Pet day care answers many owners’ concerns

slideshow

Recent Dog Days of summer – with intense high heat and humidity – turn pet owners to increased concerns about their animal friends’ safety.

One option is Doggie Day Care, where playtime intersects with shelter from the soaring temperatures.

Pooches Brinkley and Max wag their feathered tails with delight each day as they anticipate greeting other “regulars” at Tupelo Small Animal Hospital.

TSAH and other veterinary shops offer day and longer term boarding when pet owners need more controlled care for their animal friends than leaving them home allows.

Kristi Scheuer of Tupelo, who often ferries Brinkley and Max between home and day care, says it’s a great option for her family and their pets.

“We live downtown and don’t have a yard,” she said recently.

“This gives them a good place to play and get good care while we’re all at work.”

The canine day-boarding may be looking even better as Northeast Mississippi slogs through 100-plus degree days.

At Animal Care Center of Tupelo, veterinarian Dr. Shelley Key-Russell says she’s a believer in the benefits of Doggie Day Care.

“Many dogs need a social outlet – they get bored at home,” she notes.

Bored dogs can turn into unhappy dogs and difficult pets that look for ways to vent their boredom, like chewing on the furniture or digging up the yard.

Local day-boarding, as most places call it, runs about $8 a day and allows working owners professional supervision for their pets, along with convenient hours before and after work for dropoffs and pickups.

Generally, the facilities have staff dedicated to the day care operation and it’s not unusual to see them playing with the dogs.

“I’ve had a lot of owners say how much exercise their dogs get with us,” she notes. “They get home and are really exhausted.”

Jackie Tubb at Tupelo Small Animal Hospital on Thomas Street says their Doggie Day Care experience has grown across the past 10 years.

Some owners don’t want to leave their pets at home alone, she says, and others know their dogs like the day-long play with canine friends.

“It’s not for every dog – some of them just prefer their own company,” Tubb notes.

She laughs when she talks about all the doggie stories she’s collected from working with their clients through the years.

“There aren’t a lot of jobs that are this much fun,” she says.

Key-Russell says their practice built Doggie Day Care from an already hardy pack of their own dogs, which they brought to work with them.

She’s got three – a spitz, a golden retriever and a Labrador.

Their day-boarding sees 10-15 regulars and another dozen or so when the temperature starts to rise.

“It’s so funny to see them when their owners drive up,” Key-Russell says about the dogs. “They just run into the clinic, they’re so excited to be here.”

During these hot, humid summer days, Key-Russell and Tubb advise pet owners to check on their pets at home, even if they have shade outside.

Their day-visitors have air-conditioned facilities, but Tubb says that even with cool temperatures inside, the summer environment puts more stress on animals and they need more water.

Key-Russell also advises owners of older pets to be sure they get checkups to help determine if they have any conditions that may be made worse by the summer heat.

Their advice? Make sure your pet has:

• Plenty of shade.

• A big supply of cool water, and

• Attention to how the heat is affecting him or her.

Veterinarian Dr. Glenn Thomas recommends owners walk their dogs “early and late” to avoid the extreme heat of the day.

“I like to walk mine in the dark,” he notes.

If you find your dog experiencing heat-related symptoms like heavy panting or exhaustion, Thomas says quick reaction is crucial.

A quick cool-down is important before loading the pet into the car for medical attention, he says.

“Thirty minutes can make a big difference,” he adds. “Get a hose and soak them down.

“Cool them off as fast as you can.”

Then call your vet.

[email protected]

Tips IF YOUR PET’S IN TROUBLE from heat:

• May be lying on his side

• Heavy panting

• Unresponsive

WHAT TO DO?

• Get a garden hose and quickly cool pet

• Apply ice packs, if you have them

• Call your veterinarian

West Volusia Beacon Movie Review — The Smurfs

West Volusia Beacon Movie Review — The Smurfs

Zach “Gil” Moore — Zach is a staff writer for Stars and Popcorn. He is currently studying writing at Daytona State College. Zach was born in Gilbertsville, Kent., but has spent most of his life in Central Florida. Other than watching and reviewing movies, he enjoys gaming, reading and playing the bass guitar.

Rated PG for mild rude humor and action

By Zach “Gil” Moore
BEACON COLUMNIST

posted Aug 6, 2011 – 5:55:53pm

Director Raja Gosnell, the man responsible for bringing us the Scooby-Doo movie, inexplicably handles the big-screen debut of another Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Smurfs. But when the choices are either an animal in human clothing or a group of mystery-solving teenagers, you sometimes try to look for an option C.

