Maxwell 44: Must We Permit Mephistopheles and Beelzebub to Perform Financial and Performance Audits

[mango_fandango]

I don’t actually remember what I read when I was 12! 
I tried reading Catcher I’m the Rye, but I just could not get into it. I just found Holden irritating. Most people seem to love it, though, so maybe I’m the weird one

Maybe Emma has two aunts who are horrible. And I bet it’s because they’re not Christian/the right kind of Christian. 

[marshmallow]

17 hours ago, Dominionatrix said:

Teri asked readers to comment with soup tips, but the first comment is just an off-topic compliment, and Teri’s response is absolutely cracking me up. 

Sorry, Cyndi, but if you don’t make soup, Teri simply does not have the time!

 

NEXT!!!

[PennySycamore]

It's been a while since I was 12 (53 years to be exact), but I do know that I read Exodus by Leon Uris about the founding of modern day Israel.  It also had a lot of stuff in it about the Holocaust in it.  It was in the adult section of the library, but we had this fabulous librarian who knew I was a good reader and thought I could handle the book.  

[HoneyBunny]

18 hours ago, Dominionatrix said:

Teri asked readers to comment with soup tips, but the first comment is just an off-topic compliment, and Teri’s response is absolutely cracking me up. 

Sorry, Cyndi, but if you don’t make soup, Teri simply does not have the time!

 

Those magnificent Maxwell conversation skills make another appearance.  

[mango_fandango]

There are preview pages on the website. The little sister drowned in a pool after a gate was left open, and Emma thought it was Aunt Nicole’s fault but it was actually Aunt Shannon’s. I’m guessing this was mentioned in Finding Change. 
Taffy is emphasised as being an English Cream Golden Retriever... wow, Sarah really has no imagination when it comes to pets! (Or any kind of imagination really). Would it really be such a stretch to make the dog a poodle or a basenji or some kind of cross? 

[Black Aliss]

15 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

Taffy is emphasised as being an English Cream Golden Retriever... wow, Sarah really has no imagination when it comes to pets! (Or any kind of imagination really). Would it really be such a stretch to make the dog a poodle or a basenji or some kind of cross? 

Perhaps not so difficult for Sarah to write the dog as another breed, but how would Mary ever draw a dog if she couldn't use Ellie as a model.

Age 7: Chronicles of Narnia

Age 8-10: Tolkien trilogy, Robin McKinley (Blue Sword, Hero and the Crown), the Redwall books

Age 12: Who knows? In addition to anything and everything on our bookshelves, they were choosing their own books at the library. I kind of remember Beryl Markham's West with the Night, Hitchhiker's Guides

Age 10-whenever they were published: Harry Potter

[johnhugh]

Except for basic swimming lessons, they really don’t like pools do they.  (Was this your idea Stevie?) I wonder if in a future chapter a woman in a bikini breaks into the pool goes for a swim and defrauds the dad as he allegedly cannot move due to his broken leg.....

Edited November 18, 2020 by johnhugh

[Caroline]

When I was twelve in Grade 6 (circa 1969) I discovered Madeleine L'Engle.  A Wrinkle in Time really changed my pre-teen soul.  I also enjoyed Nancy Drew who was my gateway to Agatha Christie.  I'm still a British mystery fan (Elizabeth George, not English, but you would think she was from her descriptions of England, is my absolute fave.)

I detest soup and all hot beverages.  I've only met one other person IRL like me in that way.  I also won't eat anything that is made with mayonnaise or has mayonnaise on it.   

[mango_fandango]

I don’t have soup that often, but I do like it. I’m not a fan of coffee, nor of tea... and I’m British! In my second year of university when I lived in a shared house, I was the only British person in the house, and the only one who didn’t like tea  I drink hot chocolate and that’s about it. 

[ClareDeLune]

Oh dear, that book extract is ... I'm afraid I'm with Aunt Nicole. No words.

 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

10 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

There are preview pages on the website. The little sister drowned in a pool after a gate was left open, and Emma thought it was Aunt Nicole’s fault but it was actually Aunt Shannon’s. I’m guessing this was mentioned in Finding Change. 
Taffy is emphasised as being an English Cream Golden Retriever... wow, Sarah really has no imagination when it comes to pets! (Or any kind of imagination really). Would it really be such a stretch to make the dog a poodle or a basenji or some kind of cross? 

