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To celebrate my conscious path of stupidity, here's a look at three books I'm more prone to take on. One's a sixteen-page epic about dinosaurs with about as many words, another is an activity book that tells me which Olsen twin is left-handed. In the third book, Grover insists that I stop reading entirely -- you can see why these were up my alley. It's X-E's Triple Book Review, a title that makes little sense since I not do ever the books readed. Let's get literary...  Dinosaurs and Other Monsters of the Past should be familiar to some people within the same age bracket as me -- this book, and countless others like it, were commonly sold at every elementary school book fair and advertised in every Troll Book Club circular for the better part of the 80's. Published in 1987, I so vividly recall the driving reason for my interest in purchasing the book: it came with stickers. Twelve of 'em. The sticker gimmick worked on me every time -- to the point where I'd pick up titles I had zero interest in just for the sheet of happy stickers. When books about unicorns and Wrigley Field made their way into my library, I knew I'd gotten off track. Dinosaur books in general account for 50% of the time I spend reading even today, and I guess I owe starting points like Dinosaurs and Other Monsters of the Past for my wealth of knowledge on the plesiosaur (didn't even have to spellcheck the word -- I'm an expert see) Books like these were often strange in that, while targeted towards youngsters with concise sentences and short paragraphs, the terms used within were frequently indecipherable to those of us without a masters in dinosauralalalogy. This particular title remains breezy enough, in part because half of the pages are just dinosaur illustrations...  The other books featured in this article are recent buys, but I've kept this one ever since grade school. Save for my early attempts at doodling tits littering the inside covers, it's in pretty good shape. One thing troubles me, though. I've always prided myself on being a sticker artist -- never wasting one when I happened upon it, always finding the perfect places to stick 'em to. My apparent lack of sanity shown above, where I simply placed the stickers on the pages with their corresponding photos, makes me want to 86 the rest of this article, build a time machine, and head back to 1987 to talk myself out of eternal damnation. Nah. Then I'd have to get off the couch. Stickers aside, my interest in reading Dinosaurs and Other Monsters of the Past stemmed from the knowledge that half of the pages were just illustrations. Judging by book length, I was credited for reading twice as much as I actually did. (we had some kind of weird per-page point system in class...winners got a gold star and a free gluestick tube or some shit) The other half of the pages were equally breezy, each featuring only a few words and precisely adhering to the format shown below...  Paleontologists who moonlight as authors of children's books rarely have time to mince words, what with all of the undiscovered bones lurking just beneath the surface, and children who were morally opposed to reading benefited from books containing less than sixty words total. I give the title credit for featuring some of the less obvious candidates (they ain't all T-Rexes and three-horns and Dinobot Swoops), as it's indeed one of the few dino books I've seen to even mention the hyperodapedon, much less devote seventy-eight letters to sounding out its pronunciation. They kinda lure you in with this herbivorous tone while telling of its favorite foods before throwing a wrench in your bodily spokes with the final treat: MOLLUSKS. Fruits, plants and MOLLUSKS! In some offshore floating museum of natural history, the skeletal jaw of a long deceased hyperodapedon smiles. He happily remains an enigma. I'd show you a picture of the hyperodapedon, but they've done such a good job painting a mental picture with the "Unusual Features" section at bottom. It looks like a lizard, but it's only as big as a sheep, or a pig, and these two long tusks, or bones, on the front of him, look like, a, beak. Seriously, I feel like I've studied the thing for years with the visionary assist shown here. I'm always thrilled when I come across books like these during my travels within the four block radius surrounding my apartment -- they remind me of perhaps my favorite day of the school year: the book fair. Not only did you get out of usual class time, but your parents threw lots of money at you to spend on books that had about as much to do with education as playing video games. I had little interest in owning the full series of Garfield comic collectives, but if Mom's payin...  Okay, this could be trouble. Michelle's Full House of Activities is both a clever play on words and a book that's wild, outrageous and unauthorized. Indeed, the only connection between Full House and the title is the fact that Ms. Author Whatshername had to pay to use the Olsen twins' photos. And if you're going to pay for a Michelle Tanner photo, it may as well be the one where she looks like one of those tuxedo-wearing chimps from a bad SnL skit. It's just a bunch of Full House inspired brainteasers, puzzles and trivia games, with some black and white shots of the cast sprinkled throughout. I can personally guarantee you that I'm spending more time writing the review of the book than the authors did putting it together. It's like they rushed to get it out in time for the next Christmas season, having been falsely led to believe in a rumored influx of young Catholic children who wanted 20-page puzzle books about Full House from Santa. In good conscience, I can't review each page. You've done nothing to hurt me. Instead, here's a few choice elements from the absolute masterpiece -- the can't-miss pages you've been dying to know more about for all of these many years.  Something tells me that picture's been mirrored. Factoring in the paragraph under Michelle, I think extending her a word bubble reading "HI GUYS" would've been well served.  Here's one of the typical puzzle pages. Gotta give the book's previous owner credit: she nailed all of the words. I understand that authors of unauthorized Full House activity books might grow skilled at skirting copyright law, but I think they're taking it too far with that "word-a-search" shit. Nobody had a copyright stake in the term "word search." Use it you fools.  