In the film’s opening, the audience is treated to the wonderfully recreated Smurf village as the little blue creatures scramble to prepare for a festival. But a vision that Papa Smurf (Jonathon Winters) has warns that there is something terrible about to happen involving Clumsy (Anton Yelchin). Despite attempts to alter the events, Clumsy has a run-in with the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) and his pet cat Azrael (voiced by Frank Welker), which leads to

trouble as he gets sucked through a vortex, along with Papa Smurf, Smurfette (Katy Perry), Grouchy (George Lopez), Brainy (Fred Armisen) and Gutsy (Alan Cumming), and into modern-day New York City. There, they are discovered by Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and his wife Grace (Jayma Mays).

Whew, that was a lot of name-dropping. But that’s not all: The Smurfs boasts a supporting cast that includes Paul Reubens (appropriately) as Jokey, Jeff Foxworthy as Handy, and, perhaps the funniest of all, John Oliver as Vanity Smurf. Other noteworthy appearances that aren’t blue include Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara and a brief appearance by Joan Rivers.

Die-hard fans of Neil Patrick Harris shouldn’t let tiny blue creatures detour them from checking him out in The Smurfs, because his presence really keeps this film from falling completely flat. Besides him, though, there’s plenty in the film that will irk you if you’re a Smurfs purist (is there such a thing?). For instance, not all of the actors do their characters’ original cartoon voices very much justice, the key example being Clumsy. The one major exception, of course, is Jonathon Winters, who reprises his role of Papa Smurf for the movie, adding a bit of consistency.

Rating System

Stars represent how good a movie is as art—how the acting, directing, writing, cinematography, and so on come together to create a satisfying story experience for the viewer.

Popcorn represents how fun a film is to watch—how funny it is, how exciting the special effects are, and how enjoyable the story is on repeated viewings. The perfect popcorn movie would be one that never got stale regardless of how many times you’ve seen it.

Azrael the Cat is really funny with his animations reflecting his old cartoon self perfectly throughout the film. He is definitely sure to be a viewer favorite regardless of age, but there could be some concern about young kids watching how Gargamel treats his cat. For someone who hasn’t ever seen the old cartoon, that could be kind of off-putting. So for those who take a possible dark wizard-imitating young one with them, it might be a good idea to remind them after credits roll that we don’t treat our furry friends like that. But concerns aside, some of Gargamel’s blatant abuse, usually involving throwing the cat into or through some sort of uncertain danger, is really tough not to laugh at.

Watching a cartoon turn into a digital animation melding with a modern live-action background is always weird. If, instead of this attempt at blending an animated reality into our own, the producers had made an hour-long homage to the original cartoon, it probably would have been better. But this is still a fun visit back to the series for all ages.

Stars Popcorn rating: 2 stars, 3 popcorn

— Zach is a staff writer for Stars Popcorn. He is currently studying writing at Daytona State College. Zach was born in Gilbertsville, Kent., but has spent most of his life in Central Florida. Other than watching and reviewing movies, he enjoys gaming, reading and playing the bass guitar.

Sponsored by Liebe Entertainment Group, Marketplace 8. Click here to see showtimes for MOVIE NAME HERE

Visit Stars Popcorn at www.starsandpopcorn.com

— [email protected]

---

Comment on this article

Fields marked with a * are required

---

Did you find this story interesting or informative? Subscribe to The West Volusia Beacon to read more stories by Zach “Gil” Moore, along with others from our award-winning writers. Subscribe now!

Canine Comfort

A wet nosed-kiss, a gentle nuzzle and the wag of a happy tail can go a long way to brighten anyone’s day, but it’s especially true for people facing serious physical and emotional challenges.

Mid-South Therapy Dogs Cooper, left, and Tank visit with patient Andrew Kurrus at Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown. 
(Photo: Lance Murphey)

The health benefits of spending time with companion animals include a decrease in blood pressure and cholesterol and triglyceride levels, as well as decreased feelings of loneliness and increased opportunities for exercise and socializing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And people who work with dogs and other therapy animals know four-legged friends can provide a calming, reassuring presence for patients receiving care in hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes and hospices.

