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01/04/2006: New Article: Book Reports. Plus Turtle Comms!

If you can believe the rumors, there might be a new, normal, regular X-E article up. Book Reports is its name, and its game is reviewing five different children’s books that for one reason or another manage to make me turn glee into a verb and glee my way to Happyland. Everything from the Berenstain Bears to the Jolly Green Giant to God and dinosaurs, all in one space, with yummy parchment background. Enjoy.

In other news, I received a package the other day from my editor at Box Office Magazine, and assumed it was just another in a long line of “generic” gifts companies send to their clients and cohorts. This would’ve been fine by me: A gift is a gift. But something tells me that vintage TMNT Turtle Comms aren’t something companies send in mass to their contacts…

As it turns out, my editor had this baby and figured I might like it, and I figure she’s right, because I somehow never landed myself a Turtle Comm toy in all my years of Turtleing. It’s neat. Comes with all of these character cards with specific Morse codes that let you contact them, or at least, let you pretend you’re in contact with ‘em. I can’t believe I now have the means to play Walkie Talkie with Usagi Yojimbo, and this is definitely the kind of gift that’ll get me to lower my rate on articles written at 3 AM the night before a 9 AM deadline. Thanks, C!

She even included a note saying that she liked the 2005 Advent Calendar, which is my perfect segue into answering the question of a few who asked: Yes, it’s been archived, and it can be found here. Will put the archive on the headlines list on the main page as soon as I write up the descriptions.

3 Stupid Things I’m Currently Into:
1) King Kong lore. Bit by the bug after seeing the remake (which was excellent), I’ve been immersing myself in All Things Kong. I’m really fascinated with the many interpretations of what goes on on Skull Island, and that’s reason enough to see virtually all Kong-related films ever made. Next on my list is Son of Kong, and from what I’ve read, I think this will be one to review on the site.

2) Metroid Prime Pinball, for the Nintendo DS. Bought this baby with a Christmas gift certificate, because the holidays are the only time my video game library ever grows. This is one addictive little bitch. I’m a sucker for virtually every pinball game I’ve ever played, and this one doesn’t disappoint. The Metroid theme is in more than just music and graphics, too. Heck, you don’t shoot a ball, you shoot a rolled-up Samus who occassionally spreads out ot shoot demon bats with high energy beams. Between this and Mario Kart, I have found my offerings to the gods of procrastination.

3) The Secret Life of Lobsters. I’m really not sure where this book is going yet. It’s obstensibly about the lobsters of Maine, but I may have been tricked into reading a novel about fisherman and scientists trying to find common ground. Not really sure yet, but they dangle the big claws often enough to keep me interested.


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 194 comments

KB: That name does sound familiar, but it’s been years since I’ve read them. Haven’t been to Elementary school in 15 years.

Speaking of horror books, I’m suprised no ones mentioned the Goosebumps books that were megapopular back then. Those were fun.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 01/07/2006 1:09 AM EST

I read tons of the icky girl books…Little House, American Girls, Bobsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley Twins, Babysitter’s Club, etc. Does Boxcar Children count?

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 01/07/2006 1:48 AM EST

Baby-sitters Club was awesome. I have a bunch of the TV show on VHS too and they’re hysterical.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 01/07/2006 9:12 AM EST

Lizzy: I had several books that came with records, mostly Disney ones. Side One usually "read" the story and side two would have songs from the movie it was based on. I clearly remember Bambi, which came with a giant book and the old "painterly" looking artwork, Dumbo, and 101 Dalmations.

They were hand-me downs from my older cousins. I also vividly remember the books on tape craze and even though I tried to get into it I never did.

BTW I remember the unicorn books. They were the Whisper the Unicorn books.

Ghosted by Kittycatgirl @ 01/07/2006 10:27 AM EST

I had a book with various scary tales in it. The one that scared the crap out of me was one about a girl who always wore a ribbon around her neck. When it finally got taken off, her head rolled to the floor. The story itself didn’t bother me but it was a picture book and that, that just disturbed me. My favorite Berenstein Bears book was the one about brother bear wanting to go see a movie but his parents wouldn’t let him so he went by himself and it scared him to no end. I never really cared about the movie but I cared about the action figures that the movie was based on. Early in the book brother bear was playing with all of these awsome toys. There was a huge castle playset. It was awsome.

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/07/2006 11:20 AM EST

"The Berenstein Bears Go Into Hibernation"
It would be just 26 pages of them sleeping.
I’d buy it.

