Note of Warning: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Movie/Book

A little over a week ago, I was out shopping for books with my friend Sarah, and I happened to come across the book How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. Before then, I hadn't realized that the movie I had wanted to take my son to was also a book series, so it was a pleasant surprise for me. I bought the book, read it, loved it, and started reading it with my son, who is 4 years old.

How to Train Your Dragon, the book

As I had hoped, he is also enjoying the story. He loves the names of the characters in the books, and it doesn't hurt that there's a fair dose of dragons to spice up the story. I like that the story keeps his attention and has a good moral for kids to learn: sometimes the most heroic of us are the ones we think are the least likely. After all, the hero of this story is a boy who is the most un-Viking of Viking boys, saddled with an equally unlikely name: Hiccup.

Yesterday I took him to see the movie, thinking it would be great reinforcement for our reading the book (we're about 1/4 of the way through the 200-and-some-odd-page book). We were able to see it in 3D, which added to the excitement of his being able to watch a movie on the "big TV" about dragons.

How to Train Your Dragon, the movie

As a friendly warning to anyone else who has read the book but hasn't seen the movie, they are totally different. In fact, the only similarities between the movie and book are the names (Island of Berk, Stoick the Vast, Hiccup, Gobber, Toothless) and the fact that there are Vikings and dragons. Nothing else is the same. Nothing.

While that might not be a problem for most people, it is difficult if you're trying to explain to your 4-year-old why Hiccup's dragon isn't the same in the book as he was in the movie or where the girl in the movie came from. Since yesterday, I've had to say the line "The book and the movie are not the same story, honey" at least ten times. I do like that he is even more excited than he already was about reading the book together (he really loves Hiccup now that he has a mental image for who Hiccup is), but it is difficult for him to understand the concept that a book about Hiccup can tell an entirely different story from the movie about Hiccup.

So for any parents wanting to take their kids out to see How to Train Your Dragon, I will tell you that it is a cute movie and will keep your kids interested; however, if you'd like for them to read the book(s), too, you'll need to remind them (possibly more than once) that movies and books aren't the same. It's a good lesson to learn at a young age, and this book/movie combo will definitely make the lesson a clear one.

I'm not sure why they changed the story so much when they turned the book series into a movie, but it works for the movie. The book is good, but so is the movie. They just aren't the same story.

Happy reading to the children in your life!

Weekly Poll 1/27/10: Connecting with Other Readers

The question from last week was this:

What is your favorite way to connect with other readers?

• reading group/book club
• blogs
• online social tools, such as Twitter or Facebook
• other

My motivation for asking the question was that I'm realizing the importance of making reading a community event because discussions about books can help make the material more relevant to your life, spark a renewed interest in reading, and develop reading habits that span new genres or authors.

What I thought was the more traditional answer ("reading group/book club") didn't get any votes.  I have posted in the past about my problems with sharing the reading experience with others, but I did join an online book discussion, which I think is the modern equivalent to a reading group, and I enjoyed myself.  I am at least open to getting involved in more such adventures.  Now that I'm getting over my "fear" of sharing my 'joie de lire' with others, the only problem I still have with reading groups is that you have to make sure you have time to read a book on a set schedule, which is something I can't always accomplish.  I like that reading is not a scheduled event for me--I like picking up a book without knowing there's pressure to finish it by a deadline.  And yet, I think book groups are possibly the ultimate way to interact with other readers because the focused discussions with multiple inputs can help you think about the material in new and exciting ways.  I'm just not sure they're practical for all schedules...

The most popular answer was the second one: blogs.  One of my favorite things about reading blogs is that they are like mini-book clubs every day.  You can go online and read reviews of books to find something you want to read, or you can find discussions on books you've already read and join in on the fun by leaving your own comments.  Sometimes the comments section is just as exciting as the post, with whole discussions taking place among the readers of the blog.

The third selection also didn't get any votes: online social tools.  If you had asked me five months ago if I thought Twitter was a good way to connect with other readers, I would have laughed.  Now that I'm a Twitter-fanatic, though, I honestly have to say that Twitter just might be my favorite way to connect with other readers.  With Twitter, you can get a lot of contacts and meet new contacts through other contacts, all the while perusing profiles of said contacts for finding links to blogs or other online resources you might otherwise not have found.  Also, using the hashtag (#) feature makes it so you can have an organized discussion focused around a particular theme/topic with other Twitter-ers.  While I like blogs for content, I like Twitter for helping me find those blogs.  It's a cool tool to help you get to the good stuff.