I will say that depending on the breed, dogs will have different personality traits.   I know wonder how much research Steve let Sarah do on different dog breeds. I love reading about the different breeds of dog, but that may not holy enough for Steve.

On the other hand, Sarah is trying to make English Cream Golden Retrievers happen. There is some debate, but generally they are just Golden Retrievers with a lighter colored coat. 

[usedbicycle]

"But trouble is brewing with Landlady over Taffy." "All the while, tension builds with Landlady" Who is Landlady? Their landlord? Why the proper noun? Are Emma's parents *gasp* renters? Or is she a cat who fights with Taffy?  Context, Sarah, context...

And props to Mary for drawing no less than 4 women in pants at the flea market. 

[SPHASH]

1 hour ago, usedbicycle said:

"But trouble is brewing with Landlady over Taffy." "All the while, tension builds with Landlady" Who is Landlady? Their landlord? Why the proper noun? Are Emma's parents *gasp* renters? Or is she a cat who fights with Taffy?  Context, Sarah, context...

And props to Mary for drawing no less than 4 women in pants at the flea market. 

I'm surprised Mary drew that many women in pants.

[HereticHick]

Stop trying to make fetch English Cream Golden Retrievers happen, Sarah.

 

Also, why didn't said English Cream Golden Retriever rescue the little sister drowning in the pool? Was it not on the schedule?

[Flossie]

The Hobbit followed by The Lord of the Rings (I read only because a snooty girl at my school thought I wouldn't like or understand.  She was wrong, I ate that stuff up and read them yearly for years and probably got more out of them than she did because I now suspect she only carried TLofR books around to look smart.)

Newbery Medal books (My mom would sometimes buy one on a whim because I was the family wierdo and she wanted to encourage something she thought was normal and because she likes to read, too.  And it kept me quiet.  Call it bonding.)

Nancy Drew mysteries (Again, Mom bought them until I was old enough to make money babysitting and buy them myself.)

The Three Investigators (Read when I visited my father and I'd read my way through my step-brothers collection. Peter was my favorite.)

Anything in the public or school library that caught my fancy.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica.  We had a set at home and when I didn't have other stuff to read, I'd go there.

Mom's Barbara Cartland books.  (Don't recommend them today because they perpetuate a really screwed up idea of love and gender roles.  I later read that Barbara was actually a female misogynist who despised the women who read her books, coddled her sons and treated her daughter horribly.)

I also found a book on pregnancy and childbirth, with pictures of the birth process, on our bookshelf.  I suspect Mom put it there so she wouldn't have to have 'the talk' with us.

Mom also read 'True Story' magazines for a few years, and I read them all.  I eventually came to the conclusion that they weren't really true stories.  Same with Moms Enquirer weekly's and Grandmas Weekly World News.  I suggest that no one allow their children access to that sort of thing.  It's one thing to have an open mind, and entirely different to immerse yourself in that sort of drivel.

[Hane]

When I was in seventh grade a zillion years ago, the big reads were “1984” and “Up the Down Staircase.” (I was late to the party and didn’t read “1984” till eighth grade.)

My mom didn’t think I was ready for “Up the Down Staircase,” so I read it on the sly. (It’s about a young teacher’s first year teaching English at a gritty inner city high school.) She needn’t have worried: I was so naïve that all the sexual content went sailing over my head: I thought “getting the clap” meant getting arrested, for instance.

[HereComesTreble]

I’m going to pretend Cyndi L. with the soup-recipe-less comment was the one & only Cyndi Lauper slyly trolling the Maxwells.

[MamaJunebug]

17 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

I don’t actually remember what I read when I was 12! 
I tried reading Catcher I’m the Rye, but I just could not get into it. I just found Holden irritating. Most people seem to love it, though, so maybe I’m the weird one

Maybe Emma has two aunts who are horrible. And I bet it’s because they’re not Christian/the right kind of Christian. 

ThankyouSOOOmuch I thought I was the only person alive with a big fat “who cares?!” about young Mr. Caulfield!  

1 hour ago, Flossie said:

Newbery Medal books (My mom would sometimes buy one on a whim because I was the family wierdo and she wanted to encourage something she thought was normal and because she likes to read, too.  And it kept me quiet.  Call it bonding.)

“Call it bonding”—a thousand thanks for a much-needed chuckle!!!!!

[PennySycamore]

@Hane, I read Up the Down Staircase in junior high, too.  One of the most memorable parts was the daily memo that a student of Sylvia's had died of a self-induced AB which was the school'd shorthand for abortion. 