There’s a short animated film based on "Arrow…" that is really cool to watch. There’s even one based on the Author’s other book, the African folk-tale "The Magic Tree."

Ghosted by kingklash @ 01/07/2006 11:29 AM EST

Off topic but I’m a rebel, my mom just handed me a King Kong toy called the Creatures of Skull Island. It has 3 different giant bugs, two natives, and one white guy whose head fits perfectly into one of the bug’s mouth. T’was beauty that killed the beast.
Oh, and did anyone read the animorphs books?

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/07/2006 4:25 PM EST

Anybody remember the My Teacher is an ALien series of books? It was about an Alien pretending to be a teacher and some kids find out about it.

Or how aobut the Mr. books. THey were a bunch of books titled Mr. Neat or Mr. Topsy-turvy.

Ghosted by Bright Noah @ 01/07/2006 5:04 PM EST

Just got back from King Kong. Great movie. Although I know it’s a classic line, the beauty killed the beast line was kind of chessy to me. Otherwise, Great film.

Noah: I do remember those Mr. books, those were fun. Also, remember the alien teacher series even though I never read them. Cool covers mostly.

Those book clubs were notorious though for bringing fads to the front. Books/posters for every music group/teen idol of the time, movie adaption novels, character bookmarks, etc.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 01/07/2006 5:45 PM EST

Darth Poop
That sounds like it’s from one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books I mentioned earlier. I remember that story (a man marries a woman who always wears a velvet choker, and it starts to get to him that she never takes it off. He finally takes matters into his own hands and removes it one night while she sleeps), but now I can’t check for sure if it’s in the book. "You’d be sorry if I did, so I won’t!"

Glad to know I’m not the only one creeped out by them, AJ.

Man, I wish I hadn’t loaned the book out, now I have a really strong urge to creep myself out by staring at the illustrations.

One time I took one of the books to Girl Scout sleepaway camp, I was so excited about the chance to read my favorite scary stories to the other girls, out in the deep dark woods. Unfortunately, I didn’t even get through a single one. A couple paragraphs into the first story, one of the girls and I both heard something weird outside the tent. We were discussing what we thought it might have been, a couple of the other girls got all freaked out and shrieky, and the counselor came to see what was up. She blamed the whole thing on the fact I had been reading the book (even though I hadn’t even gotten far enough to scare anyone), and I was ordered to put it in my trunk the rest of the week.

Party pooper.

Ghosted by mags @ 01/07/2006 6:25 PM EST

"…. And, the 25th advert entry went out to look for the conclusion of the Chia Plot, and was never seen again! Pleasant dreams, children."

Ghosted by kingklash @ 01/07/2006 6:36 PM EST

WOW!
Once again, Matt you bring up something that I thought only I remembered.

I also had "Tiny Dinosaurs" as a child. It’s the book that made Deinonychus my favourite Dinosaur and years later the source of my screen name.

Ghosted by Tetsu Deinonychus @ 01/07/2006 9:13 PM EST

Did anyone else participate in the Pizza Hut Book It program at school? You’d read a couple of books and then they’d give you a coupon for a free personal pizza. It was so rad. I loved those little pizzas. I bet now I could eat like 5 of them in one sitting. Course all the grease would probably land me half-way to a heart attack, but hey! Pizza!

Ghosted by Mystie @ 01/07/2006 10:16 PM EST

Mystie- I remember the Book It program. I always got a rush when my mom would hand the guy at the counter the coupon.Those little pizzas were awsome and I still have one from time to time but the pizza hut where I went to exchange a crappy piece of paper for cheesy goodness recently closed. :(

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/07/2006 10:41 PM EST

Speaking as an elementary school teacher, I am very familiar with the Troll and Scholastic Book Orders. It was a delicious high when I was young and we would walk past the school office and see a large box on the counter with "Troll" stamped on it. We were so anxious to receive the latest Hardy Boys: Case Files book or something written from My Little Pony’s point of view.

But now, man, those things are a bitch!! Parents who write out checks for incorrect amounts, white envelopes filled with change, special over-the-summer-vacation orders that require a separate coupon…
Well, at least the teacher bonus points make it all worthwhile.

Ghosted by Thorzuul @ 01/07/2006 11:25 PM EST

Or how aobut the Mr. books. THey were a bunch of books titled Mr. Neat or Mr. Topsy-turvy.

