Dun dun DUN

I came home to another tasty issue of Wired waiting for me in the mailbox. I can't get enough of it. Before I got too deeply entrenched to come up for air, I flipped through and landed on the review of China Mieville's first foray into children's young adult literature, Un Lun Dun. (The review isn't yet online; in fact, when I looked it up, it asked: "did you mean dun dun dun?", which sounded quite ominous.) After finishing a book completely devoid of any children whatsoever (where women baptize kittens and push dolls around in prams), and with two more apocalyptic books on the nightstand (Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Vladimir Sorokin's Ice), I just might need something for children sometime soon. Based on Wired's review, Un Lun Dun might do the trick.

Or should that be Mary Poppins to counter the bleak with a spoonful of sugar? Something with sweet animals in it, perhaps?

The bleak might win out. You'll soon find me, wide-eyed and trembling in a corner, a copy of Beatrix Potter in hand, whispering: "The animals... they're talking! He was baked into a pie!"

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.