One person did vote for "other."  I'm curious to hear what the "other" was--I know there are many more ways to connect with readers than I listed (which is why I included an "other" option), but I'm curious to find out if the "other" that was voted for was something I hadn't even considered.  There might be a whole new way of making connections that I never thought of and that I might consequently be missing out on...

One of my many fellow readers who inspire me to dig deeper with the content I'm reading is Julie, the writer of the Literary Jules blog.  Julie helps remind me that reading is about so much more than taking in the words on the pages in front of us--it's about experiencing new ideas or cultures or worlds and allowing ourselves to grow from those experiences.  In fact, her recent post on feeling small every time she thought about the Haiti crisis prompted my own reflection on the books I've read that have filled me with hope.  Because of that reflection, I began re-reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I'm reaping the benefits of the beautiful writing in that book all over again.


The important thing is that we, as readers, are making connections--if for no other reason than you might inspire another reader to pick up a new book.  How has connecting with other readers helped shape your own 'joie de lire'?


Happy reading and connecting!


P.S. The new poll question for the week is up in the left-hand sidebar: Are you more inclined to buy an author's book if you know that (s)he has a strong online presence and interacts with fans?  I look forward to seeing your responses!

Finding Hope in THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY

A word that has been floating around quite a bit lately is hope.  With the crises going on in the world today--especially the crisis in Haiti--it's nice to stop and think about things that have offered us hope.

I wracked my brains for a book that I've read that left me feeling hopeful after I read it, and the book I came up with is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

The title is a mouthful but memorable; part of me started reading the book simply so I could figure out what a 'literary and potato peel pie society' would consist of and why someone would start such a society.  My dear friend Shannon recommended the book to me months before I actually read it, and at first I was a bit skeptical because the book is written and presented as a collection of personal letters sent among the main characters in the book.  Once I got to the third letter, though, I was hooked.  Reading letters rather than a more typical narrative made the story feel more "real" because it was like discovering a treasure trove of saved letters from a historical era.

The book is set just after the Second World War in Guernsey, a British island that had been inhabited by the Nazis for part of the war.  The primary character, Juliet, is a writer who had written light pieces for a newspaper during the war to provide hope for the residents of London during desolate times of bombings and raids.  After the war, her life--as well as the world around her--is in shambles.  She has no real direction for herself when the book begins, but her life takes her on a journey when she finds someone who shares the love of one of her favorite authors.  Through letters, she learns that this man is a part of a group called the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," and she becomes intrigued.  She plans a vacation to meet the man and his literary society to re-spark her writing efforts.  While there, her life--and writing--changes directions.  The book offers a look into post-war England and shows the characters as they--and those around them--put their lives back together.  The plot alone is enough to fulfill its status as a hopeful book, yet the characters and setting also drew me in.  The characters' triumphs were my triumphs; their discoveries opened my heart and spurred me on through the book.

Those aspects of the book are not all that make me feel hope, though--the language is both whimsical and profound, and the ideas explored include both the minute and philosophically deep.  One of my favorite lines in the book--because of its whimsicality--is this:

The two of them together benasties the mind.

How can you not love a book that uses a word like benasties?  I also like that I learned new words, such as inveigle, while reading.  The characters, most of whom are avid readers, discuss more than their daily lives--they discuss ideas and philosophers and hopes and dreams.  One such line that stuck with me is a quote a character provided from Seneca:

As Seneca says, "Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb."

I applaud Shaffer and Barrows for writing such a timeless and hopeful book.  What books have you read that left you with feelings of hope?

Happy reading and hoping!

Not-So-Static Dreams

I recently finished reading a book called Firefly Lane, written by Kristin Hannah.  My step-mom had read the book a couple weeks ago, and as soon as she finished the book, she mailed it to me.  In the box, she included a single tissue.  At first, I was a bit confused, wondering if she had meant the tissue as some sort of padding for the box to keep the book from sliding around.  But that didn't quite seem right since the box was about the same size as the book--there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room.  A note was also included, which explained the tissue.  It was a "starter tissue" because she couldn't fit an entire box of tissues in with the book.  She promised I'd need more than just the one, and she was right.  I got to the end of the book, the most emotional bit of the story, while my students were writing an in-class essay.  As they wrote, I silently (and at times not-so-silently) cried.  And sniffled.  One thing I love about books like Firefly Lane is that in between the main events that further the plot line, meaningful interstitial issues force me to take stock of my own life and beliefs.

