A Wonderful Rat

Everybody knows the movie It's a Wonderful Life. You know, everything goes wrong in the guy's life, and he wishes his life could be over. Then, miraculously, he sees what the world would be like if he could wish himself away. It's a poignant holiday movie that seems to be always playing during the Christmas season.

I just finished a great kids' book that tells the same kind of story. It answers that age-old question: what would you do if your life could be completely different?

In When You Wish Upon a Rat, the main character gets a chance to find out. Ruth is unhappy with the way her life is going: she's lost her favorite relative, her family is a bit bonkers, and she no longer has any close friends at school. All she really has is a stuffed rat that her aunt gave her before she passed away.

This was a fun story, a unique interpretation of that classic "give me a different future" story. Ruth gets to try out three different versions of her life, before deciding that her "real" life is really the best one. She also finds a friend along the way (not just a rat).

Tweens will love reading this book. I bet my daughter will love it, if she can get past the beginning sad part, where the aunt is dying from cancer. The rest of the book is fun, even though it teaches an important lesson about loving your life just the way it is.

Arrows in the Air

My son is wanting to learn to shoot a bow this summer. Since he isn't playing baseball, and since my daughter is doing lots of activities like tumbling and dance, I don't begrudge him learning something new.

What has brought about this sudden interest in bow shooting? I blame it on the movies.

He has always been a fan of Legolas (of Lord of the Rings), but the new Avengers movie has brought back a bow-weilding superhero (Hawkeye). And add to that the popularity of Hunger Games heroine Katniss and super shot Merida in Disney's Brave.

We are surrounded by bowmen (and women) of many sorts. So, it's no wonder he wants to learn. He really wants to be like the guys on Top Shot -- who can shoot guns and bows!

Hmm. An interesting summer is shaping up here!

The Music of Movies

We recently went to see the Hunger Games, which my husband describes as "Lord of the Flies" meets "Survivor", with a little "Most Dangerous Game" for good measure.

I enjoyed the movie. Like most movies that are based on successful novels, it was impossible to include all the detail of the book. Naysayers, please realize, if the director did that, the movie would be 13 hours long. The movie really did a great job portraying the events of the novel without messing it up too much. (Here, I must refer to the disasterous job movie makers did with The Lightning Thief!!)

However, what I really appreciated about this movie was the music. The under-running soundtrack is amazing! In many places, the music itself is so subtle, the casual movie-goer will never notice. However, it's the music that drives our emotions through the entire movie.

For example, the emotional Rue scene near the end of the movie makes me cry every time. Yes, I read the book. Yes, I know what's going to happen. It's that the music cue is so emotionally poignant that you HAVE to cry. Well done.

Another great example is in the "finale" of the games. Yes, I know a large animal is going to jump out from the bushes. Yes, I am going to jump every time. The second time through the movie, I closed my eyes. Guess what? I jumped anyway. And that's when I figured it out -- it's the music! It rises and falls, rises and falls, each time making the movie-goer more tense. Until right at the last moment, the music drops out. That's when the main characters get attacked.

Music is vital to the movies. It's how directors get the audience to respond appropriately. Think back to your favorite movie, remember the music of your favorite moments during that movie, and you'll understand. Music makes the movie.

Time in Trees

The kids were climbing trees this afternoon.

Now, frankly, I didn't remember we had any climbable trees in our backyard -- and I'm pretty sure the giant tree in our front yard is unsuitable for climbing. But climb they did.

My son must take after my brother. He found ways into the topmost branches of the little tree in our backyard, and discovered various ways to get down! I even heard talk of a "tree house".

They remind me of times climbing trees with my brother. He was always much braver than I was. Yes, I could climb, but not nearly as well as my brother. And I'm pretty sure he is still climbing trees!

We've also been watching the Lord of the Rings movies. It's easy to see the connection between my kids climbing trees and the pro-nature/anti-industrialism theme at work in Tolkein's grand design. I heartily endorse reading this masterful trilogy. (The Hobbit is good, too, but a bit more difficult to make one's way through.)

The timeliness of my kids' discovery of the love of trees has not been lost on me. Arbor Day is this month. I hope everyone will find time to enjoy the great outdoors -- and maybe plant a tree.

Speaking of planting trees, I just heard that my dad has been planting trees at the farm! Can't wait to see what they will look like in a few years!

Blast from the Past

How amazing it is to discover "new" novels!

Did you know that the author of the Tarzan books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was really a prolific science fiction writer? In fact, the majority of his body of work was sci-fi. How is it that I have never heard that before?

My husband got one of these books for me on the kindle: A Princess of Mars. It's the first book in a rather long series. This first installment was originally published in 1911. How different the world must have looked 100 years ago; and yet, many of his ideas (low gravity, teleportation, etc.) are still used in many modern series.

I bring this up because we recently went to see the movie John Carter. Incidently, this movie is based on the Princess of Mars series. Many people didn't know that. I think the movie might have been more appreciated if people had known. It kind of puts in in a new perspective to realize that the story playing out on the screen was originally envisioned a century ago!

I applaud free thinkers like Edgar Rice Burroughs. And, as always, I recommend reading the book before seeing the movie. (Insert Hunger Games reference here, for all those on the movie bandwagon.)

Christmas Carol

I am babysitting today. As usual, the 7th graders don't have a substitute teacher, so I am watching them in the library. Unable to stand just watching them sit around and talk and causing trouble, I put in a movie.

This is the second time in two weeks. So we are watching A Christmas Carol. The George C. Scott version.

Amazingly, the kids seem to be entertained. Enough that they are not causing too much trouble. One commented that it is "scary"!

Perhaps everyone should watch A Christmas Carol during this season -- even better, read the Dickens novel!

In fact, people should know the history behind the novel's writing! How Dickens wrote it just to make money... Interesting irony, I think.

Movie Versions

Over the weekend, I got to thinking about novels, and the movie versions that are made of certain novels. For the most part, movie versions tend to mess with the story line, change characters, and sometimes do not even attempt to follow the books they are supposed to resemble.

One notable example of this travesty is Rick Riordan's Lightning Thief. My kids have watched the movie several times, and we are reading the book together now. It is interesting to listen to their comments after reading a section in the book, especially those sections that were left out of the movie entirely. "Mom," they react, "that was such a cool part! Why wasn't it in the movie?"

That is increasingly a question I can't answer. Sometimes, I think it's an issue of time and pacing. In order to make a movie, certain scenes must be left out to keep it within acceptable time constraints.

One recent movie that has done honor to the book is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The movie makers got around the time constraints by creating two movies from one book. And I am especially fond of the Part 2 movie. Congratulations all around for that one!

Now I'm looking forward to Hugo, the movie based on the Caldecott Award book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The book was amazing, ground-breaking, breath-taking.

Can the movie version possibly live up to the book? We shall see -- this weekend!