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My Music: HEAVEN OR HELL - Todd's Blog
This song began as a wordless blues progression created with my Kansas City friends John and Sue in 1972. When I put a CD of that music together I called it “Good Times,” but I’m not sure that was something we called it then. It was fun to play on the guitar, even solo, and […]
Rereading: THE GUARDIANS OF THE HOUSE by L. M. Boston - Todd's Blog
Another short book by Boston, this one features an old house full of strange and wonderful masks and statues that is no doubt based on her own ancient home near Cambridge, England, also the setting of her Green Knowe books, but this one is not directly connected to those. Tom Morgan has moved with his […]
Rereading: RINKITINK IN OZ by L. Frank Baum - Todd's Blog
The tenth Oz book by Baum is mostly about new characters, with Oz villain the Nome King and other Oz familiar characters only coming into the story in the last few chapters. One nice feature is a new map showing many of the countries around Oz for the first time, and the story takes place […]
My Music: PLANTED - Todd's Blog
Franceen and I had married in May 1973. My high school friend Randy was my best man at the wedding. He was also my boss at the company co-owned by his father, and where Franceen also worked. As I was finding out, Franceen liked to stir up trouble, and she stirred it up between Randy […]
Incoming: DC FINEST SUICIDE SQUAD - Todd's Blog
Just arrived, 560 pages of Suicide Squad, including their introduction in LEGENDS 1-6, and the first ten issues of their own title, which I lettered, plus more, see the fine print in the back cover image, all material originally released in 1986-1988. Retail price is $39.99. The paper is surprisingly white and glossy, but I […]
Rereading: CHIMNEY COTTAGE by M. E. Atkinson - Todd's Blog
The eleventh book in Atkinson’s holiday adventures series featuring the Lockett children and their friends shows the formula stretched to the breaking point. Long gone are the relatively simple stories with Oliver, Jane, and Bill Lockett as the main focus, this one doesn’t even take place on a holiday break. And the new illustrator’s work […]
Rereading: MR. REVERE AND I by Robert Lawson - Todd's Blog
Like “Ben and Me,” “I Discover Columbus,” and “Capt. Kidd’s Cat,” this is a historical tale told by an animal companion of a famous person, in this case the American Revolution’s Paul Revere. I think I like it the best of the four. Sherry, the horse, comes to Boston as part of the British forces […]
Rereading: THE CASTLE OF YEW by Lucy Boston - Todd's Blog
The author is better known as L. M. Boston, I think this was an attempt to update her work a bit for young readers, using her actual first name, and having this short chapter book illustrated by Margery Gill rather than her son Peter Boston, as was usually done. The story seems to take place […]
Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION'S SULKY COLT by Walter Farley - Todd's Blog
The tenth book in Farley’s horse series combines the harness-racing son of the Black Stallion from “The Blood Bay Colt” with Alec Ramsey and Henry Dailey from the main series. Jimmy Creech, the owner and trainer of Bonfire is desperate to get him to harness racing’s biggest feature race The Hamiltonian, and while he’s too […]
Incoming: BATMAN KNIGHTFALL OMNIBUS 2 KNIGHTQUEST - Todd's Blog
Just in, another massively thick book of Batman title reprints from all the Batman titles of 1993-94 and more. See the fine print on the back cover above for details. This is a 2025 reissue of a 2017 hardcover, 976 pages, release date Feb 18. It weighs almost 6 pounds, and the retail price is […]
Rereading: A DOG WORTH STEALING by William Corbin - Todd's Blog
Jud Linden is in trouble and angry with himself for breaking his promise to his father not to fight at school. His dad is away driving his big rig on a delivery, and Jud decides to take off on his own into the southern Oregon wilderness near his home. A hike with his dad had […]
Rereading: KING OF SHADOWS by Susan Cooper - Todd's Blog
Best known for her “The Dark is Rising” series, Susan Cooper wrote other fine fantasies like this one. It’s more historical than fantasy, but hinges on a kind of time travel. Nat Field lives with his Aunt Jen in North Carolina since his parents have passed, but his passion is acting. He’s been chosen for […]
Rereading: BEYOND SILENCE by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
