The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

I haven't posted for nearly a year. Truth be told, I haven't read much for nearly a year, so there simply has been nothing to post. I had a rough year, as I took too many classes and had an amount of homework to match. Now that it's summer, and I am sufficiently recovered from this year's double dose of band camp, it occurred to me that perhaps a blog post was in order. So I picked out a new layout to suit me better, as I've changed a lot this year. Grown up a lot. I figured that the old layout belonged to the old me. Plus, blogger added more pre-made layouts, and they're pretty darn cool. I wound up going with this layout instead of the obvious, a bookshelf. But I think the picture of the old falling apart house has character. It's somehow otherworldly, and since I write a blog about fiction books, I think that makes a good match. Anyway, to get to the point...

The Last of The Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards

Believe it or not, whangdoodle is a real word. It's in the dictionary (although it is classified as slang, so I suppose their is room for debate). According to the foreword, the word whangdoodle is actually what inspired Julie Andrews to write this book. And what a book it is. It's one of my all time favorites. I love it so much that when I first discovered it in the fifth grade, I read it for nearly a week. Meaning I read the entire book, once a day. My teacher got pretty anoyed with me. (Apparently I needed to "branch out" and read something else. Hmph.) Anyway, this is one of the most creative and imaginitive books I've ever read. From flowers that smell like bread to a river that makes music to a bird that has so many feathers it can't fly in a straight line, this book is like playtime for your imagination or your dreams.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles is the story of three children, a professor of biology, and their journy across the wonderful world of Whangdoodleland, a place you can only get to through use of your imagination. Their goal is to meet the last whangdoodle, the lone survivor of a fanciful species. However, it seems the whangdoodle would prefer to remain isolated in his castle, and away from the humans who no longer believe in mystical creatures like himself, such as unicorns and dragons.

This book is for the most part an easy read, and appropriate for anyone about age six and up, although children of this age would require someone reading it to them. Don't think this book is only for little kids, though. I'm nearly 15 and still enjoy it immensely. If you still appreciate pure, solid imagination, then you never can be too old.

The best bit of advice from this book, whether taken literally or metaphorically: always remember to look up.