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This slim volume, small enough to slip into the inside pocket of a sorcerer’s robe, is a book every lover of the sport of Quidditch cannot do without. It covers the development of the game, from its humble beginnings to the form it is played today. The history makes fascinating reading as it is not simply dry text, but illustrated throughout with facsimiles of news sheets reporting about the game, and excerpts of historical letters and diary pages speaking of the game.
The book also traces the development of the broomsticks and covers the game as it is played in Britain, lists the best 13 teams that compete for the League Cup and also mentions top teams in other countries. Strategies and game rules are covered as well as difficult plays that have been invented over the years by wizards and witches pushing themselves, their broomsticks and the game as far as they can.
The physical book is produced to resemble a facsimile of a Hogwart’s library book, with worn covers, scribbles in the margins and a library check-out stamp in the front of the book listing borrowers no less noteworthy than R Weasley, N Longbottom and H Grainger (twice!). There is also an amusing Foreword by Albus Dumbledore explaining how such a volume came into the Muggle world with a warning not to mistreat it as the librarian Madam Prince might have left a jinx on it for its protection.
This is a book that all Harry Potter fans should enjoy having in their library. The added bonus is that sales of the book aids Comic Relief, an organization that uses laughter to fight poverty and injustice in some of the world’s poorest countries. – Carolyn Koh
HURTS LIKE A MOTHER – AN ILLUSTRATED PARODY OF EDWARD GOREY’S THE GASHLYCRUMB TINIES
Hurts Like a Mother: A Cautionary Alphabet by Jennifer Weiss (author), Lauren Franklin (author) and Ken Lamug (illustrator) Doubleday 2016, 64 pages, 5.5 x 6 x 0.5 inches
An abecedarian picture book for grown-ups, Hurts Like A Mother is a black-and-white illustrated parody of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Mirroring the dark humor of Gorey’s book, the hazards of parenting is explored alphabetically, each letter attributed to a different mom in peril. From the ludicrous, where moms asphyxiate from being strangled by inflatable pool toys, pass out from the price of American Girl dolls, meet their maker from flammable breast pumps, and expire from ennui over reading parenting books in the library, to the real-life issues facing moms, such as the problems with extended snow days, difficulties with carpools, and the myriad troubles with time management, Hurts Like A Mother is a brief but humorously morbid book.
Harkening to the gothic Victorian mood from Gorey’s original illustrations and poems, the stark black-and-white drawings comically depict modern parenting crises, particularly when portraying the faces of the harried mothers which range from fatigued to intoxicated to homicidal. Not completely filled with doom-and-gloom, Hurts Like A Mother ends as the final mom relaxes beach-side while being fanned with a palm-frond and casually sipping a tropical adult beverage. – S. Deathrage
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
01/28/20