“If someone is in rehab after double knee-replacement surgery, and is having trouble getting that extra bit of motivation to get up and out of the wheelchair – which is painful – we bring the dog in on a leash,” said Mary Ehrhart, director of Mid-South Therapy Dogs and Friends, a nonprofit group that provides animal-assisted therapy programs in Memphis and the surrounding area.

“The dog sort of takes away some of that pain and provides extra motivation for them. They just take that moment to work a little bit harder than they normally would if they were just there with the therapist.”

“Not all medicine comes in a bottle” is the motto of Mid-South Therapy Dogs. For more than a decade, the all-volunteer organization’s human-animal teams have been bringing comfort and joy to residents at local facilities such as Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown; Methodist Le Bonheur Hospice; Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center in Collierville; and Ronald McDonald House of Memphis.

The group also visits with grieving children at Baptist Memorial Health Care’s Camp Good Grief.

“It’s unbelievable how the children will relate to the animal because they’re so disengaged from everything else,” Ehrhart said. “The animal doesn’t ask questions or require anything. It just gives unconditional love. Sometimes they’ll just take long walks and tell the dog all their secrets.”

Jo Anne Fusco is co-founder of another group, the recently launched West Tennessee Therapy Dogs, whose teams visit facilities such as Ave Maria Nursing Home, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Temple Israel.

Her dog Kicker has become something of a celebrity in the world of therapy animals. The 10-year-old golden retriever has made three appearances on NBC’s “The Today Show,” was honored for his therapy work during the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City, and is the only dog ever nominated as St. Jude’s Volunteer of the Year.

Mid-South Therapy Dog Tank visits with patient Cantrell Jones at Baptist Rehabilitation – Germantown. The nonprofit organization uses animal-assisted therapy to foster social, emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual and psychological changes.
(Photo: Lance Murphey)

“To have a dog comfort you, especially for children in hospitals, it just takes their mind off of what’s happening,” Fusco said. “At St. Jude, the kids have dogs they’ve left at home and they miss their animals. They see the dogs and they come running down the hall and it just brings smiles to their faces.”

Fusco said one of her proudest moments with Kicker came when the dog’s presence made a huge difference in the recovery of a very young girl whose legs had been badly burned.

“She was in a lot of pain,” Fusco said. “She had skin grafts on her leg and was afraid to try to walk. She took Kicker’s leash, put her feet on the floor, and she ended up walking.”

Although golden retrievers, known for their mellow dispositions, are widely used as therapy dogs, Ehrhart said breed and age are not determinants (although dogs are required to be at least a year old, but older animals are welcome).

Mid-South Therapy Dogs includes many breeds, and at one point had a three-legged amputee dog that had been used as dog-fighting “bait” and discarded in a trash bin. That dog went on to work mostly with veterans who were also amputees.

Animal-assisted therapeutic interactions are serious business, and dogs and their handlers must be very skilled, knowledgeable and well-trained.

Mid-South Therapy Dogs and handlers must meet the rigorous requirements of Delta Society, a national nonprofit dedicated to incorporating therapy, service and companion animals into the lives of those who need them most.

“They know they’ve been through training and the handler knows how to properly interact and know about patient privacy regulations and so on,” Ehrhart said. “It’s pretty involved when you get into the details of what people need to do to get their animal out into the community.”

Mid-South Therapy Dogs added “and Friends” to its title recently when the organization added miniature donkeys named Nestle and Journey and a llama named Pearl to the group. Ehrhart said elderly clients especially enjoy those visits.

“They may not have talked to anyone at the center all day, but the donkey or the llama comes in, and it just sparks a memory and they just tell these incredible funny stories,” she said.

Ehrhart and Fusco both said there’s always a need for more people to get involved in animal therapy, and you don’t necessarily be an animal-owner to volunteer.

Ehrhart said her organization is currently looking to recruit a friendly cat.

David Mizejewski: Coyote Escapes Death by Jar

This week’s Animal Oddity looks funny, but it really isn’t. Every so often I come across a local news story about some poor critter that got its head stuck in a jar and was wandering around bumping into things like a cartoon character until someone saved it.

I’ve written about several of these cases involving various species before, including a skunk and a raccoon.