Cameron began writing The Mushroom Planet series for her son in the 1950s, but she continued to grow as a writer, and by 1980, the time of this book, her work was deep, thoughtful, and complex while also being accessible and appealing. Andy’s life in California has been deeply troubled since the death of his […]
Rereading: FIGURES OF EARTH by James Branch Cabell - Todd's Blog
This was the first Cabell book I read, but not this wonderfully illustrated hardcover, instead the 1969 paperback from Ballantine Books, an early entry in their Adult Fantasy line. It had a few of the simpler Papé illustrations, but none of the tipped-in plates as seen above. This is the 1925 illustrated reprint of the […]
Rereading: NOTHING SAID by L. M. Boston - Todd's Blog
Another short book by Boston that seems longer because it’s so rich with detail, incident, fine characters, and hints of magic. Libby has gone to stay with her mother’s friend Julia in Julia’s old house by the edge of a stream called The Babble, as it runs noisily over stones and pebbles. Julia’s dog Cobweb […]
My Music: SOMEONE KNOCKS - Todd's Blog
A few days after “If Wishes Were,” I wrote this song, dated July 11, 1971. I think it was a reaction to hearing from Karen, my summer romance of the year before who had decided to avoid me when I followed her to Kansas City. I might have received a letter from her, or gotten […]
Rereading: THE SCARECROW OF OZ by L. Frank Baum - Todd's Blog
As with some previous Oz books by Baum, the ninth one doesn’t focus on the title character, and he only appears in the final third, but when he does, he’s as charming and cheerful as ever. The story begins in our world with Cap’n Bill and Trot, who are having a boat ride when they’re […]
Rereading: THE UNICORN SONATA by Peter S. Beagle - Todd's Blog
Beagle’s best known and well-loved book is “The Last Unicorn” of 1968, and from the acknowledgements it seems like this 1996 novel was commissioned by Turner Publishing’s Janet Berliner because she wanted another unicorn book from him. It’s a fine read. Josephine “Joey” Rivera is thirteen, and living in Los Angeles with her family, but […]
Rereading: PROBLEM PARTY by M. E. Atkinson - Todd's Blog
The tenth book in Atkinson’s holiday adventure series about the Lockett family and their friends is unusually complex, as it gathers many of the characters from the previous nine books to an elaborate house party over the Christmas holidays. It begins with Evelyn Standish, the girl met in “The Monster of Widgeon Weir” who wears […]
My Music: IF WISHES WERE - Todd's Blog
This is the first song for which I have a written composition date in my notebooks, it’s July 4th, 1971. At that time I was recently back from my first stay in Kansas City, working at a summer job at Freight Traffic Services in Far Hills, NJ, co-owned by the father of my friend Randy, […]
Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION REVOLTS by Walter Farley - Todd's Blog
By the ninth book of this series, author Farley was casting around for a new approach, and he found it here by sending Alec Ramsey AND his famous wild stallion The Black out west. Many writers might have begun simply with that premise, but Farley ups the odds by having their private plane crash in […]
And Then I Read: DUNKIRK SUMMER by Philip Turner - Todd's Blog
This is the only book in Turner’s Darnley Mills series I hadn’t read, so I recently paid too much for it to complete the series. The final book, Skull Island, was reviewed here some time ago. There are two intertwined threads in the Darnley Mills books, this is the final one in the historical series, […]
Rereading: THE FABULOUS FLIGHT by Robert Lawson - Todd's Blog
Lawson came up with some odd story ideas, but this may be the oddest. Peter Pepperell lives with his parents outside Washington DC, where his father works for the State Department. He’s a normal boy until age seven, and then an accident causes him to begin growing smaller rather than larger. A specialist says it’s […]
My Music: LET US REMEMBER and RONDO - Todd's Blog
Above are two new friends I made in Kansas City, more about them soon. First, an update on things in New Jersey. My friend high school Mike was attending the University of Missouri in Kansas City, living with relatives there, and he returned to his family home in Bernardsville, NJ for the summer of 1970. […]
Rereading: BEYOND LIFE by James Branch Cabell - Todd's Blog
