Pinocchio and Moby Dickens

My 10-year-old daughter and I recently read Carlo Collodi's 1883 story, "The Adventures of Pinocchio." Now, it turns out that the story is fairly dark, much more than the famous Disney movie of 1940. Parents may wish to be careful with this one, and a full plot description of Collodi's story can be found on … Continue reading Pinocchio and Moby Dickens

Starting Huckleberry Finn

September 23, 2021 I’ve taken years to read "The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn", because of its darn reputation. The back cover of my 1985 Penguin edition quotes Hemingway’s famous line, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”.  Further down we read that “Of all the contenders for the title … Continue reading Starting Huckleberry Finn