The Week in Review (6): Patricia Polacco; Shakespeare Meets Marvel Comics; Narnia Code

Hmm...the last week of September was an odd reviewing week. Three movies, completely different from one another, and a Civil War picture book that made me cry.

The Narnia Code is an hour-long documentary based on Michael Ward's literary theory regarding C.S. Lewis' use of medieval cosmology in the Chronicles of Narnia. It provides a great introduction to his ideas, which are unpacked at length and with great scholarly elegance in the book Planet Narnia.

Thor is a totally enjoyable (and action-packed!) feature film based on the comic book character Thor, a sort of Norse god/superhero. The particularly fun twist is that this summer blockbuster kind of movie was directed by Kenneth Branagh, the director who has brought us Shakespearean delights for years. Shakespeare meets Marvel Comics. And it works.


Soul Surfer is an inspirational film based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a young surfer who lost her left arm to a shark, survived, and went on to become the world's best woman surfer. The movie asks good questions and walks a lot of potentially cliched lines without falling off any of them entirely. Not a great film, but a solidly good one, with the real story of the young girl's courage shining through some inspired performances.

I don't often cry my way through picture books, but that's what happened when I read Patricia Polacco's Pink and Say. There is a power and beauty to this simple story of the friendship that developed between two young men, one black and one white, who found one another in the midst of the chaos and pain of the Civil War. It's a story of heroism and courage, and it's brought home the Civil War to my nine year old in real and moving ways. The fact that it turns out to be a true story -- a story passed down in Polacco's family for several generations (Say was her great-great grandfather) adds even more powerful punch to the tale.

The Week in Review (4): Alan Jacobs on the Pleasures of Reading, Coville's Hamlet, and a Newly Illustrated Velveteen Rabbit

Ah. It's almost the weekend, and I realized that I never posted last week's review links. So I'm almost a week behind. (Somehow I started a post in draft and then never had a chance to go back in and edit it. Some weeks are like that!) Well, better later than never. Here's the round-up of links to my reviews from last week:

More Monet ~ in this case, a picture book entitled Monet's Impressions. Just images and words by Monet. Doesn't get much simpler than that. Or more lovely.

I finally finished my review of Alan Jacobs' interesting book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Not that I was distracted or anything. A fascinating read for anyone who cares about reading and enjoys thinking about the ways our approaches to reading have changed (and are changing) as the years go by, as well as the riches of reading that never seem to change.

You might not think that readers as young as nine could enjoy Hamlet, but Bruce Coville's picture book version might prove you wrong. He interweaves his own rich prose with actual quotes from the Bard to provide a compelling version of the story. Leonid Gore's pictures also add a lot to this terrific introduction to one of Shakespeare's greatest plays.

I still love Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit. The story never seems to wear out, and Gennady Spirin's gorgeous illustrations make this new picture book version (published by Marshall Cavendish) a keeper. This would make a beautiful gift book.

The Fourth Day of Christmas, and Richard III

I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas (or soon will...a note of greeting in case any of my eastern Christian friends are reading this!). We got home from our travels last night, a little worn out, a lot grateful, and mostly glad to be here.

It's snowing outside, and I've spent the day going back and forth between writing work and laundry, with an evening of grocery shopping and paper grading ahead of me. We're taking some days off from school, which I'm hoping will give me time to both catch up on end of semester work as well as an editing project. Then I need to move ahead, with joy and energy! to lesson plans and syllabi tweaking for the new year.

The sweet girl gave her dolls a Christmas party this morning. We spent time curled up reading Christmas picture books this afternoon, and she's spent the rest of the day doing various art projects.

I've not had much time for reading in these oh so busy weeks (nor for writing about what I'm reading) but I did just finish up William W. Lace's The Little Princes in the Tower, a fascinating introductory book about the two young princes imprisoned in the Tower of London by Richard of Gloucester in 1483. I got interested in the topic when we covered the War of the Roses in Story of the World in our last week of school before Christmas break.

Lacy's book is a quick read, at only a bit more than 100 pages long, and is going on my book list for 6th grade, the next time we plan to cover medieval history. Yes, I'm finally getting wise and starting to make book lists that far ahead. So often I pick up library books which aren't quite "right" for the sweet girl's current age level, or are a bit advanced so we only use bits of them, but I find myself thinking "this is a good book for down the road." It finally dawned on me that every time I think that, the book should go on a list for the future!

Reading about Richard of Gloucester, who became Richard III, made me think of Richard III, of course, as in Shakespeare's Richard III. I honestly can't recall if I've read the play or not, though I've seen the film version starring Ian McKellan. (I remember it's a rather odd version...does anyone have any thoughts about how it compares to the old Olivier version?)

It's been a long while since I've tackled reading any Shakespeare, and I decided I wanted to try this particular play while the subject's on my mind. I need a copy I can carry around with me, not the hardback Riverside Complete Shakespeare from my college days (which could work well as a boat if we ever got caught in a flood) so I went looking in the library catalog for a suitable paperback. Who knew just how many paperback versions of the bard existed?

I went with Penguin because...well...it's Penguin. But I'd love to know if any seasoned Shakespeare readers out there have a favorite version of his plays to recommend, either in paperback or in online sources (one with particularly good notes would be especially helpful). I don't do e-readers, and I spend way too much time working on our slow computer to be able to enjoy reading anything of length and complexity on screen, but if there's a good online version with helpful notes, I'd love to bookmark it and visit it periodically while I'm waddling around with my Penguin paperback this January.

Happy fourth day of Christmas!