One theme that struck me is the ability (or inability) to know what you want out of life.  So many people spend life wishing they had more--or at the least, something else.  I was--and am still--a person who has a hard time identifying exactly what she wants to do in life.  Growing up, I changed my mind about every six months.  I wanted to be a doctor, astronaut, veterinarian, cartoonist, clothing store owner, interior decorator, lawyer, teacher, and the list goes on.  And on.  As an adult, the only thing I can say for sure is that I need language to be a part of my life.  Most of you are probably shaking your heads, thinking that everyone has to use language to communicate, so really unless I stopped communicating altogether, I'd still have language in my life.  But when I say I need language in my life, I mean I need to do something with language--I need to be able to play with it, whether that's accomplished through writing, reading, analyzing, or studying it.  I used to feel the need to apologize for not knowing "what I want to be when I grow up."  Now, though, I'm not only coming to terms with the fact that I may never know exactly what I want to be, I'm starting to revel in the freedom of wanting more than one career goal.  I still feel a small stab of jealousy for those people who know exactly what they want at all times, and yet I know even those people still end up questioning whether they should have done more or something else entirely.  Mary Lou Retton summed that conundrum up nicely when she said, "Many medal winners dream of competing in a sport other than the one they're famous for."

Speaking for the people who can't quite make up their minds about what they want out of life, Kristin Hannah wrote the following in Firefly Lane (on page 127):

"How could she tell her best friend that she no longer shared their dream?  It should be easy to say.  They'd been girls all those years ago when they'd chosen to embark on their tandem life.  In the years between then and now, the world had changed so much.  The war in Vietnam had been lost Nixon had resigned, Mount St. Helens had blown up, and cocaine had become the Chex mix for a new generation of partygoers.  The U.S. hockey team had pulled off a miracle win at the Olympics and a B-rate actor was president.  Dreams could hardly remain static in such uncertain times."

My mantra has become that last line: "Dreams [can] hardly remain static in such uncertain times."  I am learning to love that my dreams change as I grow.  For me, I think static dreams would be reflective of my giving up on myself, of my thinking that I was finished accomplishing anything new.  I sincerely hope I never get to that point.

Thank you to Janet for sending the book to me, and thank you to all the supporters in my life who stand behind me no matter what proclamation I make about my life goals.  It's nice to know I've got people surrounding me who don't laugh when I announce that I want to be the next Miss America. . .

Happy reading, and happy dreaming!

Where Has All the Magic Gone?

Growing up, trips to the library were full of magic.  Shelf after shelf overflowed with books: reference books, entertaining books, small books, big books, colorful books, stately books, old books, new books.  I couldn't imagine more types of books than what our local library had to offer.  The smell of all those books mingling together remains to be one of my favorite smells in the world--it is the enhanced version of what I smelled every time I held a book in my thumbs and let the pages slide one after the other off my thumb.  The puffs of air that wafted toward my nose smelled of adventure, knowledge, the unknown.  To this day, when I get a new book, I open it and smell the pages.  Maybe that is admitting too much to people who may not know me, yet I can't apologize for loving the smell of books.  Not only did the library have books, it also had activities.  Story hours, reading programs for kids to get involved in, summer activities...

When I walked into the library as a child, I rarely walked in with a specific book or author to look for; instead, I walked through the doors with an open mind and lazily scanned the titles on the shelves until a book caught my eye.  Then I planted myself in that aisle and pulled books from the shelves until I had a small stack of books I wanted to read.  Being able to borrow books was liberating for my young self--the library trusted me with its property.  When I passed some unknown test of responsibility, my parents let me get my very own library card, which I thought was the coolest, most adult-like gift I could have been given.  The librarian placed my card in front of me to sign, and my hand held the pen just over the surface, where it hovered.  I contemplated whether I should use my newly minted cursive signature or rely on my more trustworthy printed version.  I chose the cursive, let the pen hit the card, and immediately regretted my decision as my signature came out looking clumpy.  I wanted to cross it out and try again, but I had only had one shot at signing my name.  The child-like signature secretly embarrassed me every time I pulled that card out to use it.