The latest “jar head” story to cross my computer screen involved a young coyote who stuck his head in a large jar to lick out the remaining food residue only to find that he couldn’t pull his head back out. It’s a wonder he didn’t suffocate or die of heat stroke with his head stuck inside the heat-trapping glass like that. Even so, he wouldn’t be able to escape the slow starvation would be the only other outcome for this sad scenario. Luckily for this coyote, some big hearted citizens came to the rescue. Check out this video for the full story:

We’ve all heard about marine wildlife from sea turtles to birds to whales becoming entangled and dying in our garbage, especially plastics, but these cases show that it happens to land animals as well. Make sure you throw away or recycle your trash properly so that it doesn’t end up lying around to become a death trap for some unsuspecting animal.

Always remember that for each story we hear about a skunk, raccoon or coyote that was rescued from death by a jar, there are probably dozens of other animals that weren’t so lucky.

Get the latest odd animal news, stories, behaviors and videos on my Animal Planet blog, Animal Oddities.

Follow David Mizejewski on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/dmizejewski

Nostalgic for Pinoy (funny) comics

Pilipino Funny Komiks started me into collecting Tagalog komiks. Back in the 1970s, my father used to buy all sorts of Bugs Bunny and Batman comics being poorly reprinted by National Bookstore, hoping they could speed up my reading abilities in grade school. But I never liked reading them. In fact I now have a bunch of them in my bookshelf which I will gladly give away to anyone who will take care of them.

On the other hand, I liked Pilipino Funny Komiks because it was written in Tagalog, and I can easily relate with it. Looking back I feel lucky that our family did not have the habit of throwing away things. We just keep everything in our old baul and bookshelves. Some of our collections have been destroyed due to frequent typhoons, but nevertheless most have survived. When I got a job in the late 1980s, I started augmenting our collection, trying to find the objects that were part of our childhood. And this included Pilipino Funny Komiks.

Pilipino Funny Komiks is a full color komiks first published in 1978 by Islas Filipinas Publications, Inc., a division of Atlas Publications, owned by Don Ramon Roces. Back then, Atlas was located at Scout Reyes Street, in Quezon City. (The company was later purchased by Mrs. Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore, and  transferred to 20th Avenue in Cubao, just right across where I lived.)

For those who grew up reading Pilipino Funny Komiks, reading them now could bring echoes of nostalgia of the simpler days when children were happy reading a colored comic book, filled with beautiful stories about animal superheroes and endearing characters. Back then, there were no video games, internet, MP3, and home video. All we had then was a black and white television where we watch children’s programs like Kuskos Balungos, Voltes V, Daimos, and Sesame Street. I only learned later that these television shows were shot in color  and the reason they appeared black and white was that because our TV was black and white!

And then appeared Pilipino Funny Komiks, which changed the way we Filipino children lived at that time. It was only a comic book, but it was like going to a different, happier planet.  And we loved it.

Let us travel back in time and revisit those good old days by viewing once more the most endearingly memorable characters we grew up with in Pilipino Funny Komiks. Pilipino Funny Komiks was last published in 2004. What I can show you now are the older copies I found in my komiks library.

It’s good to be a child again once in a while to momentarily escape the boredom of being grown-up.

 

Pilipino Komiks No. 1 and 2

Batute by Rene Villaroman and Vic Geromino

 

Bulol at Tangak by L.S. Martinez

Roni Santiago’s Planet op di Eyps

Bim, Ban,Bung by Larry Alcala

Superkat versus Mighty Rat

Before Pupung, there was Lilit Bulilit by Tonton Young

The Fun Page!

Superdog!

Niknok! Our own version of Dennis D’Menace

The lovable Mahimud Ali

 

Lead photo:  Tsikiting Gubat by Tony Velasquez

 

All photos:  by the author, some rights reserved

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

Roy Exum: The Dance Of The Seven Veils

by Roy Exum
posted July 25, 2011

Roy Exum. Every year at this time I get a little melancholy, remembering so vividly when the start of a new college football season would send the Southeastern Conference Skywriters on their annual pilgrimage, but things got a little worse on Sunday when the Nashville newspaper revealed this will be Hope Hines last week on the air at Nashvilles Channel 5.

Hope has been the sports anchor for WTVF, the old WLAC, in Nashville for 40 years and we fell into step with each other in the early 70s when we were invited on the Skywriters Tour. Every year the SEC would ferry the top sports writers and broadcasters from around the South to what was then the 10 member campuses to preview each team.

It was a pretty prestigious thing to get invited, because you were with the best writers and voices in the South, but it was also the wildest bunch of people Ive ever been around in my life. It was like the movie Animal House, where members of our loose media fraternity would try to outdo one another in raucous stunts, hysterical folly and two weeks of sheer bedlam that would have gotten any of us expelled from a church.