Damn, I was gonna say something about them earlier. Yes, I have and read a lot of those, including the sister "Little Miss" books. And like most of you, I acquired them via a garage sale.

And I believe there were some cartoons based on the books. I’ve seen a couple of them, and I don’t know how many of them were made.

Ghosted by Invader Norbert @ 01/08/2006 12:02 PM EST

Mmmm, Book It! I loved those little holographic pins.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 01/08/2006 12:05 PM EST

I remember Book=It, and the holographic pins, but you had to be careful with the stickers on the pins, cause they could fall off and then you would be screwed.

I’m a guy, and I read like 70-odd Babysitter’s Club books, plus Super-Specials, Super-Scary Specials, and Mysterys. Never got into the Little Sisters series.
My sisters belonged to the monthly thing where they got like 3 new BSC books every month, and they came in one of the snap=handle bags that someone else was talking about.

Ghosted by kidneyboy @ 01/08/2006 12:27 PM EST

I read so many books as a kid, I could have fed my family on Book-It. Great program, and the pins got better every year.

The "My Teacher is an Alien" series was rather odd. I believe in the last one the aliens decided to destroy Earth; does anyone know if they succeeded?

Ghosted by Mars @ 01/08/2006 1:43 AM EST

grr no official SNT

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 01/08/2006 3:09 AM EST

Yeah, Eddie, I was thinking the same thing. That’s 2 weeks in a row. But we actually got an article this week and that probably exerted all Matt’s energy for X-E for a while. ;)

Ghosted by Mystie @ 01/08/2006 3:15 AM EST

This was in the only book in the series I read. They wanted to blow up the Earth because it’s full of jerk-offs (Even though murdering an entire planet with extremely limited space travel doesn’t seem very nice to me :/). So the main kid’s like "Oh come on! Give us time! We’ll be good!"
Aliens: "Ehhh…"
Kid: "COME OOON!"
Aliens: "Okay."

I read it in middle school, so my memory could be way off.

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 01/08/2006 5:51 AM EST

Crap, I meant to mark spoilers for the book, but it turned into an HTML tag… I doubt anyone will be upset though…

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 01/08/2006 5:53 AM EST

I remember on of the my teacher is an Alien book the alien wnated to destroy earth but the kids convinced them not to. And in another one, one of the kids went with the alien to his spaceship and was traveling aorund the galaxy with him.

Ghosted by Bright Noah @ 01/08/2006 12:36 PM EST

Holy crap. I forgot about the holo pin for book it. For the past several years I always thought that there was a coupon that you would get. The sad thing is that my book it pin has been in plain view and I didn’t realize it. How many other memories have been corrupted? Damn those aliens in my head! Damn them!
In the My Teacher is an Alien series didn’t the kids get teleported to a riot at some point. The aliens wanted to make them feel like they deserved to die. While going through the boxes full of kids books in my basement a few months ago I found a Full House poster. I and my Mom have no idea where it came from but it appears to be from Troll or Scholastic. Anyone ever get posters from a book club?
Here’s another thing in this crazy post. I remember when the Scholastic books stopped being interesting to me. Around third or fourth grade I stopped placing orders. It was a sad realization for me at the time that all the books that they were selling sucked. I had grown out of the dinosaur phase so that eliminated most of the books that would have interested me. I think that the last books that I ordered were two little books about the Greeks and the Romans. The teachers kept handing out order catalogs until high school. In seventh grade I don’t remember anyone placing an order and in eighth grade we just crumpled up the catalogs and through them at each other while our mentally handicapped English teacher, Mrs. Wiley, would read every book description to us. We hated her so much. She couldn’t even pronounce kindling correctly and ignored the class when we corrected her. Good times. :)

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/08/2006 12:55 PM EST

And by through I of course mean threw. Or do I?

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/08/2006 12:58 PM EST

Son of Kong wounded me. Somewhere around the monkey + Poodle dancing scene my brain started to melt and didn’t stop until the tape ran out.
-jared

Ghosted by Ohgodtherats @ 01/08/2006 1:16 PM EST

I read all the Teacher is an Alien books, but can’t remember any of the storylines specifically. Well, I remember something about a rubber arm and a false fire alarm, but that’s from like, what, 5 books?
BBC America showed a marathon of Office last night, but I guess I’m a bit late with that hot tip :/
I don’t recall getting any Book It pins but my mom was a teacher so once a week or so she’d just bust out a set of coupons from work and that would be supper for the night. I feel odd admitting that even now 10 years later, but we were big readers so it really wasn’t cheating or anything, I swear.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 01/08/2006 1:35 PM EST

What about Goodnight Moon and Go Dog Go?

