My Stupid Journal:
Being the true and unabridged chronicles of Miss Daisy Tannenbaum, age twelve, who was marooned on a desert island with her family, escaping certain death only to return home and be exiled to Paris for a crime she didn't commit. Well, okay, maybe she did commit it, but she can explain...
Being the true and unabridged chronicles of Miss Daisy Tannenbaum, age twelve, who was marooned on a desert island with her family, escaping certain death only to return home and be exiled to Paris for a crime she didn't commit. Well, okay, maybe she did commit it, but she can explain...
A Mona Lisa Christmas
Dec 07, 2022 by Mr. Allen
(This is a “lost chapter,” cut from the beginning of Daisy and the Missing Mona Lisa. It acts as a bridge between the end of Daisy in Exile and the beginning of Daisy and the Missing Mona Lisa. It features Daisy’s sister Clymene, who appears in Daisy and the Pirates, but not at all in the third book. Mostly the chapter features Paris at Christmas time.)
MONKEY SAYS NO FREE BOOKS
Oct 04, 2022 by Mr. Allen
EXILE and PIRATES ebooks back to $3.99. Monkey says, "no more free."
The Blah Blah on Me
Aug 29, 2022 by Mr. Allen
I’ll admit, when I think that I have three books already, I feel pretty cool about it. But the thing is, I don’t consider myself a special person. I suck at math, get straight Cs at school, am mediocre at sports even though I like them, can hardly look in the mirror without making ugh-face, and often question why anyone would bother being my friend.
Daisy's Summer Reading List
Aug 10, 2022 by Mr. Allen
Summer usually equals reading lists. Lists equal chores. Chores equal ugh. But I'm lucky. The only rule Aunt Mill laid down is that I have to read something and it has to be something that (according to her) isn't completely idiotic.
1. Baby X
Dec 28, 2021 by Mr. Allen
(The blog chapters below were the beginning of DAISY IN EXILE. Some are not in the book. Some are, but with much editing. I hope that these bonus details of Daisy's life will give you some insight into how the Daisy stories developed.)
It was definitely going to be a boy. Mom and Dad were talking about it at dinner. Mom had taken some test to see that there were “no complications” with Baby-X and she’d just gotten back the results. The biggest complication for Baby-X was that he was going to be born into this dumb family...
It was definitely going to be a boy. Mom and Dad were talking about it at dinner. Mom had taken some test to see that there were “no complications” with Baby-X and she’d just gotten back the results. The biggest complication for Baby-X was that he was going to be born into this dumb family...
2. Grounded Forever
Dec 20, 2021 by Mr. Allen
Clymene and I were both grounded forever, or until we got married or left for college. We were on total lockdown. No internet, email, phone calls, text message, TV anything. "If it runs on electricity or batteries," said Mom, "you can't use it." Next day, I had to go with Mom and Dad to see Principal Smootin. Cly said I should go in and just apologize till my eyeballs fell out. “They don’t want to hear your side of the story or what a rat Martin Blindenbok is,” she said. “They just want to hear that you are the sorriest person on the planet.”
3. The Shark at Charles de Gaulle
Dec 18, 2021 by Mr. Allen
Because I was eleven and traveling alone, they made me wear a plastic pouch around my neck with my ticket and passport and paperwork shoved inside. I got to be escorted on and off the plane by my own stew. Go geek girl.
4. A Room of My Own
Dec 06, 2021 by Mr. Allen
My room had a window that looked out onto a cobbled courtyard, where black clouds, like a layer of tar, spread tight over Paris rooftops. It was raining, had been since the Air France jet touched runway. My own room. First time ever.
I’d always been thrown in with Clymene, as long as I could remember. It’s the most amazing thing, having your own room, your own desk, your own little desk lamp you can turn on and off without anybody biting your head off, even in the middle of the night...
5. The Embassy School
Nov 30, 2021 by Mr. Allen
The day after I arrived, Aunt Mill woke me at seven Paris time. I’d been asleep about five seconds. She said she was taking me to her school to do some testing. I had three seconds to shower and throw clothes on. The shower had one of those nozzle heaters that either scalds you or douses you with ice water, with no in between, unless you have the touch of a safecracker.
6. Le Saint Gervais
Nov 22, 2021 by Mr. Allen
We metroed back to Aunt Mill’s neighborhood and ate at a place called Café Saint Gervais, around the corner from Mill’s apartment. She talked with both owners of this place. They were like best buddies. They even shook my hand and the woman patted my hair and kissed my cheeks and spoke English to me, telling me that her name was Rose and my name was Daisy, which meant Marguerite in French, so we were both flower-name girls, the best kind of girls in the world...
7. A French Scholar You Are Not
Nov 15, 2021 by Mr. Allen
Aunt Mill sucked down the rest of her espresso then, in a no-nonsense tone, said I tested well in reading comprehension, vocabulary, history, geography, and life sciences. “Math, as predicted, is a problem area and your French, shall we say, is remedial, contrary to your mother’s assessment.”
“I think my mom fibbed a little. I’ve never taken a day of French.”
“I think my mom fibbed a little. I’ve never taken a day of French.”
8. Rossignol C Code
Oct 10, 2021 by Mr. Allen
The writing, in French, was very hard to make out because there were brown-tinted numbers written on top of them. The numbers were grouped in twos or threes like: “22 412 878, 21 331 125 146 21 893 428 87 991,” and so on.
“Were the numbers written in invisible ink or something?” I asked.
Aunt Mill looked pleased. “They were, yes. It’s an iron sulfate ink..."
9. Comtesse de la Motte
Oct 05, 2021 by Mr. Allen
I could hardly sleep for thinking about stolen diamonds and the Comtesse de la Motte flying out her window, smacking the pavement below. My days and nights weren’t right yet anyway, so it didn’t take much to keep me tossing and turning. I thought I heard that piano playing again, just ever so faintly, fading in and out among the night noises. But maybe I just heard the notes in my head...
10. Paris Death March
Aug 21, 2019 by Mr. Allen
“Shall we do the monuments?”
I was barely awake, buttoning my coat, chasing Aunt Mill as she whisked across the courtyard and out the carriage door. Just before stepping through the door, I glanced back and spotted Sief, nose mashed against a window three flights up, frowning down. Just five minutes before that, Aunt Mill had charged into my bedroom with that obnoxious, singsong voice my mom uses in the morning. They might as well blow a bugle in your ear.
11. Paris Death March II
Aug 11, 2019 by Mr. Allen
We made our way down the rue Saint-Honoré, past designer shops and designer shoppers, flitting past the Elysée Palace, where the French president lives. Aunt Mill kept up her grueling pace and endless commentary. She had huge strides. I couldn’t quite match them, half jogging, half hopping to keep up, plus she weaved constantly, dodging window-gawkers and nose-to-iphone folks.
“So, Aunt Mill, are you looking for the diamonds or are you trying to figure out who killed Jeanne de la Motte?”
12. Cat Burglar’s Assistant
Jul 14, 2019 by Mr. Allen
Next day, Aunt Millicent’s knee looked like a Texas grapefruit. She put ice in a zip-lock and her feet on a chair and wrapped an ace bandage around the zip-lock to keep it in place, but it kept sliding off anyway. She was in miserable pain. She didn’t say anything—in fact she didn’t complain once the whole time, but you could tell.
