Books and Bugs

Books

A publicist sent me a book last spring, a book that I read, and rather liked, and then I never wrote about it, and now I feel bad because the author is DEAD. Anyway, I did like it, and it's called The Sandalwood Tree, and it's set in India, in two different eras (1947 and 1857) and it's a little bit mystery and a little bit love story and a little bit sub-continent Indian history, and I read it at the same time that I was reading The Secret Garden aloud to my kid, and of course the girl protagonist in The Secret Garden was an orphan who spent her early years in India and there was some odd resonance for me reading them both at the same time. So there you have it. I'm sorry Elle Newmark died before I got around to reading her book.

Bugs

In a fit of something or another, I signed up to do a Halloween party with glow-in-the-dark Zombie Hexbugs. We've had a huge amount of fun with the Hexbugs; they're a completely silly fun toy (even though they have batteries) and the cats are totally amused by them and I wish I had a better camera because watching the glow-in-the-dark bugs on the glow-in-the-dark track is kind of mesmerizing (and completely impossible to photograph with my iPhone). And when I say "we", I mean kids and grown-ups, friends and family, in addition to cats, have been enjoying them.

They also sent along some Hexbug Larvae - cunning little bugs with sensors that make them run away from things. Really, it's kind of amazing to think about the technology that goes into a TOY. You'd think we'd have figured out wireless electricity by now.



Next up, Banks.

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Disclosure: We received all the above mentioned stuff from various different publicists. No one paid me to write about any of it; guilt, though, forced me to.