Good Reads

Kids – Hope for the Future

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Shazaam! I’ve got a magic wand!

Each week my local county paper has a kids’ section that poses a question or two and publishes the children’s answers with their names, schools and grades. I always read these. Sometimes – kids being who they are – the answers are hysterical, some about what you’d expect from a 6 or 7 year old, and sometimes remarkably perceptive. Those are the ones that always make me smile.

This week the paper posed the question, “What would you do with a magic wand?”

There were plenty of answers about making the child and sometimes his family rich, turning her backyard into Disneyland or taking him to Disneyland, getting rid of one’s allergies, getting lots of wonderful foods,  and so on. But then there were these.

“I would use a magic wand when people need help. I would wave my wand and magic spells will help them.”  –  Amy, 1st Grade

“If I found a magic wand, I would wish everyone the best and world peace. World peace is very important to me.”   – Lauren, 5th Grade

“If I found a magic wand, I think I would go back in time to see my ancestors. I would really like to see what they looked like and see what they did. I think it would be really cool.”  – Alexis, 5th Grade

“If I found a magic wand I would stop world hunger! I would also train my puppies to do their business in the woods …”   – Margo, 3rd Grade

“If I were to find a magic wand, I would use it very wisely and only for good …”   – Kristen, 4th Grade

“If I had a magic wand I would find clues to see who lost it and give it back to them because it is the right thing to do and I like to do what is right. I would do it with my parents’ permission.”   – Rhea, 1st Grade

And then there are the future artists and scientists …

“If I found a magic wand I would summon a unicorn! Me and the unicorn would play. I would name it Buttercup. I would ride Buttercup everywhere. That’s what I would do if I found a magic wand.”  – Derek, 3rd Grade

“I would make a duplicate of myself.”   – Wayne, 1st Grade

For those who are worried, take heart … there is definitely hope for the future.

Another Reason I Love Summer

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Reading.

One of the wonderful things about summer is that the light lasts so much longer. OK, that can mean more time to get things done, but it also lends itself to sitting outside and reading for awhile after one is done those very things. Another wonderful reason to love summer? NOTHING on television. Repeats, silly reality shows, (except Master Chef), not one thing to make one want to curl up and engage with some characters on a good drama or have a good chuckle. All that adds up to?

Reading.

I just finished Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, another excellent book. And, like The Last Templar, it’s a novel which offers insight into an historic period/series of events I’ve known little about, the internment of the Japanese during World War II. This is a beautifully written novel. It is, all at the same time, a story about the cultural differences of an American and Japanese who fall in young love, a murder mystery told through a courtroom drama, aspects of life on San Piedro island – the men who make their living fishing on the ocean and those who cultivate the land on strawberry farms, the experience of some of the islanders who fought in the war and the aftereffects, and the rounding up and shipping off of the island’s Japanese residents and the conditions they were forced to endure.

Sounds like a pretty tall order, but Guterson is a wonderful writer and he captures it all. The snow, the cedars, the ocean, strawberries – all are practically characters in their own right. I’ll be holding my breath, but am going to get the movie.

And now I’ m reading a children’s book, Holes by Louis Sacher. Holes was the American Library Association’s 1999 Newbery winner. Awhile back, I decided to start reading what is considered the best in children’s literature and made a list – those that I wanted to read selected from among the Newbery winners. However, I  prefer this list – the ALA Newbery medal winners AND the Honor books chosen – many not-to-be-missed books were right behind the medal winners.

Hoping you’re finding some time to read whatever you love while the daylight lingers ….

Books vs. Movies – Part 2

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I’ll be honest – I started this post on June 3, shortly after  I had seen the movie The Bridges of Madison County and compared it to the book. There’s no time like the present, someone once said, so I’m finally the getting this up as a post. As I look at the novels I currently have waiting to be read, I must admit I am often drawn to those where I could watch the movie version as well.

However, when I think about other books that I’ve read and their movie counterparts, the results are mixed. I’ve listed a bunch, and again, these are very personal preferences reflecting what I like to read and which movies I’d go see.

The Shipping News – Annie Proulx – both movie and book excellent!

Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King – really liked both

Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris – book so gripping I couldn’t put it down, movie was also gripping, but not quite as good, though truly terrifying

Red Dragon – Thomas Harris – Book was excellent – the prequel to Silence of the Lambs; movie a huge disappointment, and almost nothing like the book

Because of Winn Dixie – Kate DiCamillo – both excellent, book still a bit better

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd – book excellent, movie really quite good

Lord of the Rings – R.R.Tolkien, Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling,  Narnia Series – C.S. Lewis – I lump these together – perhaps unfairly – because they are all series, fantasy and of epic proportions in film. I loved the books that I read from these series, and that was not always all of them, but I really loved the movies, too. Either way, you can’t lose.

