• Posted on October 01, 2012

Blue Moon

And there it was. Tucked between the banal and the forgettable on the shelves of my local bookstore. The Insomniacs, by Karina Wolf, with illustrations by The Brothers Hilts. The Brothers Hilts? Never heard of ’em. My first impression? Wow. My second impression, well, I didn’t have second impression. I was too busy walking up to the till. When I see a book like this, even just a few pages, it’s like stumbling upon a box of jewels. There is no question I’m taking it home with me. And so, I did.

The Insomniacs is a story of jet-lag gone awry. When Mrs Insomniac gets a job as an astronomer, she and her somewhat oddly-constructed family set sail on a ship to their new home ’12 time zones’ away, and subsequently experience great difficulty adjusting to the shift in daylight hours. With bags under their eyes and slumped shoulders, mother, father (who looks like Humpty-Dumpty with an upside down face), and daughter Mika shuffle through their daily routines, unable to sleep at night in spite of the hot baths, numerous cups of milk, and meditation. In a last desperate attempt to find a way out of their predicament, the family go in search of hibernating bears to learn the secret of their season-long slumber. Wandering through the dark woods at night, they discover an entire world of nocturnal activity, and a light goes on, figuratively and literally.

Yes, The Insomniacs is indeed a box of jewels, but this night-time story is all sapphire.

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  • Posted on March 09, 2011

My Plant, My Pet

I have a fern that is about 15 years old. Maybe 20. It’s not particularly attractive, at least in comparison to my other plants, and because it is rarely moved, the plant is lopsided; lush on one side (the public side) and bald on the other. I’ve named it Sideshow Bob because it sprouts dreads like Krusty’s infamous sidekick on the Simpson’s, but unlike the cartoon character, my Sideshow Bob possesses few, if any, homicidal inclinations. I should have turfed this plant a long time ago, but I have grown rather fond of ol’ Bob. My point? Anything can engender love — including plants, and books about plants.

From the moment I first laid eyes on the dirt-trailing, long-snouted stump of green foliage walking across the cover of Plantpet, I was in love. Like Bertie, the solitary, never-out-of-his-slippers human with the Don King hair in Elise Primavera’s story of unexpected friendship, I could not resist the charm of this tiny sprout, abandoned in a cage amongst Bertie’s junk. But is it a plant, or a pet? And is there a name (or treatment) for this type of love?

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