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February 25, 2010
I Can Rebus
My late husband who died of cancer receives regular mailings from the American Cancer Society asking for donations. Quite often, I get mail for people who live on other streets. There was that whole crazy thing with Bonnie (haven’t gotten any more mail for her since I wrote that post, incidentally—COINCIDENCE?). You would think by now that I would be used to getting odd mail, but no. Today, I got this:
Now I have a policy of not accepting review copies of books (or anything else), and the ones publishers send me without asking me first tend to go to the library, on account of that’s my public address. This one, from HarperCollins, is completely out of the blue. What made them decide to send me a My Little Pony beginning reader? True, I was an avid My Little Pony fan when I was ten, but how does HarperCollins know that?
Well, curiosity got the better of me, and I read it. When I was done, I knew that there was nothing I could do but review it.
For something different, I thought I’d run it by one of the beginning readers I live with, but she was a little meh about it:
And then she attacked my camera cord:
As you can see, this book is a rebus:
I think what stumped Ella is the fact that the picture that is supposed to signify “snow” looks more like a cloud. Melting clouds are a kind of disturbing/surreal idea to include in a beginning reader, a little more Stephen King than Arnold Lobel. You’ve also got to wonder why the author decided to use an icon for “snow” when you see the pony’s names: Cheerilee, Scootaloo, and Toola-Roola. Yikes. Any reader who can make sense of those can handle “snow.” (Also, and this is not as incidental to me as the parentheses would indicate, who the hell are these ponies? Where are Minty and Butterscotch? You modern toymakers are RUINING EVERYTHING.)
While I have to admit this has some weaknesses as a beginning reader (level one, no less), it’s not a bad book. My Little Pony fans will enjoy leafing through it whether they can read it or not, and it’s not such a bad read-aloud, either. (What? You want to know the plot? Really? Fine. It’s about how the ponies decide it’s going to be Green Day (as in environmental, as opposed to the band (which would have been FREAKING AWESOME) or something with St. Patrick’s Day (which is what I had first assumed). The girls wind up having a little problem with Green Day, though, because Cheerilee gets a little overenthusiastic and Toola-Roola feels like no one’s listening to her. Scootaloo is… uh… I don’t know what she’s doing in this story, honestly. Just kind of riding about on her scooter when she could totally be walking and SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT. Way to go, Sootaloo.) Just because the book’s not perfect doesn’t mean your library couldn’t use a copy or two to fill a high-interest need.
Posted by adrienne at February 25, 2010 09:13 PM
Comments
Oh, for me it was Chronicle Books -- I got their baby board books for AGES, and had to phonetically explain what the letters Y and A stood for... and STILL they sent things. And sadly, none of it was as surreally awesome as a My Little Pony/Green Day mashup.
I feel the same way about the Thomas the Tank Engine series as you did about the extra ponies... who the heck are all these trains? There were, like, five, back in the old days. And there was the fat man. And now, there's, like, names. And spouses. And "girl" trains. And ethnic trains. And things that are not even trains. I know they were trying for equality, but there are like sixty trains now. Who the heck is going to remember all of that!??
Posted by: tanita at February 26, 2010 06:24 AM
Why does a pony need a scooter? That's kind of redundant.
Oh, unless she's disabled in some way. In that case, please pardon my gross insensitivity.
Posted by: jp at February 26, 2010 08:07 AM
Those are some freaky character names. Thanks for the review (I think) :D.
Posted by: jama at February 26, 2010 08:48 AM
Your Green Day comment caught me. Still laughing.
Posted by: Deb at February 26, 2010 08:53 AM
I read this last night (and laughed very hard) and have been trying to think of what one can say about the My Little Ponies. I mean, really...They're just...just...one of a kind, huh? My mother-in-law bought the girls a My Little Pony DVD. It's like a sugar rush.
HarperCollins must be psychic. Glad you got a kick out of it. And we, in turn, get a kick out of you writing about it.
Posted by: Jules at February 26, 2010 10:38 AM
Tanita, The publishers mean well. I think it's hard for them to keep track of everything.
I've always had a hard time with Thomas the Tank Engine. Something about trains with faces kind of creeps me out.
Jason, Scootaloo doesn't appear to me to be disabled. I think she's just not really thinking through the whole Green Day concept, pretty much like most of America.
Jama, I had a ridiculous amount of fun writing this.
Deb, I'm always glad to know I made someone laugh!
Jules, Ditto about the laughing. I don't know what would make anyone want to watch a My Little Pony DVD, but I do get the fun of the ponies themselves, what with the colors and the hair to braid and put barrettes in and whatnot.
Posted by: adrienne at February 26, 2010 04:33 PM
I got this in the mail today, too!!! I honestly thought it was a joke because I tweeted about including a clip from the My Little Pony movie in a blog post next week (it's going to be exciting). Very, very strange.
Posted by: Abby at February 26, 2010 06:09 PM
Abby, Interesting. I bet you're getting more regular review copies, though. I mean, you review things fairly regularly. You're a much better investment of publishers' ARCs in that regard. Strictly speaking, I don't review very much at all--I talk about how I'm using books or what I find interesting about them. That's one big reason I decided to stop accepting review copies.
You can bet I'll be looking forward to that clip.
Posted by: adrienne at February 26, 2010 11:29 PM
Oh my. My Little Pony totally flabbergasted me, but I do not point fingers. Oh no. I was a Strawberry Shortcake fan. MLP was a tad healthier, I think.
Posted by: Saints and Spinners at February 27, 2010 01:23 AM
"but I do get the fun of the ponies themselves, what with the colors and the hair to braid and put barrettes in and whatnot."
Oh, I just LOVE YOU. This is one of the many reasons you are you and no one else is quite like you.
That made me burst out laughing, and I think I momentarily woke a child up.
Oh, and one day you need to watch one of the videos just for fun. I sat down tonight to watch part of one with the girls. It left me sort of speechless. Sorry I can't elaborate.
Posted by: Jules at February 27, 2010 10:15 PM
Farida, Oh, I was into Strawberry Shortcake, too. My favorite, favorite doll for a couple years was my Blueberry Muffin.
Jules, Bad cartoons are just as highly entertaining as bad horror films. I'll have to check one out. Lucas would probably watch one with me. He did watch a DVD of The Smurfs the other week, after all.
Posted by: adrienne at February 28, 2010 04:22 PM
Oh! How I wanted Blueberry Muffin. I loved that anime-blue hair, long before I knew what anime was. Was anime around in the early 1980s? I tease my mom on occasion and said that if only she'd let me have the Blueberry Muffin doll that I wanted to buy with my own money (so to speak), instead of steering me toward Lemon Meringue, maybe I wouldn't have dyed my hair so much in my teens.
Posted by: Saints and Spinners at March 1, 2010 01:21 AM
I didn't have a Lemon Meringue doll, but some of my friends did, and she did smell very good, even if her hair wasn't blue.
Posted by: adrienne at March 3, 2010 04:23 PM