Last week in Birmingham a talk show spent a couple of days reliving many of the really funny shenanigans that made the Skywriters Tour legendary. I heard my name got mentioned a lot, which is how nothing-but-rumors get more embellished with each new year, but it’s true great friendships were made that last a lifetime and for many years Hope and I have enjoyed one anothers laughter.

As a matter of fact, Hope Hines was a key player in the infamous Dance of the Seven Veils caper, which is one of about 1,000 zany events old Skywriters laugh about whenever our paths cross. The stories make your eyes water, too, because we had such fun and merriment with each other.

Anyway, we had flown into LSU late one afternoon and, because of the intense heat, had gone to a night practice. It was still hot enough to kill a mortal, but LSU had lots of beer to go with the frog legs and crayfish. Because the practice was late, the TV types among us got most of their tapes done right then.

We writers had to wait until the next days luncheon with the coaches and players, and then scurried back to the hotel to write all afternoon. Again, the TV pretty boys were already finished so Hope and his camera crowd demanded the cocktail lounge should open much earlier than usual.

Well, they started telling funny stories and were soon well on their way to getting foolish. Unbeknownst to any of us was the fact the hotel was next to this big office complex were many pretty Louisiana women were employed. Not only that, on Fridays after work the dear ladies loved to gather and get chilled refreshments at the darkly-lit lounge.

By the time the first covey came through the smooth-talking Skywriters were primed just perfectly. They commandeered the juke box and, with liquid salvation flowing freely, they immediately launched the Miss Louisiana Dance Contest.

While they were doing such steps as the twist, the hula, the jerk, and the gator, more and more pretty ladies appeared. By dark most of the writers had filed their stories and, with the plane not leaving until early the next morning, were obliged to help as dance partners or stern-faced judges in what turned into a somewhat colorful competition.

The thing lasted until way after midnight, the ladies still coming and going, until finally no one could properly stand up. Thats when the lounge lady presented Hope with an $846 tab. All the girls thought the drinks were free and, back 40 years ago, no TV sports announcer was making more than about $150 a week.

Elmore Scoop Hudgins, the Skywriters caretaker, darn near had a heart attack over the bill, which nobody could pay, and in the end I think the High Tribunal, a select group of Skywriters who made smart decisions, devised a way for every company represented on the Skywriters Tour to get a $25 bill from the Baton Rouge Baggage Company for handling our luggage due to an airport strike.

Now it can be told there was no such company, nor any such strike. It was really a scam to pay for what notoriously is known among the Skywriters to this day as The Dance of the Seven Veils. Ill bet a dollar that the beloved Hope Hines, when he signs off the air for the last time this week, will remember that some of those Louisiana girls were pretty fine dancers, too.

[email protected]

Picture Books: Here be giants. And zaks, and bears…

Charles Fuge’s Astonishing Animal ABC (Gullane, £10.99) progresses from an arty aardvark to the hitherto unknown-to-zoology zak, so allowing zebras a welcome relief from their normal position at the end of any animal alphabet.

Lavishly illustrated and linked together by bouncy rhyme, this is early learning at its best. So too is Alison Murray’s One Two. That’s My Shoe! (Orchard, £10.99). Here, a child chases a naughty pet up the number chain from one to 10, where everyone is friends again. It is also told in rhyme and illustrated with huge pictures, and the numbers flash by as part of the fun.

Marla Frazee’s The Boss Baby (Simon and Schuster, £5.99) takes a wry look at what really goes on after a new arrival. Dressed in a sharp black suit, a small, bald and scowling baby is shown taking over his new home. Prone to tantrums, demanding meetings at any time in the day or night, and expecting instant attention from his staff of two, he only looks pleased when he finally starts to talk. Parents will surely want to lend this book to other sufferers; babies may wonder whether they have finally been rumbled.

Meanwhile, in the less pointed world of picture book animals, Catherine Rayner’s Solomon Crocodile (Macmillan, £10.99) brings glowing jungle colours to a story about an animal which just can’t help being a nuisance to everyone else on the river bank. Temporarily put in his place by an enormous hippo, he ends by meeting another of his kind who is just as mischievous. Double trouble, indeed, and very entertaining.

