Matthew Looney and the Recovered Memory

This could easily be the title of a book about the sudden appearance in my brain of a name, a book, a time in my life when the library was the coolest place to hang out. The Matthew (and Maria) Looney series written by Jerome Beatty Jr. rode the wave of interest in space age exploration in the late 60's with humorous adventure tales of lunar beings preparing to invade the earth. I loved these books, I loved the balloony, slightly demented illustrations by Gahan Wilson, they just hit me at the right time in my life and now they're cemented onto my sticky brain forever.

But you have to love the internet. Type in Matthew Looney and what happens? A fan page! A Wikipedia entry! The scans of the covers alone bring back the days of that pre-adolescent summer, camped out in a sunny alcove of the library, the smell of new carpet and a Formica covered study carrel...

Great, now I have even more books to track down and read.