Plus, I Like Furry Blue Monsters

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Hey, cool! Just found Bruce Coville's latest book, Always October!

I remember it, too. There was a short story version of it in Bruce Coville's Book of Monsters* back in the day, and I always wanted to know more about the boy whose little brother turned out to be a monster. Now I've got the chance to find out, and to enjoy a nice old-fashioned Halloween story. I do love me some October.

Also, having an OCD kid as one of the main characters is kind of neat. And while the girl's horror-themed interjections are a little obnoxious, I do like her addition as another narrator. Looks like it'll be a good one to read while I'm hanging out with the neighbor's cat.


*I am sure my mom would love to destroy Bruce for those anthologies he did, since every time I read one I would spend at least one night sleeping on the floor in my parents' room so the monsters would not get me. While I believe the books ultimately contributed a lot to my imagination, I'm pretty sure Mom wishes I'd stuck with the one about the unicorns.

Comments

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Woah. Bruce Coville is still active?
I must look into this immediately.

Bruce Coville was absolutely my favourite author as a kid. "My Teacher is an Alien" changed my life. And those anthologies were terrifying, but also thought-provoking. I still have them all somewhere.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

He's quite chatty over on Facebook. And political! And yeah, he's still writing--he finished The Unicorn Chronicles, a few years ago, if you're interested.

His Book of Aliens was where I first read a Ray Bradbury story. It also introduced me to the incomparable "To Serve Man," and I was young enough that I didn't know the punchline, so it was a great experience. Those were pretty impressive anthologies to be marketed to gradeschool kids, now that I think about it.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Heck, I never read the last "Rod Albright" book.

[leia131.livejournal.com]

Bruce Coville was my absolute favorite author when I was younger, and I'm re-reading Into the Land of the Unicorns right now, because I just found out a few months ago that he finally finished that damn series. (And I don't know what happens past the first two books... somehow I've remained unspoiled all these years.)

I'm pretty impressed with how well that book has held up. It's still just as engaging to me at 25 as it was at 11.

Oh, and I totally know what you mean about those anthologies. Those and the ones by Jane Yolen have really terrified/stuck with me.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say the Unicorn Chronicles get pretty epic. I have the feeling he took so long because he really wanted to get them right.

A lot of his writing impresses me more on a technical level now, too. Dude can pull a story together well.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I'm working in a 5/6 behavioral classroom. The teacher grabbed My Teacher is an Alien randomly for reading. The kids have now read two in reading, one unrelated (I think) as teacher read-aloud, one's reading Flunked the Planet on his own, another's heading into Glows in the Dark, and every single time we go to the library they are shocked that there are MORE.
I may have to spend some quality time in the kids' section of the library next time I go.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

You know, for all I love Coville, I have never actually read that series. I may have to fix that ...

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I'm only reading it for the first time now. I missed a lot of series because I couldn't figure out the order.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I'm pretty sure Mom wishes I'd stuck with the one about the unicorns.

Naturally, the first thing that popped into my head when I read that was Black Dogs and "But unicorns are terrifying!"