And now, a group of increasingly difficult trivia questions, each of which exposing a Hollywood secret or debunking a Tinseltown myth. Question #5 is of particular interest. Let's say that the Olsen twins actually pursued ice skating rather than build an empire within the entertainment / parfum business. If this was the case, Two of a Kind wouldn't have paved the way for more of the time's child stars to lash out against stereotype and remain hip and spotlighted well past the cancellation of their debut show. And if that was the case, I wouldn't have to blindfold myself before channel surfing in fear of seeing the resurgent Raven Simone, now much older and much much scarier. The domino effect and ramifications of these seemingly slight alterations are just incredible. Makes me wanna go out and get a soda.  Your assignment: Using only the letters in the name "Stephanie," form as many other words as possible. Step. Uh... Step... Uh... Hanie? The book's previous owner didn't seal the deal with a front cover name scribbling, but if these answers are any indication, I owe the bag lady who always asks me for gummy bears outside the train station a buck seventy-five. Let's see: pine, pie, pet, pets, hate, hates, hat, hats, pane, panes, snip, snipe, snap, pest, hen, hens, ant, ants, pants, sit, site, ape, apes -- Jesus Christ, she couldn't name more than step and hamie, the latter word only counting if we're including tribal war cries as acceptable answers? It's even more surprising when you remember just how smart and acerbic Full House was. Did the book's old owner even get the jokes? There's a cahr in the kitchen. There's a cahr in the kitchen.  Amazing but true: if you stare at that picture of Stephanie using the patented cross-eyed supertrick learned when adventuring with "Magic Eye" puzzles, she'll eventually morph into the Trix rabbit.  Hey fal, se you doing that? Fal girl se an idiot.  I call foul. That "love and laughter" stuff was Small Wonder's bit. Unless DJ is going to flash me some cogs, they have to give that line back. In addition, Lori Loughlin appears as if Dave Coulier just shoved a chilled Gumby figure in her ass. IMBD's trivia section confirms that such incidents happened often on the set, only with a more diverse collection of ass-fillers than chilled Gumby dolls. I think this is why Becky is never shown sitting down, and why she sleeps on one of those upside-down hanger thingies like Batman Version Keaton. She's sore because of all the Gumbies Joey shoved in her ass. Cool, another thing to watch out for in the reruns.  My answers: 1) Horse. 2) Jo Marie Payton. 3) Binoculars. 4) Single, Red. 5) The Donatello Triplets.  I motherfuckin hated the twins, seriously. Maybe it's because Michelle had grown up a bit and the producers finally ended the reign of terror grasped by the "awww cute little baby!" audience track, only to bring it back because hey, those twins did adorable things at a rate of two times per second. Moreover, I just thought Joey was the true heir apparent to the swank attic bedroom, and forever cursed Jesse's marriage (and kids by association) because of it. Jesse had the hair, the lady and the twins. Joey had ventriloquism. Give the guy the damn attic. That's about it for Michelle's Full House of Activities, an award winning sack of crap that's managed to both offend me and make my car go on fire. Moving back to more celebrated ground, here's one of my favorite children's books ever -- a well-known title starring Grover and...nope, just him.  Yes, it's the infamous The Monster at the end of this Book, featuring oh-so-lovable Grover. As a young child, there wasn't a book I picked up more often. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the first thing I ever read cover-to-cover, in part for its clever format that feels more like a television show than reading material. Back in the years when Sesame Street meant something to me, Grover and the Count -- those were my guys right there. Anything with either of those characters was aces, and Grover was about to prove his worth by telling me not to turn the page and slapping his forehead in disgust after I did.  For those who've never seen it, the gimmick was simple. Grover, fearful of the book's title, warns you not to turn the page, as it only draws both you and him closer to meeting...THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK. Obviously, kids couldn't resist, and responded to Grover's worries by turning the pages even faster. Grover isn't going down without a fight, though. When yelling and screaming fails, he attempts everything from tying the book shut to taping it closed. Nothing works, and he just gets more and more insane in the process. This isn't quite the Grover you know and love from the television show -- it's Grover Version Alpha Drama Omega; the kind of Sesame Street character who'd curse and take drugs if it wasn't explicitly spoken against in the corporate mission statement. This next page always captured my curiosity as a kid...  In retrospect, I'm not quite sure why I found the sight of Grover trying to create a barrier of wood to prevent me from turning the page so amazing. Maybe it's the KLONK. On the last page, we finally learn that the monster at the end of this book was only Grover himself, who insincerely takes it in stride, obviously feeling like a fool on the inside. An easy conclusion to guess, sure, but when I was a child I ate it right up. Totally thought I was gonna see Satan on worse in the climax, but nope, it's just Grover. To tell you the truth, I was kind of disappointed. I'd already had sixteen pages worth of Grover. I felt a change was due. On the final final page -- I believe they would've referred to it as an epilogue if any six-year-olds knew what the world meant -- Grover reveals his inner torment over being tricked and pranked and punk'didded...  Pish. Grover, you think you're embarrassed? I'm 25, and I just spent Monday afternoon reviewing The Monster at the end of this Book. I think I need to go cover myself in baseball grease and fix a motorcycle now. See you later Ally Gater. More X-E Book Reviews: The He-Man Coloring Book - The Congo Activity Book - The Marvel Secret Wars Sticker Book - The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man - The Transformers Coloring Book -- Matt (6/07/04) RETURN TO X-E! |