Nancy Drew to the Rescue

"I want to go find a librarian and tell her my mom won't let me read a book!"- Bowery Bird

I'm a bad mom.
Today in between 5 dentist appointments Bowery Bird and I were across the street at the library. Holed up in a corner we were turning decimals into fractions and then marching them into ascending order (it sounds like magic was involved...and there must have been, to hold her back from stocking  up on Nancy Drews a mere 3 shelves away.)

Speaking of Nancy Drew, we just watched this killer of a film from 1939. I would recommend this any day over the modern version--and I haven't even seen that one yet.

This movie had action, adventure, and lots of humor. Even my initially bored Kingfisher was laughing with us as our heroine and her friends sang Nursery Rhymes for their supper in a Chinese Restaurant, and turned off the hotel sign lights to read "Bedbug Hotel." Then all three children visibly held their breath as the bad guy approached Nancy and Ted with their recording device in full view; 1939 recording device.

Not only a fun show for all ages with an upbeat attitude and lots of adventure, it was a peak at how life once was and made a great Saturday afternoon treat.

Do the Beastie Boys count as School?

One day I showed funny clips of As You Like It to our kids after reading the Lamb's version. It was culture at its height, they understood it, it was poetic, it was beauty in motion set in a Japanese backdrop of holistic transformation...

Then that night my husband whipped out a couple Beastie Boys videos (appropriate ones). Now I love the Beastie Boys as much as the next person (appropriate ones) and yet  I found myself prompting the kids "remember the Shakespeare we saw today?" " all the world's a stage" "are you getting ...any... of this?".

Our Pick Flicks 2011

Movies we've enjoyed as a family this year

Pixar

Incredibles
WALLE
Toy Story
Finding Nemo

Silent

Buster Keaton in The General
Charlie Chaplin in The Kid    (edited by him in the Hotel Utah)
Lurel & Hardy in Way Out West
Harold Lloyd in Safety Last     -Lloyd did his own stunts. Even after loosing a thumb & finger in an accident on set, he went on-wearing a glove.

Foreign

The Fox and the Child
The Red Balloon

Animation

Kiki's Delivery Service
My Neighbor Totoro

Star Wars.

Musicals

The Music Man
Meet Me in St. Louis
Singing in the Rain
The Sound of Music
The Wizard of Oz

Disney classic

Mary Poppins
That Darn Cat
Pollyanna
The Parent Trap
Swiss Family Robinson
Dr. Dolittle

The Muppets.

American Girl

Samantha
Kit Kitridge

Black & White

Bringing Up Baby
Stagecoach- early John Wayne
Harvey
Forbidden Planet ( based on Shakespeare's Tempest)

Holiday

It's a Wonderful Life
The Grinch (original cartoon)
Mr. Kruger's Christmas
Eloise's Christmas
White Christmas
The Light Before Christmas

TV Series

Rocky & Bullwinkle (now I get it!)
The Cosby Show
Davy & Goliath
Shaun the Sheep
The Muppet Show
Ultra-Man (I still don't get it...)