Uncle Wiggily and His Friends ~ by Howard R. Garis

Uncle Wiggily and His Friends ~ by Howard R. Garis, 1939, children's, 9/10
The book has eight stories in it, not all of which I remember seven decades later, if indeed all these were in my original book (this one shows 1939, but was published in 1955).

Uncle Wiggily and the Barber

He helps the barber monkey, who later helps him.

Uncle Wiggily and the Apple Dumpling

While taking a dumpling to a friend, he discovers a hungry squirrel family and gives them his own apple dumpling -- and he goes to the store for other things they need, like coal for heat.

Uncle Wiggily Learns to Dance

It's a delightful surprise for Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, when he is later able to dance with her.

Uncle Wiggily and the Snow Plow

He makes a wooden snow plow for the front of his automobile and makes paths in the snow for the whole animal community.

Uncle Wiggily and the Wagon Sleds

By adding wheels to a couple of sleds, he makes animal children happy, even when there's no snow.

Uncle Wiggily and the Peppermint

He's even polite to a big black bear who was "snappish."  The bear ends up with a sore throat, and Uncle Wiggily delivers more peppermint to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Uncle Wiggily and the Red Spots

More details about this story below.  It's one that "tickled my funny bone" when I was a child.

Uncle Wiggily and the Canoe

When his balloon "airship" flies away, he make a canoe out of birchbark.

I do remember the story about the red spots and how the author would introduce the upcoming stories.  This is at the end of the Peppermint story:

And if the snow man doesn't come in our house and sit by the gas stove until he melts into a puddle of molasses, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and The Red Spots.

Red spots meant measles, back then, in the days before we had a vaccine for that disease.  When the gentleman rabbit came home with red spots, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy sent him to bed.  It turns out it was spots from running into the berries of some bushes.  That wouldn't be exciting enough for today's kids, I guess.  They expect superheroes.  My childhood stories were tame by comparison.  Gentle Uncle Wiggily teaches children to be polite, rather than violent.

By the way, notice in the illustration that Doctor Possum came to Uncle Wiggily's bedside.  I remember when doctors used to make house calls.  Mothers with sick children didn't have to sit in a waiting room making all the other children sick.

Having re-read these stories this afternoon, I still rate this book 9 of 10, an excellent book.

Birth of a word ~ water

Words have always fascinated me, and I wanted to know them all.  Then I could read, and reading is what this blog is all about -- reading in order to explore ideas, to learn.  Listen to the baby in this TED video saying "gaga" for "water" until he finally gets it right.

The Alex Awards

Reading Helen's Book Blog, I learned about the Alex Awards because she's joined a challenge to read some of them.  "The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18."  I've read quite a few from the lists (1998-2011), but here are a dozen I mentioned in a comment to Helen, with links when I've written about the book:

Gaiman, Neil.  Anansi Boys (2006 list) is a delightful, very good book.

Walls, Jeannette.  The Glass Castle (2006 list) was pretty good.

Picoult, Jodi.  My Sister’s Keeper (2005 list) is one of my favorite books.

Satrapi, Marjane.  Persepolis (2004 list) was not a favorite (I'm not much into graphic novels), but a good book.

Niffenegger, Audrey.  The Time Traveler’s Wife (2004 list)

Hosseini, Khaled.  The Kite Runner (2004 list)

Tracy Chevalier.  The Girl with a Pearl Earring (2001 list) was very good, and read before going to NYC to see the Vermeer art exhibit in 2001 -- before Sept. 11th.

Geraldine Brooks.  Year of Wonders (2002 list) was really good.

Barbara Ehrenreich. Nickel and Dimed (2002 list) is NF about a journalist trying to live on minimum wage.

Leif Enger. Peace like a River (2002 list) was haunting.

Bragg, Rick. All Over but the Shoutin' (1998 list) was a good memoir.

Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea (1998 list) is very memorable.

Have you read any of these or any others from the lists of Alex Award Winners or the Alex Award Nominations?

Booking about ~ Sunday Salon

Here's another salon for us, though I find "salon" a bit too grand (see last week's Sunday salon).

