So. Where were we? Oh, yes, we were reading War of the World as a bedtime book to my Perfect One, and I think the whole family was finding it a little stressful. She liked it, and doesn’t seem to regret insisting on it, but it was pretty intense, both in terms of content and style.
And we’re nearing the end of that one when I’m in the library and spot a book that I immediately know is going to be our next bedtime book. It’s by M.T. Anderson, whose Feed was pretty intense as well, and not appropriate for my Perfect Seven-Year-Old. This one has profound echoes of War of the World, with invasion of the city by towering alien creatures of unimaginably superior technology. Except that instead of Martians in war tripods, this book is about Whales on Stilts!
Our heroine is joined by her two friends, each of whom is the central character in a (fictional) series of books, one of Goosebumps-style paranormal thrillers and one of Tom Swift-style technonautic yarns. This lets Mr. Anderson play referential games, such as inserting ads for the fictional Harcourt books into the actual Harcourt book. And the cool thing is that my Perfect Non-Reader is now sophisticated enough as a reader to get those kinds of jokes. She has read several serieses’s of books (mostly The Secrets of Droon, but also some in the Magic Tree House and A to Z Mysteries and some others), so she is familiar with the concept, and she’s grasped the idea of advertising, too.
And there are other things that hit her funny-bone as well. The book begins when Our Heroine accompanies her father on Take Your Child to Work day, and discovers that his father works in an abandoned warehouse just above the secret laboratory. He’s in marketing, though, not R&D, so he doesn’t really get involved. It’s true his boss keeps his face hidden at all times, but that’s not at all suspicious, is it?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.