B is for Bat

by Carol1 Comment
B is for Bat. I recently listened to The Bat by Jo Nesbø and a review follows. The story takes place in Australia, so first I thought I'd talke a bit about bats "down under," large fruit bats actually. In the sandstone caves of Northern Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, there are numerous depictions of flying foxes, some dating back tens of thousands of years.  In The Bat, several Aboriginal stories are referenced but not the one about a confrontation between Tjinimin the Bat God and the Great Rainbow-Snake.  Tjinimin wanted to have sex with the Green Parrot-Girls that were the consorts of Great Rainbow-Snake and of course Great Rainbow-Snake objected to this.  At the end of the story Tjinimin hangs upside-down in a tree to admire the stars and decides never to try having sex with anyone again, whereupon his nose falls off.  Which is why bats have such short faces, apparantly. Flying foxes eat fruit and this has inevitably brought them into...
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A is for Amelia Bedelia

by Carol14 Comments
Welcome to A to Z April! I think this is the 3rd year I've participated and I am probably the least prepared this year. On the other hand, I already know what I'm doing for W and Z, two semi-tough letters. When I was thinking about A things, I came up with quite a list - apples, April, avocado, apricot, astronaut, Amelia Earhart, agent. None was really striking me, then I remembered that well-loved character from kids books - Amelia Bedelia. Everyone loves Amelia Bedelia, the literal-minded housekeeper. When she makes a sponge cake, she puts in real sponges. When she weeds the garden, she replants the weeds. And when she pitches a tent, she throws it into the woods. She's wonderful, and so often right, even when she's wrong. It's fun watching her navigate the pitfalls of language. She takes everything literally and when you ask her to do something, she does exactly what you ask her. Kids can be a lot like...
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Review: Witch Interrupted by Jody Wallace

by Carol3 Comments
Title: Witch Interrupted (Pack and Coven #2) Author: Jody Wallace Category: Paranormal romance Published: February 24, 2014 from Carina Press Rating: DNF Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Audible Two decades ago, assassin Katherine Zhang faked her death to escape the Keepers, a secret council of witches who use magic to kill those who pose a threat to their kind. Once a powerful Keeper, she lives a solitary—but peaceful—life as a tattoo artist. Until a strange, handsome lone wolf named Marcus Delgado walks into her shop. Marcus has his own reasons to hate the Keepers. A scientist who sacrificed himself to test the fragile boundaries between witch and wolf, he believes there's a way to harness the combustible power between the two species. If he succeeds, he'll be protected from the Keepers, but he needs a willing partner—and the delicious Katie just might be the perfect test subject. Katie knows working with a wolf, an adversary she's undeniably attracted to, is a dangerous proposition...no matter how tempting she finds Marcus's...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Cookooburrahs and the Goolahgool

by Carol1 Comment
How about another tale from Australia? "The Cookooburrahs and the Goolahgool" was retold by Mrs. K. Langloh Parker in Australian Legendary Tales, 1896. Googarh, the iguana, was married to Moodai, the opossum and Cookooburrah, the laughing kookaburra. Two wives, again, but this time that's not the creature's downfall. Cookooburrah was the mother of three sons, one grown and living on his own, the other two only little boys. They had their camp near a goolahgool, which is apparently a tree that can hold water. It has a split in the fork of it, and a hollow below the fork. After a heavy rain, this hollow trunk would fill with water and it held that water for a long time. One day, Googarh, the iguana, and his two wives went out hunting, leaving the two little kookaburra at the camp. The adults  had taken out water and filled their own water bags, but they had left none for the children, who were too small...
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At the Movies: Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

by Carol6 Comments
Title: Muppets Most Wanted Director: James Bobin Writers: James Bobin and Nicholas Stoller In theaters: March 21, 2014 from Walt Disney Pictures Genre: Comedy Rating: PG Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Disney's "Muppets Most Wanted" takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe's most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine - the World's Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog - and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard, and Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon. We, of course, went to see Muppets Most Wanted on opening weekend.  We had to wait until Sunday, though, because we went to a Winter Jam concert on Friday, which was awesome. I am a Muppets fan, have been since I was...
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