Ghosted by John Yingling @ 01/08/2006 3:36 PM EST

The Pizza Hut Book-It program was AWESOME.

Another program my elementary school did was if you read a certain amount of books, your name would put on different colored laminated cars that were then taped to the wall. The more books your read, the different colored car you got. It was sort of a race and was fun to watch.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 01/08/2006 4:35 PM EST

"My seventh grade CCD teacher told us to prepare for a "special" night in which we brought snacks and she would share something very special with us. What she did was hang six pack pop rings from the ceiling (a bunch of them all tied together, this is hard to describe) and light them on fire so they sort of slowly burned WHILE PLAYING JOHN LENNON’S ‘Imagine’." – Kate

"During the first track the kids go to a mad doctor’s house. When they get there, he presents to the kids a robot. A robot created to teach the kids songs about God and Jesus." – Geoffinsanity

I can’t decide which of these two would have messed me up more as a lass. The strangest thing I recall from CCD was when we listened to a band that I don’t think was Creed but sounded almost exactly like them. (shrugs)

JLAJRC – Look for the "Bunnicula" series.

KittyCatGirl – That’s "Whisper the Winged Unicorn"! There was some Troll book club deal where you could get a not-at-all-inspired-by-My Little Pony plush toy Whisper. I still have her.

It hasn’t been mentioned yet, so my choice for the single greatest Berenstein Bear book is "The Too Much Birthday". Way ahead of it’s time.

Ghosted by LaGremlin @ 01/08/2006 6:20 PM EST

Also, all I can remember from "Book It" was that stupid poster with the damned terrifying robot French maid girl from "Small Wonder" on it. (Brr!)

(Although Pizza Hut redeemed themselves with those kick-butt "Land Before Time" toys later on.)

Ghosted by LaGremlin @ 01/08/2006 6:22 PM EST

Bunnicula! The dog was always my favorite. I remember when he stole candy from the dad. I believe that the candy was very spicy, hotcha motcha! I always liked the books that had animals that could talk, whether it be to humans or each other. Stuart Little, Run Away Ralph, and the Bunnicula series were some of my favorites. I always knew that animals could speak to each other, plotting, scheming, and yearning. I know for a fact that it was a couple squirrels on the grassy knoll that shot Kennedy.

There’s another book that I can’t remember the name of. It was about a mouse whose husband had died and one of her daughters was sick so she went off to get medicine. She finds a city of rats under a rosebush, the rats had escaped from a lab and they could read and write, and her husband had been one of these rats.

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/08/2006 7:00 PM EST

Poop, that’s the The Rats of Nimh.
I was a big fan of all Beverly Cleary’s stuff, but especially Ramona.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 01/08/2006 7:34 PM EST

I remember reading ridiculous books like "I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X" and loving the hell out of it. I think it was part of a franchise too. I also remember reading a book "Faith and the Electric Dogs" about a girl and her spanish speaking dog.

Good times.

Also, I remember totally lying in Book It to get free pizzas. I’d read like 1/6 of the books I said I did just to get myself a Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza. Well, that or Bacon.

Also, this is unrelated, but I totally remember when the X-Men Animated Show was big and Pizza Hut had those tapes with an episode or two and had a roundtable with the creators beforehand.

Ghosted by AJ @ 01/08/2006 7:35 PM EST

Bunnicula. Thanks for reminding me.

Speaking of book posters. My high school still has those "READ!" posters with celebrities on them. From Shaq to Whoopi to WWF wrestlers sitting chairs holding a generic book.

I don’t know how your book-it programs worked, but we had to do book reports on every one for proof to earn those pizzas.

Most DECEIVING book title EVER: "The 2,000 Pound Goldfish." It’s really about a girl whose parents are divorcing or some serious subject. Not a hint of the goldfish. I was ticked.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 01/08/2006 8:00 PM EST

I went to a Catholic School.

They weren’t paid enough to read book reports for free pizza.

Ghosted by AJ @ 01/08/2006 8:24 PM EST

Someone way up above mentioned Psalty the singing hymn book. I had the Psalty Bible as a kid with his entire family teaching Bible lessons and had different songs to sing. Didn’t bother me much as a kid but I found it a few years ago and it kinda freaked me out. Psalty’s wife freaked me out the most, I don’t know why.

