August 2014 - Page 2 of 2

Fowl Weather

by Bob Tarte

The description of a household full of pets, where two people live with over thirty animals including parrots, ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, a few cats. Oh, and occasional wild birds that people bring over to be cared for until they can fly free. I was expecting to read mostly about what life was like with so many animals, but to my surprise it had a similar theme to the last book I read- dealing with a parent\’s advancing age. In this case, the onset of dementia and eventually alzheimer\’s. Also meddlesome neighbors, inept applicants for jobs, the search for a competent pet sitter, and many awkward moments dealing with cold weather and wading-pool duck ponds. It was curious and amusing, but only to a point. Nearly every other sentence seems to be stuffed with sarcasm and forced humor, so much that sometimes I had to stop and read a sentence over again to get what he was really saying. Maybe I was too tired, but sometimes I just wanted a straight description, without the adding joking. I was also interested to find that Tarte likes bird-watching, believes in omens and is suspicious of the supernatural when strange noises are heard at night. Those last two, with all their accompanying detail, got really old on me. And I\’ll give you fair warning: lots of animals die in this book. Of old age, unforseen accidents, illness, sometimes no known reason at all.

I read a previous book by this author, and saw this one at the library, thought it might be good too. He\’s got another one about cats, someday I\’ll probably get to that book.

Rating: 2/5 305 pages, 2007

more opinions:
Stay At Home Bookworm
One-Minute Book Reviews

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

The Nature of Dogs

by Mary Ludington

Another oversized book I borrowed from the public library to enjoy its pictures for a while. Begins with the author\’s notes about why she took up photography, her goal to photograph every dog breed, and her reasons for taking pictures of the dogs outdoors, letting them just do their thing while she recorded them with the camera.

The results are some striking images. They are all black-and-white, some with timeless look of sepia tone. I did not care for the many blurred images, which really do nothing to give you an idea of the breed\’s conformation or appearance. Each breed page has a bit of its history (quite interesting) and characteristics, especially in regards to how the physical traits were developed to specialize the dog in its job. For example, she says that the long loose skin folds on a basset or bloodhound\’s face \”stir up scent\” from the ground, \”swishing scent particles into the oversized nostrils\” to help them follow a trail. I was surprised to read that the wrinkles on a bulldog\’s head \”functioned as gutters to divert the bull\’s blood\” when it was historically used in bull baiting. Also interesting to read that the bull terrier was bred to have naturally upright ears when cropping was banned, and that doberman pinschers descend from a dog owned by a tax collector, Karl Friedrich Louis Doberman, who wanted a dog that would \”offer protection from thieves and encourage reluctant taxpayers to pay their dues.\” When I read of the endearingly catlike traits of the shiba inu, including its habit of purring, yodeling and screeching instead of barking, I thought of the basenji dog (which wasn\’t featured). There are many other intriguing facts about sixty various dog breeds in here.

Also included are brief essays by Temple Grandin, Kevin Kling, Winona LaDuke, James Hillman and Mary Gaitskill with Peter Trachtenberg, written specifically for this book. On various things such as the keen senses dogs use, and the nature of their relationship with humans. I especially liked Winona\’s essay about reservation dogs, which included a native american legend about how dogs became human companions. And the final essay by Gaitskill and Trachtenberg, which imagines the marriage of a cat and dog and is formatted as an interview with each species (about the traits of the other, and what it is like to live with them) was very amusing.

You can see many more of Ludington\’s photographs here.

Rating: 3/5 176 pages, 2007

more opinions:
Dog Art Today
Humor Books

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Art, Current Reads

Wife in the North

by Judith O\’Reilly

This book is about a woman who loved London, but her husband convinced her to move to Northumberland with two young boys. She was pregnant as well. And then he continued commuting into London, often spending weeks away. I didn\’t quite enjoy this book as much as I\’d hoped to. A lot of it felt negative- her complaints about her husband, missing her social life in the city, trying to fit into a rural community. I could relate to the parts about being a mother and having a new baby, some of the cute things her boys said really made me smile. She also had to deal with helping her elderly parents, rennovating their home and renting another in the meantime- thus moving several times, and trying to help her son overcome a bullying issue at school. At the same time she talks about starting to keep her journal online in a blog format, and the repercussions when other mothers realized she was publicly writing about their school. It seemed like most of the book was her complaints, but then again people are more inclined to write about the bad times and let off pressure, then to write about the good things I guess. Some predicaments were funny, others very familiar and then there were parts I just couldn\’t relate to at all (not being someone who pines after city living).

