When Wendy Grew up

This was a scene added to the play Peter Pan. In it Peter visits Wendy and discovers that she has become an adult. He becomes friends with her daughter. I bought a collection of J.M. Barrie's plays and this was included. It's only a couple of pages. It was cute. I've been going through J.M. Barrie's other literary works and Peter Pan is definitely his masterpiece.

Elizabeth and her German Garden

This is about a woman who spends the novel rambling about her garden. She doesn't garden herself though. She has gardeners although they don't always live up to her vision. She calls her husband "the man of wrath." He doesn't care for the garden. It wasn't the most exciting read. It was published in 1898 so it's pretty old fashioned. I liked the movie Enchanted April when I was a kid which the author also wrote. I think that's going to be a better read.

The Ice Palace

Tarjei Vesaas is a Norwegian treasure. I read The Birds earlier this year and decided to revisit The Ice Palace, his most famous novel. Two girls just start becoming friends. Unn nearly tells Siss a secret and runs away into the cold. Siss spends the novel denying the fact that her friend is likely dead. The town gives up long before she does. There are great moments showing her rage about this. In one scene a new student is about to sit in Unn's old space. Siss yells at the new girl eventually getting the whole class to agree with her. Later on Siss goes to The Ice Palace itself. The weather is more than atmosphere here. It's a captivating character in itself. Vesaas was nominated a few times for the Nobel prize. I don't see why he didn't win. Less worthy writers have won. I will be investigating more of his works.

The Drifting Classroom volume 3

I read the first two volumes five years ago but I was able to catch up quickly. This is an anime about a classroom that drifts into a scary future. In this volume the kids have resorted to murder and even cannibalism. Sho is able to talk to his mom in the hope that they all will go back. I think the kids in this book are pretty smart. I said this in another entry if it would be me I would be a goner. This was a pretty good conclusion to the series. The ending surprised me. It wasn't what I expected.

Our Town

At first I didn't get the appeal of this day as it seemed another standard representation of small town life and love. Then in the final act it turned avant garde as the dead characters of the town talked about what made life and that town so meaningful. The team behind The Fantasticks worked on a musical of this for years only to have Wilder's nephew say they couldn't do it after all. I think they would have made one of their best. I need to watch the movie.

The Admirable Crichton

This was a cute play by J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. A rich family is stranded on a desert island. Their butler becomes the leader and the one who saves the day. He even wins the love of one of the girls Mary. But will everything will be the same when they come back home? This was later made into a movie in the 1950s which I have to watch. Yes Peter Pan was J.M. Barrie's masterpiece but it's fun reading what else the writer had to say. 3/5

Rock Crystal

It's curious NYRB (New York Review Books) has put this out twice. They put Rock Crystal out as a novella alone. I guess once NYRB realized how great of a writer Stifter was they decided to release the whole short story collection it came from Motley Stones. One edition is translated by Marianne Moore, a poet I like, so if you're a fan of hers then it's worth investigating. This is about two children who visit their grandparents during winter but get lost in the snow on the way home. Soon there's a search party. It's a perfect book to read during December. There's something enchanting about it.