I loved the Ramona books. As well as the Goosebumps, and the "big kids" goosebumps, can’t remember what it was called. Loved the Babysitters Club, made me want to be a babysitter for a while till I realized I didn’t much like kids. Read the Little Sister series too. And the Boxcar Kids and all the different Sweet Valley High’s. Even started my own Unicorn club in 5th grade. I read so much as a kid, and sadly they all got thrown out last spring. If I had thought, I probably could’ve gotten good money for all those books.

Ghosted by Stacey @ 01/08/2006 9:38 PM EST

Hate to be off-topic, but has anyone seen the site Gametap.com? You can play a lot of old classic Nintendo and Atari games. One of the best features is that they actually have classic commercials for some of the games. I got to see the original spot for Kaboom! The sucky part is that it’s $14.95 a month to play, but they have a 2 weeks free trial.

Ghosted by Joe in OH @ 01/08/2006 9:38 PM EST

I remember when Goosebumps tried to get a resurgence and started that GOOSEBUMPS: SERIES 2000 shtick.

Ghosted by AJ @ 01/08/2006 9:41 PM EST

This isn’t the original Psalty, but close enough. Click on my name to see the freaky thing.

Ghosted by kb @ 01/08/2006 9:50 PM EST

The chocolate touch, or something like that. It’s about a boy who really likes chocolate and he ends up being able to turn anything he touches into chocolate. What a fatty. And Goosebumps rocked! I had every single one up until the Series 2000, which had foil covers I believe. I didn’t even have to pay for most of em’ because my cousin Matt gave me all of his.

Ghosted by Darth Poop @ 01/08/2006 9:50 PM EST

Darth Poop and Squee4242- Ever see the movie, "The Secret of Nimh"? Man, I LOVED that movie as a kid! Never got to read the book, though. English kids in Quebec do NOT have many books to choose from at the library! (unless you can read la francais…)

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 01/08/2006 9:54 PM EST

Great article. Didn’t read all the comments, but does anyone else recall a series of books called "Nate the Great." They were like Encyclopedia Brown books, but for young kids.

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 01/08/2006 10:06 PM EST

I remember a Nate the Great comic strip. I had the one book "Add More Babes"

That’s not helpful at all, is it?

Ghosted by AJ @ 01/08/2006 11:46 PM EST

I don’t remember Goosebumps 2000 (of course I was just starting college). What I do remember is that after the first series of Goosebump books ended, Stein then went on to write another short-lived series of horror books aimed at the slightly older kids called "Nightmare Street" or something. There was even a VERY short-lived Kids WB show based on them. This was after the Goosebumps show ended also.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 01/08/2006 11:58 PM EST

I have the Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food book! It was also one of my favorite books in the series when I was a child, and I actually reread it recently.

Ghosted by Anna @ 01/09/2006 12:36 PM EST

Another book I also had as a kid. You’d think Stan and Jan Berenstain would’ve tried to make the junk food look more…disgusting, since they were trying to convince to eat less of it. Maybe they could’ve have made it more blobby and slimy and greasy-looking, or something, rather than delicious and brightly colored with artificial pigments, making kids hanker for more.

And is it just me, or did you always think the Berenstain Bears looked more like monkeys than bears?

Ghosted by Andrew @ 01/09/2006 1:13 AM EST

I know I’m a bit late with this, but I had posters that I got from book orders. I had one on the back of my bedroom door for the longest time that was a stuffed animal with a lunch box. It said "Time for Lunch" or something. I distinctly remember that you’d get that free if you bought a certain amount of merchandise. No way would I have paid for that. Still, it was on my door for the longest time – next to my Fred Savage poster from Bop. (I loved me some Kevin Arnold.) When I was at my grandmother’s house around Christmas, my parents had found a box in her attic of some of my stuff and we were going through it. There was a "Kid’s Bill of Rights" poster I’d bought from Scholastic. My favorite part was where I reserved the right to not have to accompany my little sister to the bathroom anymore. Seriously, you have no idea how important it was to me to not have to do that anymore.

Ghosted by Lori @ 01/09/2006 10:17 AM EST

Thanks for the link to the 2005 Advent Calendar Matt.

Good stuff!

Ghosted by Matt Brand @ 01/09/2006 11:05 AM EST

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