(no subject)

It is with great sorrow that I read that Mickey Rooney has passed on. While every other girl in my school was obsessing over teen bands, I loved a series on SBS called ‘Mickey, Judy and Friends’ which showed movies starring child stars of the 30s and 40s. I even wrote to the director and got some artwork of the them beaming at each other in defiance of the Great Depression and the war.


I love the simplicity of the Andy Hardy movies, I love his bad boy act in *National Velvet* (1944), and, of course, *Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry* (1937) is the slashiest movie ever made.


Mickey Rooney may not have been the greatest actor in the world, but he had a lot of pep. And let us not forget that cinema was his second career (spanning the 1920s to 2011). He started out in vaudeville.


· Starring Mickey Rooney *and* Judy Garland *and* Freddie Bartholomew.

Book request

Any recommendations for a good book about evolution for very young children? Pearl wanted to know who the mother of the very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very first person was, which lead into a discussion. I used John Long and Brian Choo’s picture book to illustrate the idea but would love more recommendations.


I was quite pleased with my child’s logic. After I explained the concept she asked what made creatures change – straight into natural selection. I was feeling chuffed with my answers too, until Ruby commented that Bert the monkey in her Noddy books is ‘half evolved’ because he wears pants over his fur and tail.