White Oleander – Janet Fitch – Outstanding book, couldn’t put it down; the movie not really even worth seeing

The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick – I like the storyline, but it wasn’t a favorite book of mine; Martin Scorsese really brought the story to life. Preferred the movie.

2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthue C. Clarke –  Movie by Stanley Kubrick – One of my favorite movies, and I feel it far outshined the book, but I’m real biased on this one.

The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan – an amazingly complex and engrossing book; the movie couldn’t possibly carry the book’s  richness. Book better by far.

The Devil Wears Prada – Lauren Weisberger – Here’s a case where the movie was just fabulous and fabulously funny. I got the book after seeing the movie and was disappointed.

The Horse Whisperer – Nicholas Evans – I saw the movie first on this one and it was excellent, so I read the book. Also excellent and I’d recommend both.

 

Well, that’s my two cents. Do you have a loved book that was made into a movie and a thought or two about it? Or a great movie and the book you read later? Let us know!

Catching Up on Books

/ still a dreamer

For those of you who check in on me from time to time, you know I sometimes write up books I’ve been reading, sometimes not. Today I’m starting a biography, something I’m not usually drawn to, but I’m giving it a shot. It was once suggested that I read artists’ biographies, that it would help and inspire me in my art. I’d picked this up at the annual library book sale – the biography of Impressionist Berthe Morisot by Anne Higonnet.

Morisot was the only woman among the six Impressionists whose exhibition scandalized Paris in 1874. The biography tells about what Morisot had to overcome to be recognized as a talented artist at this time in history and her accomplishments. This being my favorite period of art, I look forward to reading about Berthe Morisot’s life.

Prior to this, in addition to Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen, I’ve read novels by two of my favorite authors who did not disappoint – Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – and I just finished Witches on the Road Tonight by new-to-me author, Sheri Holman. I never fail to be impressed by the writing of Hoffman and Kingsolver … in plot and character, always, but in the amazing richness of their language, especially so. I was equally impressed by the writing of Sheri Holman, and will most defnitely look for books by her again. I am simply in awe of how some writers can turn a phrase.

“The hearse’s headlights rasp the dark as they speed along an unfamiliar road scattering rabbits and turning the night-grazing deer to statuary. The windows are down, the radio off. They pass empty fields and glassy obsidian ponds that float upon the gauze of reflected clouds, repeating pearls of moon. They ride for miles in this hushed, rolling darkness …”  from Witches on the Road Tonight.

Something that made me scratch my head as I read Witches on the Road Tonight is what are chances that I would read two novels, with only one book between them, that both feature characters “hunting sang”in the Appalachian mountains? The phrase refers to people who are searching the area to find ginseng, (“sang”), which can be quite profitable to sell. It actually featured prominently in parts of both novels … go figure!

So Berthe … here’s hoping your story is as compelling as your magnificent art!

 

Back to Hiaasen

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I’d forgotten what a great writer Carl Hiaasen is. In the last week, while I focused on everything imaginable to keep one of my animals alive and recovering steadily, my focus was hardly on reading, much as I tried.

I started The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo, certain that her magic would be a welcome respite from the vigilance I needed to keep over Gypsy Rose, lest she fall and seriously hurt herself. Sad to say, I finished the book, but could not appreciate the magic in my frazzled state, so I added Kate back to the waiting-to-be-read books stack. When I pick this book up again, I know I will be in a better place to appreciate one of my favorite children’s book authors.

At the oft-mentioned annual library book sale, I picked up Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip. I’ve read a couple of his other novels – Sick Puppy, (which I kept), Lucky You and Basket Case – but none recently. I was drawn to this book as being a perfect read right now. Not only was I right, but I now remember how much I enjoy his writing. Aside from an excellent use of the English language, Hiaasen has a tongue-in-cheek, lightly sarcastic sense of humor injected with an appreciation of the absurd that makes for not just enjoyable reading, but sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

His stories take place in South Florida and center around murder, personal greed, and political corruption. Those that I’ve read are intricately laced with the issues that challenge the area’s environmental survival, yet these never jump out at you or intrude. In Skinny Dip, Joey Perrone is heaved overboard a luxury cruise liner by her husband Chaz. She knows too much about something illicit he is involved in, and as a secondary gain to her murder, Chaz plans to eventually figure out how to inherit her millions. But he dismisses her having been a collegiate champion swimmer, and with the waters being as shark infested as they are, he assumes she will be dead or presumed so. Her survival is known by only one other person, Mick, a retired detective who rescues her from the shallow waters just offshore. “Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself.” Throw in a droll Norwegian detective, Karl Rolvaag, and Hiaasen’s humor and Skinny Dip has all the makings of another great tale, and I’m only five chapters in.

Thanks, Carl, I believe I’m back to reading!