Forging an Art

The latest Dark Horse press release included a small yellow hardback called Dayan’s Birthday, a translation from the Japanese that was originally published in 1993.  A cute and strange story in that general Japanese cultural difference sort of way, Dayan is a cat who falls victim to three witches who discern his birth date by rubbing him with belladonna ointment and pulling out hairs from his body.  He earns their ire by forgetting to invite them to his birthday party (Sleeping Beauty, anyone?) and they take his birth date back.  What does this mean, exactly?  Can Dayan’s friends help him recover?  Will the bizarre and detailed illustrations give you nightmares?  I write this as my eight year old watches Barbie in Mermaidia for the fortieth time (rough estimate), and that Bibble puffball gives me nightmares.  Dayan, however freaky, probably won’t.  Three more Dayan titles complete the series, and I think, once I recover from this latest Bibble exposure, I will hunt them down to track the traumatized cat’s adventures.

Our cat friend checks out my next five books.  Yes, I know it was supposed to be six, but five plus one is too much math for me.  I should have asked my eight year old for help.

One of our teen patrons, preparing to re-take the ACT (“I didn’t think staying up all night on Friday would make a difference in my score”) alerted me to this site, which boosts your vocabulary while donating to the hungry:  Free Rice

Brought home the second volume of Flight yesterday as well as the fourth – when he finished the second, the LC said, well, I really like to read these in order, so where is three?  Three, I explained, is on its way from one of the branch libraries.  He sighed.  “I can’t read four without reading three first.”  Not sure if this is the autism or the 16 year old boy speaking here, but probably both.  The cat happily used volume four as a seat cushion when the book was left on the table.

Just posted new review at FBS for Lavinia, Le Guin’s latest.