Bel Kaufman, the author of UtDS, was the granddaughter of Sholem Aleichem, the author of the Tevye stories, and died at the age of 103 in 2014

[HoneyBunny]

6 hours ago, ClareDeLune said:

Oh dear, that book extract is ... I'm afraid I'm with Aunt Nicole. No words.

 

Yep, me too.  And then Sarah states in her acknowledgements that she’s thankful her dad and mom freed her up. Freed her up?  How old is this woman?  She still doesn’t have control of her own schedule and how she spends her days?

[Maggie Mae]

3 hours ago, Flossie said:

The Three Investigators (Read when I visited my father and I'd read my way through my step-brothers collection. Peter was my favorite.)

I LOVED the Three Investigators. I think I only picked it up because it had Alfred Hitchcock's name on the cover, but I did like mysteries. 

[sparkles]

On 11/17/2020 at 12:02 PM, jegfile said:

Did Mary do the illustrations? I loved the double page one. Give credit where credit is due, Sarah!

I don’t think she did. I seem to remember a post about it that said she was too busy (doing what, I don’t know, since illustration was supposed to be her assigned task) but I could be wrong. ETA: Just looked it up. Mary did the cover (which is kind of wonky IMO) and someone named Abigail Koilpillai, who I think is a friend of Sarah’s, did the illustrations.

I don’t remember much of what I read when I was a 7-12 (late 50s-early 60s) but I know I was a voracious reader and pretty much read everything I could get my hands on, always with a dictionary by my side. My daughter was a spontaneous reader at a very, VERY young age and it’s kind of a scary thing. Because finding age appropriate material that matches their reading ability and comprehension is next to impossible. We basically let her read whatever she wanted (with some exceptions) and had regular discussions with her about it. It made for some interesting conversations, let me tell you. ?

I thought Teri’s soup post was a nice bit of practical, if basic advice. For a lot of us, it’s very “well yeah, duh…” but for people like Teri who really seems to need everything spelled out for her because of a lack of imagination or fear of the unknown, and for those novice cooks as well, I can see how it’s helpful. (The first time I make something where there’s a new technique, cuisine or unfamiliar ingredients, I’ll follow the recipe, but thereafter, I use it as a guide and personalize it to my tastes. I don’t think that Teri, or even Reversal Anna, the designated cook, likes to work that way.) I just found her final product to be very unappetizing looking. Kind of an anemic looking broth with some obviously frozen veg thrown in.

ETA Pt 2: Randomly, "Landlady" makes me think of Kirsty MacColl's "Electric Landlady."

I loved Up the Down Staircase. A few months ago, it popped into my head out of nowhere and I tried to find the movie but I couldn't find it. Sandy Dennis was so good in it. I liked Catcher in the Rye but it definitely stopped resonating with its target age group decades ago. One book that made a huge impression on me was Lord of the Flies. I remember reading it during lunch in 7th grade and bursting into tears when Simon was killed. I'm still not over it.

Edited November 18, 2020 by sparkles

[Giraffe]

8 minutes ago, sparkles said:

I don’t think she did. I seem to remember a post about it that said she was too busy (doing what, I don’t know, since illustration was supposed to be her assigned task) but I could be wrong.

My guess is it was while Anna was in Washington and Anna and Mary were doing everything for Chris. 

[church_of_dog]

Like @sparkles, I don't really remember what I read at age 12 (which was mid-1970s for me).  Like her, though, I was a voracious reader and my parents didn't put any constraints on what I could read, that I recall.

At home we had encyclopedias I sometimes read like a book or just browsed through.  We also had science books, history, and lots of humor books on my parents' shelves.  (That was probably about the age I read their James Thurber and Bennett Cerf collections.)

From the library, probably I still read some Nancy Drew mysteries.  But that was probably also around the time I started reading a bunch of Dorothy L. Sayers/Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.  A few VC Andrews.  Peter Benchley's "Jaws" (don't recall if before or after the movie).  

And that's about when I started my love of psychology-oriented stories, with "Go Ask Alice", "Sybil", and "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden."

[childerowland]

2 hours ago, sparkles said:

One book that made a huge impression on me was Lord of the Flies. I remember reading it during lunch in 7th grade and bursting into tears when Simon was killed. I'm still not over it.

Me too!! Well, I didn't burst into tears over lunch, but I did read it at the same age and shed many tears over Simon's death. Incredibly sad! I've never cried so much over a book since, and I read quite a lot.