Shelf Life

Ask Click and Clack: Answers from Car Talk by Ray and Tom Magliozzi

I subscribe to the Car Talk podcast on iTunes and listen to it every week as I drive to work. Ray and Tom are hilarious and very informative. Yes, a radio show about cars can be hilarious. If you have never heard them then go to iTunes or to their web site (Http://www.cartalk.com) and listen to the podcasts.

I got this book from Santa this Christmas. It contains letters from their weekly car advice column. Like the radio program, it is hilarious and you learn a lot about diagnosing car problems. I read it in 2 or 3 days. Highly recommended for anyone who owns or will own a car, drives a car, rides in cars, or has ever seen a car.

And as Click and Clack say, don’t drive like my brother! Seriously, my brother wrecked two of my cars by backing into them with his dump truck. And both times I was out doing him a favor when it happened.

By Mr. Doyle

Today Kermit is reading Mark Twain’s classic The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Some day Kermit hopes to make a pilgrimage to the Calaveras County Fair Grounds where the annual contest is held. It just a short drive from Livingston High School.

If you have any suggestions for frog-related reading for Kermit please forward them to Mr. Doyle (tdoyle@muhsd.k12.ca.us)

Knucklhead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka.

I have been a fan of Mr. Scieszka since The True Story of 3 Little Pigs came out. I read some of the Time Warp Trio series to my kids. Recently I read The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Stories to my kids and we were all very disappointed. The stories weren’t “fairly” stupid– they were very stupid. But we gave Mr. Scieszka another chance and decided to read Knucklehead. This book is hilarious. There were times when I couldn’t finishing reading a paragraph because I was laughing so hard. So many of the incidents took me back to my own childhood. My wife and I found it much funnier than our kids (8 and 9) but I think anyone could enjoy this book. The graphics add interest and the chapters are very short, making it a good pick for reluctant readers.

Highly recommended for grades 6 through adult (especially for adults!).

Kermit lives in a coffee cup on the window sill of my office. Kermit was a gift from one my student aides. The gift was inspired by a drawing by our resident hit-artist (a.k.a. Mr. Gehres) depicting me as Kermit while announcing a basketball game (apparently I’m no Bob Costas). Anyway, sitting in a coffee cup watching the students come and go gets old so, being a library frog, Kermit reads. Of course he reads frog-related literature. Here he is reading Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel. It is an easy read but it takes him back to childhood (tadpolehood?) when his mama used to read to him.

Here is the original charicature by Mr. Gehres, our photography teacher. That is supposed to be me behind the microphone. This is what happens when Mr. Gehres has too much free time.