The Ice Cream Machine: Six Wildly Different Stories with the Same Name!
February 1st 2022 by G. P. Putnam's SonsE ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
After an introduction about how magical writing is when it comes to imagination and emotions, Mr. Rubin gives us six short stories that all involve an ice cream machine. These are almost long enough to be novellas. The stories are all very different and have brief descriptions about the story, e.g. "the one with the five-armed robot". This story involves Shiro, whose mother created a robot for him named Kelly. The two are well-known for their adventures, so when they are interested in ice cream, they travel all over the world trying different kinds, and even enter the jungle on their search. In "the one with the ice cream eating contest", Penelope, who lives in a town filled with anthropomorphic animals, finds that she doesn't get brain freeze when eating ice cream, and coerces the administrator of a local ice cream contest to let her enter. Rhonda, in, "the one with the genius inventor", lives on a farm with her father. Her mother has been in a coma since she was born, but is still alive and cared for. Rhonda tries to make all kind of time saving devices. The goofiest story involves Cromulous, who has an ice cream truck, but who must battle with a group of children to see who can deliver ice cream in the best way. Martin, an apprentice to a sorcerer, runs afoul of a spell and creates mountains of strawberry ice cream all over the town for a harvest festval, which was not exactly what he set out to do, and doesn't end particularly well until the sorceror returns with another assistant to fic things. In the final story, we see the hapless Phil, who is abducted by space aliens and questioned, but also finds a food producing box that keeps him fed with a lot of ice cream. The end of the book gives ideas for writing ones own story, and even has Mr. Rubin's address so that students can show him what they have been inspired to write.
When I started in my library twenty years ago, there was a whole book case full of Story Collection books (SC), but the books did not check out at all, so I moved them all into fiction. I did buy the Scary Stories books, as well as San Souci's Short and Shivery series and the Guys Read short story books, but even those doen't circulate all that well. Of course, this year I had several teachers ASK for short story collections, which is a first. I had bought several of the collections with cultural connections, so was able to get books like Once Upon an Eid and Ancestor Approved to teachers who requested them.
This would be a good book to have to motivate students to write. Much of it is super goofy, with odd combinations of words and concepts. Students will be able to work their way through them even though the stories might get off task a bit.
After an introduction about how magical writing is when it comes to imagination and emotions, Mr. Rubin gives us six short stories that all involve an ice cream machine. These are almost long enough to be novellas. The stories are all very different and have brief descriptions about the story, e.g. "the one with the five-armed robot". This story involves Shiro, whose mother created a robot for him named Kelly. The two are well-known for their adventures, so when they are interested in ice cream, they travel all over the world trying different kinds, and even enter the jungle on their search. In "the one with the ice cream eating contest", Penelope, who lives in a town filled with anthropomorphic animals, finds that she doesn't get brain freeze when eating ice cream, and coerces the administrator of a local ice cream contest to let her enter. Rhonda, in, "the one with the genius inventor", lives on a farm with her father. Her mother has been in a coma since she was born, but is still alive and cared for. Rhonda tries to make all kind of time saving devices. The goofiest story involves Cromulous, who has an ice cream truck, but who must battle with a group of children to see who can deliver ice cream in the best way. Martin, an apprentice to a sorcerer, runs afoul of a spell and creates mountains of strawberry ice cream all over the town for a harvest festval, which was not exactly what he set out to do, and doesn't end particularly well until the sorceror returns with another assistant to fic things. In the final story, we see the hapless Phil, who is abducted by space aliens and questioned, but also finds a food producing box that keeps him fed with a lot of ice cream. The end of the book gives ideas for writing ones own story, and even has Mr. Rubin's address so that students can show him what they have been inspired to write.
When I started in my library twenty years ago, there was a whole book case full of Story Collection books (SC), but the books did not check out at all, so I moved them all into fiction. I did buy the Scary Stories books, as well as San Souci's Short and Shivery series and the Guys Read short story books, but even those doen't circulate all that well. Of course, this year I had several teachers ASK for short story collections, which is a first. I had bought several of the collections with cultural connections, so was able to get books like Once Upon an Eid and Ancestor Approved to teachers who requested them.
This would be a good book to have to motivate students to write. Much of it is super goofy, with odd combinations of words and concepts. Students will be able to work their way through them even though the stories might get off task a bit.
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