Not a very good month for reading, March wasn't. I read 7 titles and two of them were slim comic 100 page collections. I finished off The Dragon Chronicles series by Susan Fletcher. I read the second volume, Flight of the Dragon at the beginning of the month. It was more interesting than the first volume. I think the writting had gotten a bit smoother and the characters more interesting. It's a prequel to the first book and all the characters are new to us. One young girl who's had a brush with a dragons as a baby developes the ability to talk to birds and the king thinks she can call to dragons. He's got a secret revenge in mind and any dragon will do to fall under his blade. The young girl can call the dragons and does. Bad for the dragon who shows up. Horrified the girl runs away from the king and with the help of a hunky guy she saves the rest of the dragons and get them out of the kingdom. There's a whole lot of falconry in the book too. It isn't going to be a keeper.
Next I read the two volumes of Walt Kelly's Our Gang comics. There is a third volume out but I haven't gotten it yet. Each Fantagraphics collection reprints 8 stories by Walt Kelly from the Our Gang comics. The Dell Comics series started in 1942 and ran through 1949. The kids from the Our Gang (Little Rascals on tv) film series, were joined in the original comic books by other MGM stars. Tom & Jerry and Barney Bear each had stories in an issue. The covers of the Fantagraphics books are sadly not by Walt. Jeff Smith, of Bone, did a pretty good job, but they just aren't Kelly. Mind you Kelly isn't Kelly either. The Our Gang stories start with a pretty different style than the Walt Disney or Pogo work. The stories are ok little morality tales, or adventures. There's some danger on a regular basis and they are humorous. More for the fan of Kelly or some nostalgic interest in the 1940's. They are nice little volumes, fairly well produced with pretty good art. Some times the reproduction of old comics is not so good. The original art would all be gone and the source is often the comic itself. Better scanning software today, a lot can be cleaned up.
I still didn't care much for the Inkspell by Cornelia Funke. I kind of skimmed a bit each night for most of the month. Just a series and writer that I don't find I'm on the same page with. Into the sell pile with you. Nice cover on the book.
E Nesbit's The Book of the Dragons is a collection of short stories from 1901. Most of them were entertaining. Easy to read and often humorous. You can read E. Nesbit over on the Guttenberg Project. I didn't care for Elmore Leonard's A Coyote in the House. The cover makes me think animated cartoon and the writing screams make me into a movie. There are several reason's I didn't fit well with the book. Most everyone on Amazon gave it 4 or 5 stars. It wasn't a bad book, I just didn't care for the style, but then I've never been an Elmore reader. I read Get Shorty back in the days I used to man the counter at Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore three nights a week. That was 10-12 years ago and I haven't gotten anymore. This was loaner from Simba that was returned. I think she took it back to the bookstore. The third book in The Dragon Chronicles finished out the month. Sign of the Dove by Suzanne returns to the characters of the first volume and there's more dragons, danger and running about. Some stuff does catch on fire. I liked this one better than the first, and about as much as the second. Still going into the bin to get sold.
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