who needed to know what was on the other side of those walls.

Sammy has been living a pretty content life within the walls of a zoo.  He gets fed on a regular basis and likes having the kids admire him.  But like most of us who are living the good life, Sammy starts to wonder what else is out there.  So one day our wandering hero decides he wants to see what else life has to offer.  He walks out of the zoo, with the keeper's blessing, and embarks on an adventure I'm sure he never forgets.

At first the world seems to be filled with sights and sounds the likes of which Sammy has never seen.  The fast moving cars, the tall buildings that tower above the streets, and even bathtubs.  You see, Sammy has never seen a bathtub before.  Though the bathtub is a bit smaller than his pool at the zoo, Sammy has to see what it's all about.  Of course the man who was running the bath wasn't all that impressed with the idea of a seal stealing the show.

It's when Sammy ends up at a school that he really starts to realize this trip may have been worth it after all.  I'm still not sure why the teacher would have allowed Sammy to stay in the class, but I think both Sammy and I are happy that she did.  Sammy got to do all kinds of things he's never experienced in the zoo before.  He joined the kids during their singing lesson.  He showed them how well a seal could play volleyball, he was amazing.  He even learned how to read.

Now you may be thinking Sammy had the time of his life that day and that he never wanted to go back to the zoo.  You would be part right.  Sammy, like a lot of us who stray far from home, realized something.  No matter how exciting or amazing new experiences can be, they still don't match up to that sense of being at home.  The world can be an exciting place, but it can't replace that sense of belonging and safety that being at home can instill.  So at the end of the day, a happy Sammy goes back home where he belongs.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Curious George

There is a certain phenomena that I'm sure you are all award of, though you may not have thought about it.  It's one of those rarities of life that make it all worth it.  There are just certain characters that seem to be pop culture icons.  They are characters you are familiar with, even if you have never read a book, watched a movie, seen a TV episode, or looked them up on line.  They are characters that you can have no actual experience with, but you still know who they are.  You will recognize them by sight and may even have a vague sense of their adventures.  They are part of the culture, part of whom we are, even if we don't know them personally.  Some are probably more famous than others, but either way, they are loved and cherished by millions.  Curious George is one such character, a character that is beloved by everyone who knows him and will be loved by all those who have yet to tag along on his adventures.

I can't remember how old I was the first time I read the first Curious George book and met for myself one of the most interesting primates to ever grace a page.  I quickly fell in love with the little guy as The Man with the Yellow Hat brought him out of the jungles of Africa and back to the big city to live in the zoo.  I don't think poor George knew what was going on at first, but his good nature and open curiosity allowed him to settle in, well at first anyway.

It wasn't long though before George was escaping from the zoo and getting into all kinds of trouble.  He gets into a restaurant, eats a pot of spaghetti, and made to do the dishes by the cook.  He was so good at it, the cook brought him to a building and got him a job as a window washer.  Now George being George, it didn't end there.  While washing a window, George saw some men painting a wall.  It looked like so much fun that George snuck in and painted the walls with a jungle theme.  Well you can imagine the painters surprise when they come back and see the trees and leaves all over the walls. They chase George down a fire escape and the poor guy breaks his leg.  When he comes to, he is recovering in a hospital, though things don't go that smoothly there either.  But the day is saved when The Man with the Yellow Hat takes him home to live with him.  Of course our hero has a movie made about his exploits and he gets to watch the movie for the first time with the cook, window washer, painters, and all his other friends.

George has had some other amazing adventures through the years.  He even got a job as a newspaper boy, but turned the newspapers into paper boats.  He joined an animal show as a bicycle riding monkey who played the bugle, and rescued a bear cub in a tree.  He has been pulled through the air by a kite.  He has even flown into space and wrecked a dinosaur exhibit.  He got to do the things I wanted to do as a boy, and I was jealous of him for it.  I learned to love living vicariously through him, and his adventures are still great fun to read when I'm feeling a bit out of sorts.

Favorite Fictional Character--- Amelia Bedelia

I was rather torn this month as to what direction I was going to go with as far as putting together a theme.  I had two ideas in my head, both of them based off of what happened last month.  When I did the post about Harry, The Dirty Dog, it put into my head a ton of the children's book characters that I loved while growing up.  Many of which have not been mentioned on the blog over the last few years.  Then when I did the post on Huckleberry Hound, it got me to thinking about all the wonderful Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters I could do.  After some thinking, and checking, I realized I have already done a handful of the cartoon characters over the last few years.  So this month it's going to be all about the wonderful characters that populated some of my favorite books growing up.  Not that's not to say I've abandoned the Hanna-Barbera theme, look for that later on in the year.  But for today's post, we are going to go with the maid who just can't seem to do anything right, Amelia Bedelia.

How can you not adore the literal minded maid who takes every instruction at face value?  If you ask her to dress a chicken, she will put clothes on it.  If you tell her to hit the road, she will literally got out and start hitting it with a stick.  Are you in the mood for crumb cake, well you better like a lot of crumbs.  When Amelia was first hired by the Rogers family to take care of the house, they had no clue what they were getting themselves into.

On her very first day, she threw dust on the furniture, hung light bulbs on the clothesline, and used scissors to change the towels.  I'm not sure where she learned how to be a maid, but I think her teacher failed her in every regard.    Now you would think that a family would never be able to tolerate such behavior in a maid.  What would happen if you asked her to air out the house?  I don't know, but I can't imagine it would leave much of a house.  But Amelia has a secret ace up her sleeve, she is a superb baker.  When it comes to the cakes and pies she can whip up, she has no equal.  So what do you think the Rogers family did after her first day?  They ate her lemon meringue pie, and decides it's worth everything else.  Mrs. Rogers, thankfully, figures out that everything needs to be explained to Amelia.  Every little detail of the task must be thoroughly explained.

