Charles E. Carryl (1841–1920)

This is a poem made into a story with illustrations. Thinking in terms of the lowly camel who is over burdened with packs of heavy bags attached to his back, but, and the author notes, he has to sleep in the dessert, cold by nigh and hot by day.

While birds have crackers, and poodles each noodles, a camel has anything given to him. While cats can nap in favorite chairs, and chickens roost, the camel laments that any place is good enough for him. Lambs and hens, kittens and pigs have beds or wonderful pens, not so for the camel who has sand, dusty, dusty sand. In the circus, the author points to the giraffe or an ox who can be ridden upon by a clown, but not so for the weighed down camel who has people and hundreds of pounds of additional objects.

But, the author praises, that the camel is lumpy, bumpy and humpy, and any shape is ok for them.

I can imagine a little boy sitting on his grandmother's lap while this lovely rhyming poem is read. And, of course the illustrations are lush, as always for Santore… (meer)

So, I was trying to get our new stove to boil water for veggies, or something, and the new stove wasn't much interested in cooperating with my culinary intentions. Naturally, I began to mutter the phrase, "a watch pot never boils". From that I was swept back to elementary school, back in the dark ages, where I vaguely remembered having read a book called Davy and the Goblin. In that book, there was a short episode during which Davy comes upon someone leaning over a pot of watches, hoping to get them to boil. They don't, of course, so he pulls out a gun and shoots the pot of watches, muttering the phrase I used to begin this piece. Something like that. Anyway, I then had to look up the book to see if I'd remembered correctly. I pretty much had remembered that particular episode correctly, but virtually all of the rest of the book didn't seem at all familiar.

Davy, it seems, is a young boy who doesn't believe in make believe. No fairies, giants or goblins for him. So a goblin shows up to take him on a Believing Voyage, or something like that. So the book is a series of short vignettes wherein Davy comes across one imaginary thing or another. Some are from well-known stories, such as his visits to Jack and the Beanstalk's Farm and Sinbad the Sailor's House, and some are to places and creatures that were unknown to me.

I dunno, I wasn't much into this book. I suppose I need more of a plot now days. It would be a great book to read to small children, because it is fanciful and works well in small bits. The advantage for an adult reader is that the book contains oodles of word plays, which will likely be over the head of a six-to-ten-year old, but which will be fun for us more mature types. For example:

"What's the difference between a dog-watch and a watch-dog? It's a conundrum." "I don't know," said Davy, who would have laughed if he had not been a little afraid of the Dog. "A dog-watch keeps a watching on a bark," said the old Sea-Dog; "and a watch-dog keeps a barking on a watch."

Anyway, there you have it. It's probably not worth one's while if one is just reading to himself, but likely to be well worthwhile if one is reading to a young child.
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