Booking about

1.  Learn about medieval tech support for new book technology.  (Thanks, Julia.)

2.  You oughta read this:  Where have all the reading materials gone?  Julia wrote this week about trying to figure out what was different about her eighth-grade friend's house, different from her own.  Then it hit her:  "Where are all your books?"

When I was dating the man I would marry, I noticed there was precisely one book in his parents' home — the Bible — and it was on the lower shelf of the coffee table, dusted but apparently never read.  He didn't grow up a reader, but became one, as you can see from what I wrote in June.

3.  November 29th was the birthday of Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time (click on the title to read my review).  Have you read it?  A graphic novel version of it is coming out in 2012.

4.  Barack Obama and his daughters Sasha and Malia went bookshopping at an independent bookstore on "Small Business Saturday" (11-26-11).  I recognize two of the books Malia (right) is holding:  Zen Shorts by Jon Muth (on the bottom) is a picture book in the same series with Zen Ties, that I read a few days ago, and the one above it is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selnick, that I read in May.  Click on the titles for my reviews.

That's life

My life recently has been about water, more water (with heron), less water, and almost no water.  In other words, it felt a bit wet around here, what with the floodwaters and all.  It didn't mean more reading, however.  Though I "stayed inside to read" and did a lot of studying, I haven't finished the fiction and nonfiction books I've been reading:

• Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World ~ by John Shelby Spong, 2011, nonfiction, 432 pages
• The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus ~ by Amy-Jill Levine, 2006, nonfiction.250 pages
• Children and Fire ~ by Ursula Hegi, 2011, fiction, 272 pages

Saturday Snapshot ~ after the flood

The weeds that were completely submerged are not four feet tall, as I had guessed.  They are taller than I am and probably not less than six feet tall.  That floodwater was really deep to completely cover them.  To the right, you can see where flowing water leveled weeds that were not quite so rigid, and they still haven't straightened up.

I was at the bottom of the hillside taking these photos today, and that's my apartment building at the top.  Those two satellite dishes were in some of my earlier photos, here and here.  That smaller bush in the center hides the side window of my bedroom.

The surprise left behind by the floodwaters were dozens of yellow dandelions on the hillside, like this one.  The ground still feels mushy, and I didn't venture beyond the tall-weed border.


Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce from At Home With Books.  To participate, post a photo taken by you (or a friend or family member).  Your photo can be old or new, as long as its subject is appropriate for all eyes to see.  Check out snapshots others are sharing this week.

Woman caught reading ~ 1941

An English woman wearing a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force uniform was caught reading a magazine with her gas mask beside her.  She was in London, September 1941  The photographer was David E. Scherman.  Thanks, Claire @ The Captive Reader.

An ambitious beginning

A little background is in order.  If I tell you the author is Jewish, you'll appreciate the first line of her introduction even more.

The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus ~ by Amy-Jill Levine, 2006, religion

When I was a child, my ambition was to be pope.  I remembeer watching the funeral of John XXIII and asking my mother, "Who was that man?"  I understood very little about him, but I did learn from the television coverage that he lived in Italy, had a very nice white suit and a great hat, and everyone seem to love him.  My mother responded, "That's Pope John XXIII."  She, like most Jewish parents, was familiar with then cardinal Roncalli's efforts to save Jews during World War II as well as with his convening of Vatican II, the gathering that finally condemned the teaching that all Jews, everywhere, were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.  Thus she added, "He was good for the Jews."  I immediately decided I would be pope:  It meant lots of spaghetti, great accessories, and the job was good for the Jews.  "I want to be pope," I announced to my mother.  "You can't," she replied.  "You're not Italian."  Clearly, for a variety of reasons, I was in desperate need of instruction regarding the relationship between church and synagogue.

Amy-Jill Levine is now a professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee.  I rather doubt she'll ever become pope — or even wants to these days.

Read the summary of this book, posted Wednesday with my other Library Loot.

Would the first few lines of your book make you want to read on?  To share the first lines of a book you are reading, click on the link and visit Katy at A Few More Pages (today's participants).  Browse there to find interesting books for your own reading list.  And don’t forget that Katy and all the contributors to this meme — including me — love comments.