Watch out, too, for Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes (Simon and Schuster, £5.99). Written by Anna Kemp and illustrated by Sara Ogilvie, it offers a good-humoured warning to parents who don’t listen. Despite mounting evidence, no one believes Daisy when she insists that there is a big purple rhinoceros in the house. Finally convinced, Mum and Dad then have another surprise on the final page. The massive, full-colour pictures make this a delicious book.

Also good, Ross Collins’s Doodleday (Gullane, £10.99) shows what can happen when children fail to heed advice. Warned by his mother never to draw anything on Doodleday, young Harvey still goes ahead and does so. Initially sketching a fly that becomes real, he quickly creates a spider, a bird and finally a giant squid in a vain attempt to get each one to demolish the one that came before. Just in time, Mum arrives and orders every new creature back to the drawing pad. Splendidly illustrated, this is a book to pore over.

For older infants, Niki Daly’s No More Kisses for Bernard! (Francis Lincoln, £11.99) is a welcome antidote to those sentimental love-in picture books featuring permanently beaming human or animal children and their parents. Bernard is a determined little boy who declares a unilateral prohibition on over-enthusiastic embraces. Wittily illustrated, this is a story for everyone.

And for those about to start their education, David Mackintosh’s Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School (HarperCollins, £10.99) features a wonderfully eccentric title character. Utterly unpredictable from one page to the next, this is a seriously funny book. So too is Andy Stanton’s extraordinary Here Comes the Poo Bus! (Puffin, £10.99). Illustrated in full, foetid detail by Noëlle Davies-Brock, this anarchic picture book about insects lured into a doomed trip to the seaside has to be seen – but thankfully not smelled – to be believed.

Alex T Smith’s Claude in the City (Hodder, £4.99) is a book with pictures rather than a picture book. Engagingly written and with plenty of odd asides, it tells the story of a small plump dog named Claude and his best friend, who happens to be a sock. Together they explore the town, ending up as local heroes after foiling a robbery. The author is a comparative newcomer to children’s books; on this evidence, he should go far.

Steve Voake, on the other hand, has been around for ages. He is on top form in Hooey Higgins and the Big Boat Race (Walker, £4.99), a tale about three boys building a bouncing boat. Emma Dodson’s explosive illustrations add to the fun.

Nicola Davies’s Welcome to Silver Street Farm (Walker, £3.99) has three children devising and then opening their own city farm. Written in short, easy to read chapters and pleasantly illustrated by Katharine McEwen, this is effective wish-fulfilment stuff, in a multicultural urban setting. There are three more titles in the series for children who like it, as many surely will.

Tamsyn Murray’s Rabbit Racer (Simon and Schuster, £4.99) is part of a series too – the Stunt Bunny series. Full of incident, and illustrated to semi-surreal effect by Lee Wildish, these jolly stories come off extremely well.

Janet Foxley’s Muncle Trogg (Chicken House, £5.99), the deserved winner of The Times’ 2010 Children’s Fiction Competition, is also recommended. Its story of an under-sized giant has a lot going for it, including ingenious black-and-white illustrations by Steve Wells.

Babette Cole is a wickedly witty illustrator, whose picture books touch on tricky topics with such alarming frankness that even broad-minded parents sometimes find them difficult to swallow. She has turned to fiction in her Fetlocks Hall Series, and The Enchanted Pony and The Curse of the Pony Vampires (Bloomsbury, £5.99 each) are the latest to appear. A self-confessed pony freak herself, she mixes magic with practical tips in a headlong rush of over the top plotting that somehow works even when it shouldn’t.

More restful, René Goscinny’s Nicholas (Phaidon, £6.95) is the first paperback edition of a collection of stories originally written in 1960, but which are just as fresh today. Illustrated by the celebrated cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, these mini-adventures describe a determinedly contented French schoolboy who is forever getting into mild trouble. They may lack the vigorous humour of the same author’s Asterix series, but certainly make up for that in charm and gentle nostalgia. Translated by Anthea Bell, than whom there is no one better, this unfailingly delightful book is one to treasure.