I stopped going to the library when I began using book fairs and school book orders as my preferred method of finding books to read.  I liked owning my books, having them on my shelves without a stamp telling me to return them by a certain date.  And so the library became a thing of the past for me.  Recently, I got my first library card since my childhood card because my budget no longer cooperated with my lengthy visits to bookstores.  I walked into the local library in the town I was then living in, expecting some wave of familiarity to rush over me.  Rather than a soothing wave, though, I got a crashing tidal wave.  The library was too clean, too impersonal, too full of computers.  Once I got over the embarrassment of having to ask for help (I could, after all, find my way around academic libraries and so could not understand why a local library would pose so many difficulties), I went to the shelves to find the books I had come to find.  But they weren't there.  I was so frustrated that I couldn't find the books I was looking for that I didn't give myself extra time in the aisles to wander and find a treasure I hadn't even considered looking for.  My adult self was far too cynical to have an open mind and walked out the doors empty-handed.

As I sit here writing this, I'm saddened by the loss of the awe of libraries that I once held onto so dearly.  I am also saddened by the loss of my ability to share reading with those around me.  I used to love going to the activities and programs libraries coordinated for kids, but as an adult, I can't even bring myself to join a book club out of fear that talking about the books I'm reading with other people could somehow put dents in my reading experience, making me enjoy it less.  Writing this blog is my own personal throwing down of the gauntlet to myself.  Can I learn to share reading?

I hope to relearn to love the local library.  Now that I live in yet another new town (and thus have another new library to learn my way around), I have a plan: I will go get a library card.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll think about signing up for a book club...

Happy reading, whether the books are yours or borrowed!

Budding Linguist

Children's books inspire language play.  Kids most likely have no idea just how fun the language can be in the books they are reading, yet that language fun can open doors of interest.

I already said I went on adventures with Amelia Bedelia as a child, one of my favorites being the hardback version of Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower.  Its tired red edges and faded front picture showed its age, but the inside of the book was pristine (even at a young age, I took care of my books).  One of the great things about Amelia Bedelia books is that they show off the fun you can have with ambiguity in the English language.  In the surprise shower book, Amelia is one of the guests for a surprise wedding shower.  What does Amelia bring with her to the shower?  A hose, of course.  After all, what is a shower without water spraying over all the guests?  Amelia has a tendency to take things quite literally, which leaves kids shaking in laughter and people like me amazed at the quirkiness of our language.  Reading books that explore the nooks of language planted a seed that would grow much later in life when I found out that there was a whole study devoted to having fun with language (linguistics).

As I read to my son, I notice the many ways children's books play with language that, sadly, adult books do not always do.  Take alliteration, for example.  While reading a book about the Backyardigans (Super Senses Save the Day!) to my son, the massive amount of alliteration made the story more fun to read out loud.  One great alliterative sentence is "The alarm sounded, and the four Super Senses skidded to the scene."  The author, Irene Kilpatrick, included many such alliterations that make some sentences roll right off your tongue and others like tongue twisters that make you work for the correct pronunciation.  Anyone who thinks that writing children's books must be easy should first look at all the elements the authors have to think about, starting with how to make the language fun for a child to listen to.  I especially like the authors/script writers who work on the Backyardigans--how could I not love a group of singing and dancing animals whose songs have words like "duplicitous" worked into them?

A lot of adult books don't have that quality of readability about them.  One author whose work I've noticed lately that does have that quality is Sir Conan Doyle.  His Sherlock Holmes stories and books were meant to be read aloud, and I find myself whispering the words as I read because they also roll right off my tongue, with poetic stress patterns, alliteration, and even some near rhymes.  Not all books need language that begs to be read out in front of an attentive audience, but I sometimes wonder if I would be more willing to listen to stories or books on tape (er, CD) if the language of modern-day books were more "listener-friendly."

Last night, my husband leaned over my shoulder and started reading out loud from the pages of the book in my hand; I shut the book and asked him to stop.  If I had been holding a Sherlock Holmes book, I would have been inclined to hand him the book, ask him to keep going, and let myself float away on sentential tides ... "I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.  With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me." ...

(Excerpt taken from "The Red-Headed League")

Happy reading, whether it be aloud or to yourself!