Rating: 3/5 346 pages, 2008

more opinions:
Book Chase
On My Bookshelf
The Book Nest
Bermudaonion\’s Weblog

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads

Hide and Seek

by Taro Gomi

Cute little book that has hidden pictures. One page shows an object, on the facing side it\’s hidden within an image. It\’s cleverly done. In a line of giraffes; one has candles on its head instead of horns. A group of raccoons- one has a striped sock instead of a tail. A rooster\’s comb is a glove, a praying mantis body is a green pencil, the negative space in an alligator\’s mouth forms a toothbrush. And so on. My favorite is the last page, which has a group of children. A spoon and fork are hidden in the shapes of a girls\’ pigtails. Fun.

Rating: 3/5 24 pages, 1990

more opinions:
Picture This Book
Waking Brain Cells

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Baby books, Current Reads

The Boss Baby

by Maria Frazee

This cute little book depicts a new baby as a corporate boss. Black and white onesie styled like a business suit, holding long lists of demands, crying and screaming to call his parents to \”meetings\”. Cute metaphor to how a baby can completely overtake a home, get mom and dad hopping to do his bidding, demand instant results (even when no one can figure out what he really wants) and get all his perks: music played to soothe him, drinks prepared round the clock and so on. Until the baby\’s \”staff\” of mom and dad collapse in complete exhaustion. Baby calls for attention, but gets no response. So he must find a new way to communicate. Really cute. My little girl just thinks the baby is being silly, it\’s parents who will really get a chuckle out of this one, recognizing how demanding infants can really be.

Borrowed this one from the library. It\’s fun to read the author\’s words about how her concept for the book evolved here.

Rating: 3/5 36 pages, 2010

more opinions:
Maw Books Blog
Help Readers Love Reading
The Book Chook
Munchkin\’s Book Journey

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Baby books, Current Reads

The Cat Whisperer

by Mieshelle Nagelschneider

A book all about cat behavior and how to make it fit what you want to live with. Why cats do what they do- the basis being that cats are in nature solitary hunters out to protect their resources- so to have a peaceful housecat you must make sure they feel secure and don\’t have to ward off rival cats (whether in the house or out of it) or feel crowded at feeding spots and the like. That\’s just a little bit of it, but you get the idea. The author discusses in very specific detail how to handle undesirable things your cat might do such as soiling things outside of the litterbox, marking places with urine, clawing furniture, yowling in the middle of the night, sucking on clothing or hair, attacking people and/or other cats and so on. Also issues like how to introduce a new cat to an established cat in the home, how to help a cat settle in after a move and more. Points out when conventional advice is not the best to follow, and what medical issues could cause common behavior problems. In each instance she explains things from your cat\’s viewpoint- why they are probably doing what they do, and how to redirect their behavior- mostly by removing the stresses from their environment and providing more appropriate outlets for their needs. I don\’t currently live with a cat, but I do still help take care of my cat who now lives with my boyfriend and we\’ve had to deal with him urinating outside of the box. A lot of the ideas in this book were very helpful (he hasn\’t had issues in a while, but I have a better idea now of what might have been causing them).

Some things of interest I learned from this book:
Cats and humans have similar pheromones, which makes it easy for cats to bond with people.
Cats communicate with each other mostly by scent, but learn that people respond better to vocalization.
You can transfer the scent off a cat\’s own body to alter its behavior, how it feels about things in the home or other cats and people it lives with.
Cats are good at \”time-sharing\” and can have peacefully overlapping territories because they use different resources at different times of the day.
Cats naturally live by hunting and eat small, frequent meals throughout the day- so she suggests you feed them more often in small portions, or leave food available all day long. I always thought that would make a cat fat.
I knew cats\’ temperaments could be shaped by early socialization or lack of it, but learned that they can also have behavior problems later in life if they suffer from malnutrition as kittens. Malnutrition can actually affect parts of the brain so it don\’t work properly later on.
How a cat ideally likes his litterbox placed was not exactly what I thought before.
Most cats like to be petted on the head and sides of the face, not along the body, back or near the tail.
Cats don\’t like to drink near the places where they eat- because in nature their dead prey could contaminate water. So she says that\’s why some cats prefer to drink out of your water glass, a dripping faucet, or the toilet.
A cat can feel frustrated when it plays with things you manipulate, but never let it catch. And, she says you should finish a prey-sequence play session not only by letting your cat grab and \”kill\” the toy, but also by feeding your cat or giving it a treat- then it will feel really satisfied.

A lot of things I never really considered before. Might just get a copy of this book to keep on my shelf. I found this one at the public library, just browsing my favorite section.

