Comments for Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace

Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace: 12/07/06

The Encyclopedia Brown books remind me of The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie except aimed at elementary school aged readers. Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace has ten short capers (each about seven pages long). Each chapter ends with a challenge to the reader to solve the case. These mysteries are more a case of reading comprehension than actual sleuthing. The solutions to the case are often times too simplistic.

For example, one of the capers ends with a character being disqualified because he did some darkroom trickery on his photograph and therefore couldn't win the photography prize. Most photography contests have a category for composite work but the story never fully states whether or not this contest does as well. The story would have been better if it had included something about the character being in the nonfiction category where composite work or double exposures couldn't be used.

Another caper that got under my skin was the fault of the book being dated more than anything. The clue centers around Palestine and the solution given in the back of the book basically says that it can't be Palestine because it's not a real country. Palestine's unfortunate status is not the point of the clue. The fact that the other places named were cities was clue enough. Where is Palestine a city and not a country (or former country or whatever it is depending on the political situation du jour)?

Gratitude #7: Thoughts on Pain:

I am grateful for my grandmother and mother teaching me pain management. My grandmother suffered from sciatica and arthritis for the last two decades of her life. She was allergic to most pain medications so had to live with the pain rather than block it with pills. Though she had her bad days where she would grump and groan, she usually kept her sense of humor and she did her best to not let her pain get in the way of living her life the way she wanted to live it.

With both pregnancies I too suffered from sciatica. If it weren't for my grandmother I would have thought my legs were falling off for they way they hurt. I probably would have been demanding something safe to take during my pregnancies. Instead, I was just able to live with it, knowing full well that it was a pinched nerve (from my kids' big heads against my sciatic nerves).

With Harriet, I had another pain as well, in my coccyx (tailbone). It's a common problem women have during or after pregnancy. In my case, Harriet had spent the last month of her prenatal life with her head wedged between my coccyx and bladder. Since her birth I've had a difficult time sitting down and standing up from the ligaments that connect the bones in my coccyx bending in funny directions.

Last night while sitting in bed I realized my tailbone no longer hurt. In fact I hadn't felt that sharp searing pain getting in and out of chairs all day. I was able to sleep however I wanted. Today I'm a little sore back there but it's no where near as bad as it has been. Steps: 10000