I discovered the books of Cabell (rhymes with rabble) in the 1970s when several were issued in paperback as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. I became a fan of those fantasy novels, and learned that Cabell’s master work was a long series of about 20 books, depending on how you count them, written […]
Rereading: THE FOSSIL SNAKE by L. M. Boston - Todd's Blog
This is a short book of prose, 54 pages, with fine illustrations by Boston’s son. Rob’s father has a load of stones delivered to their home with which to build a wall, but one cracks open revealing a perfectly preserved fossil of a snake. Rob is allowed to keep it, even though a local museum […]
Incoming: DC FINEST, GREEN ARROW THE LONGBOW HUNTERS - Todd's Blog
When I received this from DC, my first thought was, “I didn’t letter that.” Looking inside, I realized what I lettered was the linked Annuals for Green Arrow, Detective Comics, and The Question. This new reprint series of thick trade paperbacks (542 pages here) is an interesting idea: chronological collections across a few titles where […]
My Music: THE TARRYTOWN POET AND THE ENGLEWOOD BARD - Todd's Blog
This is a story song perhaps suggested by some of the street musicians I saw around lower midtown Manhattan when I was going to art school there in 1969-70, the photo above, found online, reminds me of some of those folks. Here’s the song: The Tarrytown Poet and the Englewood Bard. Street music in New […]
Rereading: TAMSIN by Peter S. Beagle - Todd's Blog
As the story opens, Jenny and her mother, a music teacher, are living in a New York City apartment with Jenny’s cat Mister Cat, and she is struggling with the challenges of adolescence, but their lives are about to change. Jenny’s mother Sally has fallen in love with Ewan, from Britain, and they plan to […]
Rereading: TIK-TOK OF OZ by L. Frank Baum - Todd's Blog
The eighth Oz book by Baum has little to do with his mechanical man, though it was partially based on a play about Tik-Tok that Baum produced the previous year. The character doesn’t even show up until well into the story, and proves largely ineffective, though he tries hard. The book begins in the small, […]
Rereading: THE NEST OF THE SCARECROW by M. E. Atkinson - Todd's Blog
The ninth book in Atkinson’s Lockett series finds the three Locketts, Oliver, Jane, and Bill, involved in an elaborate contrived adventure that, as usual, goes wrong and puts them on their own. The children are introduced by an aunt to two older cousins, Mervyn and Gillian, young adults with their own car, also staying with […]
My Music: IT GOES BEYOND WORDS - Todd's Blog
The lyrics from my notebook, about 1970. This song was intended as a parody of the kind of bland, saccharine love songs that often appeared on the variety shows my parents watched, like Perry Como and Andy Williams. It was also, I think, making fun of my own inability to get anywhere with a real […]
Rereading: CAPT. KIDD'S CAT by Robert Lawson - Todd's Blog
This book was intended to attract the same readers who had enjoyed Lawson’s “Ben and Me” about the mouse behind Ben Franklin’s success, but the story is not as appealing. McDermot is a black and white cat with a ruby ring in his ear, a ship’s cat for the pirate Captain Tom Tew, who had […]
Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION'S FILLY by Walter Farley - Todd's Blog
While clearly a series, Farley’s horse stories have more variety and are better written than American series books like The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift. This one has some similarities to “Son of the Black Stallion” in that it’s about preparing a young horse for a big race, but there are many new and interesting […]
Rereading: POWDER QUAY by Philip Turner - Todd's Blog
There are two series by Turner about the northeast England coast town of Darnley Mills, one in the present day, and one in historical times. This one is historical, at the time of World War One, and like others in the historical series, it’s more serious and emotional than the lighter present day books. Young […]
Rereading: PORKO VON POPBUTTON by William Pène du Bois - Todd's Blog
This is another in the series of short books on bad habits, here gluttony. Pat O’Sullivan Pinkerton has a serious eating problem, and the last straw for his parents is when his weight destroys half their home, so they send him to a boarding school, President Coolidge School for Boys on Lake Brown Bear next […]