Related videos

• 
  play
  Theatre trailers: The West End’s hottest tickets
• 
  play
  Movie trailers: The latest cinematic offerings
• 
  play
  Exclusive film clips and interviews with filmmakers
• 
  play
  Movie premiere reports live from the red carpet
• 
  play
  The hottest celebrity news and gossip
• 
  play
  Video games: The newest gaming experiences

Captain America put Chris Evans in therapy

Most actors would be overjoyed if they were offered the lead in a $140 million tentpole film, one with the prospect of yielding several lucrative sequels. But Chris Evans is a different animal, as I learned last weekend when I attended the press day for Captain America: The First Avenger, in which Evans plays the titular patriotic superhero. Evans and co-stars Hayley Atwell and Sebastian Stan were on-hand to talk about the film, as well as director Joe Johnston, producer/Marvel honcho Kevin Feige, and other key crewmembers. Below are some highlights.

Chris Evans had some issues to work out before taking on the project, so he sought the help of a therapist. Surprisingly, none of his qualms were related to lingering trauma over his role in previous superhero catastrophes.

“I went [to a therapist] because I was very apprehensive about taking the movie,” Evans explained. “I was nervous about a lifestyle change. I was nervous about a commitment to six movies [three Captain Americas, three Avengers] … so when I finally decided to do it, I said, “I’ll do it, but I gotta fix my brain.” Evans found therapy to be helpful, even though he didn’t experience any dramatic epiphanies. “It’s not that there were giant breakthroughs, like Good Will Hunting hugging moments,” he joked. “It’s just nice talking. It’s amazing the amount of things you can just take on and keep to yourself.”

Evans’ co-star Hayley Atwell, the only female lead in the film, didn’t mind being surrounded by so many guys. She even bonded with them digitally:

“I’m a bit of a tomboy, and I like computer games, so I just got really competitive with the guys and played games with them all the time,” Atwell revealed. “We mostly played this thing called ‘Witch’s Brew’ on the iPad. It’s the easiest game in the world; you just have to match symbols to the ones you have in your little spell book — and that’s it.” The competition was intense, and loud: “We got shushed quite a few times — and rightly so — by producers, who were trying to get a film made.”

Audiences may notice a resemblance between Captain America and a certain Steven Spielberg classic:

Regarding the film’s aesthetic and tonal influences, director Joe Johnston told reporters that “we had always talked about films of this period that we liked — contemporary films — and Raiders [of the Lost Ark] was the model that we used. We used it as a template for a lot of reasons, but it feels contemporary today, even though it was made 30 years ago now. It still feels absolutely fresh. I wanted Captain America to feel like that, to feel like it wasn’t a film made in the ’40s, it was a film about the ’40s made today.”

Captain America features a song-and-dance number, which can be hazardous to a comic-book film. But unlike the sequence in Spider-Man 3, this one actually served a purpose:

“We knew we wanted to introduce the idea of the costume in a USO-type setting, and Joe embraced the idea of a musical number,” producer Kevin Feige explained. “We always knew from the start that Cap wasn’t gonna sing and dance. He was sort of overwhelmed and felt out of place in the stage show, and had very little choreography and read from cue cards.” The producers brought in a certain industry legend to pen the song for the sequence. “As you may have noticed, Alan Menken wrote that USO song,” Johnston revealed. “And Alan Menken probably has more Academy Awards than anybody.” (He does.)

Joss Whedon, writer-director of the 2012 team-up The Avengers, in which Captain America is a central character, met often with the First Avenger screenwriters to make sure their vision coalesced with his:

Writer Christopher Markus said that the meetings focused “mainly just on continuity, in that we couldn’t have, next year, a totally different Cap coming out with a different attitude and different tendencies. So he came in and did a couple of things that he knew he wanted to deploy later, which was really cool. You get a guy like Joss Whedon in and you’re not gonna kick him out the door. It was mainly just to tune him up. I can’t wait to see modern-day Cap, cause in a way that’s the Cap we all know.”

On the Avengers set, there’s little doubt as to who the alpha dog is among the superhero ensemble:

“I can’t say enough of Downey,” Chris Evans said of the Iron Man star. “Downey has been so great. He’s so positive and so available … On every single take, you finish and he [mimes a back-slap] and you’re like, ‘aaaahhhh,’ and you skip back to your seat, [giddy] that Downey just gave you a pat on the back.”

How does one give direction to an actor as famously irascible as Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones? A dose of humor helps:

“I found the most effective way to direct Tommy Lee Jones was just to laugh at him,” explained Johnston. “He’s actually very funny and has a great sense of humor, but nobody ever laughs at him. I think people are sort of afraid of him. But he’s the sweetest guy in the world.” (To which Feige quickly added: “I was afraid of him.”)

Captain America: The First Avenger opens everywhere this Friday, July 22, 2011.