Picture yourself alone in a house on a river with tangerine children making marshmallows out of your mind. Somebody calls you too early and you mumble quite slowly through pincushion lips and kaleidoscope eyes. Cellophane wrappers of yellow and green literally cover the floor. Looking outside, you get the sun in your eyes- you wish you were gone.

Ohhh, yes. It’s a hot town, the summer in the city. The air’s full of heat and humidity. In your yard, your kids’re looking half-dead, stumbling on the sidewalk, hotter than a….

All right! Before this goes any further- go to the movies! They’re free! They’re air-conditioned! It could be bliss! It’s like Reel Paradise without Fiji and angst!

During the summer, Regal Cinemas across the nation show free G/PG movies at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (such as Curious George, Zathura, and Wallace and Gromit). The schedule varies from week to week and cinema to cinema, but it can be checked. Local Regal Cinemas include the Henrietta 18, Greece Ridge 12, and the Eastview 13. The Pittsford Cinema 9 is also doing the family flicks, but you’ll need to call (383-1310) or stop by for the schedule. All the venues offer various specials to encourage you to increase your pre-noon popcorn consumption. Past experience indicates that the gate keepers are fairly understanding about that adult need to bring coffee on the premises. Arrive early because the seating does disappear.

July, 2006

We here at the Family Valued newspaper borough, wayward home for hlessil, and 24-hour silflay have randomly selected a ten-year-old from among the one immediately available.

Tell Me about Watership Down.
Watership Down is a story about rabbits. A group of rabbits leave their home because they think something bad is going to happen and they wander around in the wilderness looking for a home.

So all the main characters are rabbits?
Yes. It was cool. I kind of like rabbits so I was okay with it. Hazel is a brownish rabbit and he is the leader. There’s also Fiver who’s kind of like a seer because he sees into the future and does all these weird things. He’s the one who says that they should leave their home first.

Did you know that a lot of people think of Watership Down as a classic?
No. Well, it is a really good story. It could be a classic. I would have read it anyway.

What about the quotes at the beginning of each chapter?
Some of them were in French and I had no idea what they meant. And some of them were from old books and plays and things.

To whom would you recommend the book?
Anybody who likes adventures because it’s cool. There’s a good amount of action. And some bits are funny. First you start out like “yea, they’re rabbits” and then you read a bit more and you’re like “this is so cool” because you get to know the characters and you like them. I’d say around three and over.

It’s a very long book, you know?
Yea, but to have the parents or somebody read it to them.

August, 2006

We here at the Family Valued newspaper warren, free-form gardens, and 24-hour cafeteria have randomly selected a ten-year-old from among the one immediately available.

Who is this David Lubar guy?
Bwa-ha-ha-ha. He is a horror writer. He writes scary stories.

The kind that keep you up at night?
No, actually I don’t get crept up by creepy stories and usually I don’t have nightmares if I read them before bed. Because I am a horror fan. Because I love scary books, movies, and things like that. I’ve read In the Land of the Lawn Weenies and Other Misadventures and Invasion of the Road Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales. They’re actually collections of short stories.

What’s your favorite story?
Hard to say. There’re a whole bunch of creepy ones. One of the really creepy ones was “Sun.” It opens with a boy talking about the beach and getting sunburned. Most people can stop getting burned by putting on sunscreen, but that’s never really worked for him. A new kid enters his class and she looks nice. So, after school, he and a friend visit her. The new kid says come on in, sit down, let’s talk. The friend asks the new kid have you ever had any bad sunburn. The new kid says no. The boy asks have you had any sunburns. The new kid says no. The boy says, “Everybody burns, everybody burns,” because he’s sensitive because he has a really bad one. The new kid says I don’t and her skin starts flaking off. The new kid turns into a lizard and attacks the boy and eats him. Then the lizard jumps onto the friend and that’s the end of the story.

Just so other people can decide if David Lubar is too scary for them, how scary are his stories?
They are very scary compared to Goosebumps. I like him as much as Ray Bradbury and H.G. Wells.

June, 2006