Stranger Than Fiction: Part 2

As I said last Saturday, I am answering all the prompts over at NaBloPoMo in August, when the theme is Fiction.  Last week I answered the prompts from first two-thirds(ish) of the month.  Today I will answer 5 more, and then sometime next week I will wrap August with the last three prompts.  (I know, the anal person in me is freaking out about how unevenly I broke those up.  But, you know, it is just a blog.)  Here you go, Part 2 of 3:

-----------------------------------

August 22: What character would you want to have over for dinner and what would you cook?
This prompt seems awfully similar to "What book character would you want to meet?"  But I did say that I'd want to meet The Man With the Yellow Hat, but that I'd want to meet him in a public place, so there goes the whole dinner party thing.  So, continuing with the children's book theme, I think for dinner I'd like to have Junie B. Jones and her family over.  That little girl is such a brat that I think I'd feel better about my own kid by comparison.  It doesn't really matter what I would cook, because none of the kids would eat anyway, but I know for sure there would be lots of wine for the grown-ups.

August 23: Would you rather be transported magically into an imaginary world or to a different time in this world?

Well, I am fascinated by time travel.  This is sort of an embarrassing confession, but sometimes I have a fleeting thought that suggests that I kind of actually think time travel is real.  Like, "Imagine when those visitors from 1950 come and see our cell phones!"  So, I'd for sure say I'd rather be transported to a different time in this world.  I am especially taken by the 1950s, which I imagine were not quite as idyllic as people painted them out to be.  I think there was probably a lot of hidden unhappiness and unrest, and I'd like to go and check it out for myself.  Also I'd like to wear one of those big skirts with the crinolines underneath.  And tell people about my cell phone.  (Though of course my cell phone demo would be really stupid, because without any cell phone towers, my phone wouldn't get a signal and I'd basically just be showing everybody a dark plastic box.) 

August 24: What book did you always take out from the school library?

If there was a book I checked out repeatedly, I don't remember what it was.  I do have fond memories of going to my elementary school library, where the librarian was Mrs. O'Donnell.  Ethel O'Donnell--is there any more quintessential name for an old-timey school librarian?  (A quick Google search just revealed that she died in 1998.  Here's her obituary.  I didn't realize she had such a Chicago connection.)  Oh, and the librarian at my middle school was Mr. Yates.  I remember in eighth grade, a few of us were selected to participate in a week-long session where we learned about the library's new online periodicals database, Dialog.  This was my first exposure to a (very primitive) Internet.  Mr. Yates was so excited about Dialog, and I remember him practically bursting when he told us about how he was able to get up-to-the-minute news and weather information from as far off as the East Coast of the United States!  We used Dialog to get a list of articles about a particular topic, and then we had to go to the public library and pull up the articles on microfiche and microfilm.  Then we had to write a report.  My report was about popular TV shows.  I was so lame.  At the time I was super obsessed with Murphy Brown, which was kind of an odd obsession for a 14-year-old girl. (Also apparently Dialog is still around, but in a more advanced format.) 

August 25: What do you think about the act of banning books?  

I'm mostly against it.  I do believe that some content is inappropriate for young children, but I think most of the time books get banned for really stupid reasons.  Like when you hear about a dictionary getting banned because it has the word sex in it.   Or when Harry Potter gets banned because some religions have a problem with witchcraft.  Those are not valid reasons to ban a book altogether from a library or school. 

August 26: Would you rather publish a work of fiction or a work of non-fiction?

I'd be happy to publish anything, although I don't have the discipline to write a book.  I guess fiction books are more likely to sell, so from a financial standpoint I'd rather publish a work of fiction.  But there would be something really cool about doing all kinds of research and being an expert on some particular topic.  Ultimately, I'd say, the money issue notwithstanding, I'd rather publish a work of non-fiction.