Reading not necessarily the 100.

As a person who loves to read I find myself enamored by all sorts of books and I want to sit in the library and read one book after another until I have completed the Mystery section, the fiction section, not so much the romance section, books about dogs, houses, cooking, etc. But two days ago I went into the Children's section. This is one that I had not been into in a long while, since my kids are grown. There were two reasons I went into this section. The first reason is that I was looking for the Wonderful Wizard of OZ by L. Frank Baum. The second reason was that I was looking for Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Why was I looking for these two books? Well, as luck would have it I forgot my top 100 list and I knew that one or both were on the list, I just could not remember which one. They had both copies and I found out it was Alice in Wonderland that was on the list. That was okay because I really wanted to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Why you may ask would I want to do that? it is I realized that I could not remember reading this book when I was a child. I remember the movie and maybe because of the movie I did not wish to read the book. So I decided to read this book even though it is not one of the 100. Here is what I found out in case you have never read the book, it is similar but also quite different. My curiosity had been roused by the fact that the current movie out talked about China dolls and other things that are not mentioned in the first movie. So I read and I found out that when Dorothy lands in Munchkin land that it is not Glinda the good witch that meets her but her sister the Witch of the North. Glinda is the witch of the South and does not make an appearance until the end of the book. Glinda does not go to the Emerald city to rescue Dorothy but Dorothy must travel to Glinda in the south. ALso the flying monkeys are not the Wicked witch of the West's personal pets, but must do the bidding of the person wearing an enchanted hat. That there are other creatures that we do not meet that are apart of the book, like the china dolls. But the most interesting thing to me is that L. Frank Baum in the introduction to this story tells us why he wrote the story. I will take the liberty to quote that passage, but he did not want to scare children into behaving. "Folk Lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed children through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Anderson have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all human creations. Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library: for the time has come for a series of newer "wonderful tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality: therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out." So I look at this and I think, is this the beginning of the end. We do not teach morals and now we have children who do not care what they do to others. Not sure, because the book is mild, but the person who made the 1959 movie was certainly trying to scare people, and teach a moral.

Beloved Reviewed

I have just finished the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. I have to say that it was a very informative, descriptive and scary book. The words put up images that I would like to forget, especially the scene in the shed. This gets elaborated on throughout the book, so it starts off with just a suggestion and then little by little the truth is revealed. Other scenes are described and the idea that a ghost could manifest itself into a living breathing person, is somewhat scary. Especially when that ghost is possibly your child. I loved when Paul D arrives and the heat and anger of the ghost is red hot. That the mother just accepts this ghost because it is her child and she is feeling guilty. She does not seem to care about the living child, the one who has stayed with her from birth. But there are lots of stories of mother/ daughter separations in this book. Slavery caused families to be torn apart as soon as the children were of age and sometimes before. But what makes a mother try to kill her children, what is the lesser of the two evils? A very eye opening book. I wish I could shut out some of the scenes.

Remiss

I am afraid I have failed to be an adequate writer or reader for that matter with this blog. But I am reading the book Beloved by Toni Morrison. I have been a little freaked out by a child ghost. Also, I have been writing another blog called The Life of Kai, more frequently. But I plan to finish this book and get back to my goal of reading the 100. If I look at books on this list that I have already read, I would be have found that I have read 48 of the books. Some I will reread, like THE GREAT GATSBY, especially since I re it in high school some years ago. I love to read and that is what I do more than I write. One day I will write an actual story, I will keep you posted on that, then you can critique me.