ABC Book Challenge P – S

 

P – Poetry

I didn’t show any specific book because I have many, many books of poetry. Instead I will comment on three of my favorites. I’ve written a lot about Mrs. Malloy, my 4^th grade teacher and the way she opened my mind with her selection of classic lit and poetry that she read to the class. In no special order:

#1 The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) The class loved this one and requested it often from Mrs. Malloy.

#2 Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) Another oft-requested poem.

#3 The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) The class didn’t care one way or the other about these poems, but I LOVED them. I asked for a book of them for one of my birthdays and my mom got me a really lovely illustrated book of a few select poems. I’ve since collected 3 more editions of the many, many poems he wrote.

 

 

        

Q – Question in the title          Where’s My Cow? (2005) by Terry Pratchett

This is part of the Discworld universe brought to life by Pratchett. If you’re not familiar with it, you’ve done yourselves a huge disfavor. Where’s My Cow is the favorite picture book of little Sam, son of Commander Samuel Vimes of the City Watch. Daddy Vimes does all the animal sounds to the delight of young Sam. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll say “Where’s My Cow??”

 

 

R – Rare book                         Voynich Manuscript by unknown (1404?-1438?)

OK. I know. NO ONE READS THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT!! It was written in an unknown language that has stumped academics for years and years. No clue as to what it say. There have been some reasonable guesses, but that’s about it. I first heard of it when watching an episode of Elementary, where Sherlock Holmes is trying to distract himself by going through some of the copied pages to see if he could make any sense of them. As good as Sherlock is, even he was baffled. I Googled it and saw all the illustrations that were listed and read the Wikipedia article and did some more research. I was fascinated. Even though it’s unreadable, the text is visually appealing. The illustrations are amazing. The original now belongs to Yale. So I took a deep breath, used a $10 coupon for Amazon, and bought the Yale approved facsimile. It’s the same size as the original with the same fold-out displays. I love it. I love looking through it. It inspires me in my artwork. It was worth every penny. 

 

 

S – Sci-fi                                  Interstellar Pig (1984) and Parasite Pig (2002) by William Sleator

Great books!! I’d read Interstellar Pig several years ago and when the sequel came out I got that one, too. A kind of mix of the games Dungeons & Dragons and Clue. In the first book, Barney is on vacation with his parents by a beach in New England. He notices the next door renters playing some kind of board game with obsessive passion. He likes games, and gets himself invited and “absorbed” by the new people. Who don’t seem quite human… The sequel continues the story with the same aliens and Barney is off on another adventure.