You Should Read This: The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish

What: Pogo is a comic strip. You can find plenty of compendiums for sale or you can seek out samples on some of the online sites devoted to Walt Kelly’s work.

Who: Writers interested in twisting language to their own ends should seek out Pogo, in whose pages it is beautifully wonderfully made coherent gibberish that delights the ear and cries out to be read aloud. Here, for example, is a Christmas carol that’s been Pogo-fied:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!

Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

Why: Read it because of the way gentle humor, sharp political insight, and sometimes grave disappointment in the state of America have all been combined in the lives of a cast of characters that manages to combine charm and cynicism.

When: Read it when you want some new characters to people the chambers of your head: earnest Pogo, the scowling Porkypine, too ingenious for his own good Albert the Alligator, and wanna-be trickster Churchy Lafemme.

Where and how: Read it somewhere that you can laugh freely and smile to yourself or even read a scrap (maybe more) aloud just to hear the cadences.

#sfwapro

What: A group of rabbits whose warren is destroyed by the bulldozers of a housing development try to find a new place to live, despite various pitfalls and traps along the way.

Who: Anyone who loves animals will love this book, and any writer interested in writing epic journeys as well as non human protagonists will find an analysis of the rabbits’ trek an instructive one.

When: Read this for immersion or when you want to share a saga with your children.

Why: Read it to see how well Adams has worked out rabbit soceity, including a vocabulary full of rabbity concepts like tharn and fabulous phoneticisms like hrududu. Read it to see the rabbit mythology and listen to the folktales told among the rabbits, very much in the same tradition as Kij Johnson’s The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North park after the change.

Where/how: Read it on a summer afternoon, preferably one when you can see a young rabbit or two frisking on the lawn, flicking their long ears back as they eye you whenever you flip a page.