Rating: 4/5 310 pages, 2013

more opinions:
Book Reviews from an Avid Reader
the Conscious Cat
Different Time, Different Place

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

Within Reach

My Everest Story
by Mark Pfetzer and Jack Galvin

This guy starting climbing some serious mountains when he was only thirteen years old. He was the youngest to summit Mount Pisco and Huascaran in Peru at fourteen, summited Aconcagua in Argentina when he was fifteen then went on to climb Everest, summit Mount Rainier and Ama Dablam in Nepal the same year and returned to Everest and tackled Kilimanjaro in Africa when he was sixteen. And those aren\’t the only climbs he did. It\’s a pretty amazing thing.

And a very engaging book to read. It reads like it\’s pulled straight out of his journal. Snippets of this and that, first impressions, little stories about other people he\’s met, glimpses of his family and most of all the climbing. Why he does it. His motivation, his meticulous preparations, his focus on safety and physical conditioning, the necessity of finding sponsors and how he got people to back him. All the time and effort that go into preparing for each climb. Once again I was reminded of the sheer mass of everything – distance travelled, heaps of gear, collection of people supporting or coaching or carrying stuff for others, the back and forth up the mountainside to acclimate, the huge force of it all for one last push to get just a few people to the top. And the many who don\’t make it. Very sobering. I can understand the thrill and drive that makes people climb mountains like Mark did, but I would never ever do it myself.

He made it very clear that it was his desire to climb mountains, that his parents only let him go because he prepared so strictly, that he studied a lot on the road and in camps to keeping up with his schooling. That it was his will and hard work that got him there. I found quite interesting his ideas on what advantages young climbers might have over older climbers who carried more experience, and also the different view of things when near the end of the book Mark was acting as a guide and support to a wealthy family who paid someone to get them up a mountain, instead of working hard to prepare themselves. In the book Mark often mentions his dreams to become a medical doctor, but it seems he is now an inspirational speaker.

It\’s an interesting, vivid and quick read. Got me thinking of all the other mountain-climbing books I\’ve heard about and would like to read sooner rather than later.

Rating: 3/5 224 pages, 1998

more opinions:
Everest Book Report

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Travel/Adventure, Young Adult

Catch That Baby!

by Nancy Coffelt

Baby brother has a bath and then doesn\’t want to get dressed. Instead he goes running naked through the house. On each page, another family member joins in the chase. My little girl giggles at the nakedness (you only see his butt) and the romp through the house. She loves pointing out where the baby is hiding behind furniture on certain pages. In the end the little boy puts his clothes on by himself- all the wrong way of course, which elicits even more giggles! The illustrations by Scott Nash, ink line and color, are lively and fun.

Rating: 3/5 34 pages, 2011

more opinions:
Waking Brain Cells
BooksForKidsBlog
Sal\’s Fiction Addiction
Rosemary\’s Reading Circle
The Little Mom

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Picture Books

Outfoxing the Fox

by Friederike Rave

A little fox wakes up one day and decides he doesn\’t have to go to school, because \”foxes are clever enough already.\” But when he visits the henhouse to get a chicken for his dinner, the hens are far too smart for him. They pretend to be sick, insisting they\’d love to help him out, but he doesn\’t want to eat a sick chicken- he should wait until they are better. The fox agrees this seems best. Each night he returns to the henhouse, and then hens are progressively wrapped up in more clothes, sneezing and coughing, claiming to still be sick. Finally the hungry fox gives up on chickens and with a bit of luck steals a hunter\’s sandwich. Pleased to have a good meal at last, he tucks into his sandwich planning to go visit the chickens again tomorrow. But they won\’t be there- you can see their getaway plan on the last page.

This is a fun book, with lively illustrations and some silly situations that make my little girl giggle. But there\’s a few things that bug me about it. One is the idea that this fox is skipping school- yet there\’s no mention of school brought up again, he doesn\’t learn some tricks or skills somewhere and then try them out as I half-expected. No parent figures in the story at all either. Another is that on most pages the hens are painting swathes of the page white, or rolling out white paper (see the cover). First time I read the story I thought this was part of their plan to fool the fox- maybe they were making everything white like winter, to back up their \”sick with a cold\” ruse. Then I realized it was a visual joke in the background: then hens are just making white space for the text. But it felt like it ought to be part of the story!

Regardless, it\’s a book my three-year-old really enjoys, so I shouldn\’t be so critical. But for myself, it feels kind of awkward. Some parts just don\’t fit together.

Rating: 2/5 28 pages, 2010

more opinions:
Jean Little Library

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, Picture Books

Month: August 2014

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