What I loved about the Amelia Bedelia books, and there are many, is the sense of humor.  The books are such a wonderful play on words that makes fun of "adult" language.  It's not a language that makes sense to kids, and that's exactly the point.  How many times do you ask a child to do something, they do it, and it doesn't even come close to what you were expecting them to do.  It's not that they didn't do what you told them to do, but they took the wording of it very literally.  As adults, we all speak in ways that really doesn't make all that much sense.  If you tell a 4 year old to shake a leg, what do you think is going to happen.  What do you think would happen if you asked a kid to shampoo the carpet?  I'm just saying.  Well Amelia is that kid.  She may be in an adult body, be able to bake up a storm, but she is that kid.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Harry, The Dirty Dog

I'm going to assume from the outset that we all have characters that for whatever reason have stuck with us since we were little kids.  They are characters that we may have only came into contact once or twice, but for whatever reason they never seemed to let go of our imaginations.  For me, most of those character come from the books as I read as a wee small lad.  And I read a lot as a kid.  I think I devoured any book that was put in front of me.  One of my favorite books was a about a white dog with black spots named Harry.  And even though I only read two other books he starred in, Harry has been with me ever since.

Harry was a dog that really liked to stick to his own guns.  He hated baths and would do everything he could to avoid them.  But once he decided to hide the scrub brush and go off on his own, he learned that being clean may be worth it after all.  Now don't get me wrong, Harry had a lot of fun on his adventures that day.  He got to play in the dirt, frolic along the railroad, play with other dogs, and even slide down a coal chute.  I think most dogs or even little boys for that matter, would have a grand old time doing those same things.  Of course by the time he goes home, Harry is no longer the white dog with black spots, he's now a black dog with white spots.  How much dirtier can the poor guy get.  Now because of the difference his family doesn't recognize him, despite all the tricks he does for them.  Then just when everything seems to be lost, he gets the scrub brush out of hiding and gets the family to give him a bath.  I don't know if Harry ever got that dirty again, but if he did, I'm sure he made sure that scrub brush was standing by.

As a kid, how could you not fall in love with that story.  Harry appealed to that part of us who wanted to do the exact opposite of what our parents told us to do.  Of course he almost had to pay a huge price for his freedom, but in the end, family and home won out.  It's the same thing with real life.  We want our freedom, but in the end all we really want is the love and safety of our families and the security of our home.

Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane (Giveaway Included!)

Over in the forest 

Where the trees hide the sun

Lived a big mommy monster

And her little monster one.

"Scare!" said the mommy;

"I scare," said the one.

So he scared and he scampered

Where the trees hide the sun.

From monsters to ghosties to goblins, everyone's favorite beasties haunt and howl and rattle their way through their forest home in this silly, spooky twist on the beloved nursery rhyme "Over in the Meadow."

In the past I've been a little hesitant to review picture books, not because we don't love them in this house, but because I've never really know what I would say about a book composed of page sized pictures and very little text.  I will actually say I was intimidated by it.  Even when I agreed to review Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane, I was still a little nervous.  I just couldn't let those nerves get the best of me, I had to read this book, even if it meant faces down my fears.

By now you may be asking yourself, what the heck is this guy talking about.  Why would anyone be afraid of picture books and if they were that big of a baby, what would possess them to agree to review one.  I'm not really sure I can answer that first part, well I could, but I would sound like an idiot.  The second part is way easier.  I'm a sucker for all things that smell of Halloween, and since this book full of monster and ghouls was going to be read/reviewed in October, how could I pass it up.

Little Goblins Ten is an adorable addition to any family's Halloween library.  Dragons, werewolves, bats, and skeletons are just of the other little denizens of the forest who are getting ready for trick-or-treating.  From the one little monster, to the three little zombies they are practicing their best tricks to earn the best treats.  Aidan, who at 8 years old, loved the various monsters, even though he's starting to think he's too old for these kind of books.  Despite his fast track to maturity, he really loved the illustrations, by Jane Manning, and the simply rhyming pattern.  I've heard him, when he doesn't know I'm listening, reading the book out loud just to hear the words.  I think this will be a book to keep around the house for many years to come.

Because I loved this one so much, I'm now convinced I need to read her last book, A Vampire Is Coming To Dinner!  I recently read a read a little blurb about it:

Read along as the narrator of this story comes up with some practical rules for dealing with a vampire.  But rules are meant to be broken, aren't they?  From feeding the vampire garlic to filling the house with mirrors, the narrator is doing just that!  With ten full-page gatefolds and a pop at the end of the book, kids will love seeing which rules are being followed and which aren't!  If you're expecting a vampire (invited or not) this is your chance to get ready for a night of pranks and surprises.  It is best to be prepared.  "...a ghoulishly good time." - Publisher's Weekly

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this wonderful book.  Please visit the tour page for other reviews.

Now for the important part, the giveaway!  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling me what your favorite book, movie, or TV Show that is dragged out every year for Halloween.  Leave your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.  Sadly, the giveaway is US only.

The giveaway will end on 10/27/11 at 11:59 pm.  I will then email the winner, who will then have 48 hours to get back to me or a new winner will be chosen.