Smiled when I read your (now six month old) post, since I loved that same book – it’s “Fat Men From Space” by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. I liked that book so much I checked out his other books. FMFS has a sequel called “Slaves of Speigel”, and “Lizard Music” was pretty good too.

I’m 36 years old with two kids and last year my Mom gave me the fantastic Christmas present of my two favorite books from when I was about 5 years old – “What Do People Do All Day” and “Busy Busy World”, both by Richard Scarry, so I can read them to my kids. The only bummer is that for WDPDAD for some reason they edited out the final two pages that show the big picnic with all the characters in the book. I’m guessing there’s probably something politically incorrect that they’ve cut out. Scarry would have some stereotypes in there every now and then. Another one I liked that my Dad must have read to me about a 1000 times was “The Cat’s Quizzer” by Dr. Seuss.

that year i also read moby dick. when i went to college and took freshman english, moby dick was on the reading list, so i asked my parents to mail me my copy from home so i could skim it and not have to buy a new copy at the bookstore. turns out i had read the readers digest condensed version. and like woody allen in zelig, i still haven’t finished the real book.

Another book I just now thought of was something along the lines of “Strange But True Sports Stories”. It was the size of The Hardball Times Annual, approximately, and had large, vivid illustrations. The stories it told were of the famous Georgia Tech 222-0 game and Eddie Feigner and his Court and stories like that. I remember reading it obsessively, especially when home sick from school.

It was actually another Robb White book called “The Survivor.” Your clues allowed me to figure out what it was.

It was actually another Robb White book called “The Survivor.” Your clues allowed me to figure out what it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Man_Creates

http://posters.imdb.com/title/tt0063804/usercomments

I would love to see an entire thread here about educational movies, though this might not be the place.

1969 I saw a movie in school that I thought was written/produced by the Jim Henson of Muppet fame but I’ve never been able to match him up with the movie.

It is about a ping pong ball who gets kicked out of the hopper for not being good enough and then goes on a journey. Does anyone have any information on this little movie? When I lived in DC my 5th grade teacher showed it to us. In 6th grade they had us goto the auditorium so everyone could watch it. It was just one of those strange things that you don’t forget but I’ve never been able to find any information about it.

Finally limped out to DVD about a year and a half ago. Cool FX.