Hollywood Hot Shots- Book Killers?

After hearing that The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier was made into a movie in the late eighties, I immediately sought out this film. When I finally found it (it's available on Netflix instant play if any of you want to watch for yourselves, see the preview here), I sat for the entire one hour and forty-five minute duration of the film- enjoying it for the most part up until the last fifteen-or-so minutes. For those of you who've read it, you know that it has a dark, intense ending. The movie version, however, ends with (go figure) Jerry beating Archie to a pulp. I was furious. The central question of the entire novel, "Do I dare disturb the universe?" was completely left out of the movie! Not only did they completely warp the book's central themes, but it also lost a lot of the great points of view the reader gains in reading the book from the teenager's perspectives.

Now, one of my favorite books of all time, Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story, has been made into a movie that comes out October 8th. Now, I've read Ned's positive blog entry about the film, but I'm still petrified it will not live up to my expectations.

BUT THE HUNGER GAMES?! I recently read that The Hunger Games has been optioned by Lionsgate Films and is slated to be released in 2012-2013. Frankly, I am anything but ok with this thought. I adore The Hunger Games series, and am relieved that Suzanne Collins is writing the script, but I am tired of Hollywood killing my favorite books. I know that these movies are often the best way to get the book to a large audience, but I hate having my imagination's renderings of the novels destroyed.


So what do you all think of this? Is Hollywood where our favorite books go to die, or do these movies provide new life to them? I think it's obvious I am not a fan, but are you?

-Shannon Hunt

Ad in the New York Times in defense of SPEAK

Ad placed in today's New York Times by Penguin Books, the publisher of Speak, in response to a recent censorship case in our own Missouri.  Find out more about the movement that led to this ad here.

Jennifer Buehler

Sorta Like a Rock Star a Perfect Vacation Read

I read Sorta Like a Rock Star this summer when I was on vacation. I had already received my books from Barnes & Noble and thought I might get ahead on my reading due to my course load this year. I looked for something that looked intriguing and light-hearted (I was going to New York City to visit a friend and then to beach and didn’t want to have to think too hard about what I was reading). I settled on Matthew Quick’s Sorta Like a Rock Star and got something, yes, light-hearted and interesting but also something I didn’t expect. I was surprised that this book touched on such deep and meaningful issues as in-group versus out-group dynamics, shattered soldiers, religion, addiction, poverty, as well as the path we choose to lead in our lives as being a “hope spreader” like Amber Appleton, a recluse like the Private, or a pessimistic cynic who walks around with a chip on their shoulder like Amber does for a brief period of time in the novel.

I liked this book and found it thought provoking but not in a way that would over stimulate my vacation-mode mind. It was the perfect time and the perfect setting for me to read this book because I was allowed the time and freedom from other homework to give the issues brought to light in this book some serious thought. As I wrote in my reflection paper, this book inspired me to have a better, more positive attitude and perspective on my life and having one bad day and be more like Amber Appleton, to be a hope spreader. I for too long in the last couple years was the pessimistic cynic with a chip on my shoulder and a horrible disposition (I didn’t even want to be around me) and I realized that being happy, having a positive outlook on my life, and putting a smile on my face when crawling in a dark corner and curling up for the next few years sounded great is so much better than carrying that chip along with me everywhere I went. People like to be around others who aren’t doom and gloom all the time and can have fun with. Having such a personality draws people to us as if we were magnets when we smile, when we laugh, when we lend an ear or a positive spin to a truly crappy situation and that’s what I think Sorta Like a Rock Star is all about. It’s about taking those truly crappy situations we find ourselves in and looking beyond that and ourselves to something better and helping someone else whose truly crappy situation is even crappier than ours.


Kaylin

Nikki Bland's Take on Sorta Like a Rock Star

I just finished reading Matthew Quick’s Sorta Like a Rock Star in 12 hours (7 of which were spent sleeping or in class), which is a pretty huge feat for me, considering I am the queen of procrastination. Upon reading the first chapter, I felt a huge connection with the protagonist, Amber Appleton, based on her unfaltering optimism and her love for animals. I ended up staying awake until nearly 4am reading, and I only put the book down because I had to be in class in four hours. This book impacted me pretty greatly. As a future teacher, it has made me realize the importance of investigating student’s home lives. One can only wonder what would have happened differently had Amber’s teachers inquired about where she was living or why she did not own a winter coat. As future teachers, do you think that the teachers at her school were in the wrong by not asking about her situation? Do you plan on being “nosy” when it comes to your students? When should the line be drawn in terms of a teacher over-stepping their boundaries into their students’ personal lives? What do you all think?

Attention Teens! (And Teachers)

Lots of you across the country are talking about Banned Books Week this week.  What do you have to say about book challenges?  What should you do when a book is challenged in your own community?  What about a challenge in a community far away?

Jennifer

Speak Loudly about Book Challenges!

Book challenges get people emotional.  Really emotional.  Usually it starts with the indignation of the would-be censor.  Then the community of teachers, librarians, professors, book critics, and authors fights back.  Teens, caught in the middle of these debates, tend to respond by tracking down a copy of the latest banned title as soon as possible.  More power to them.

What's different about book challenges now from the old days--when you had to get a copy of the ALA's Banned Books Guide, published every three years by Robert C. Doyle, in order to find out the reason for repeated challenges to certain books--is immediacy.  When a couple of challenges were recently lodged in our own state of Missouri, the YA reading community exploded with activity.

Laurie Halse Anderson posted about the Missouri challenge to Speak on her blog.  Indiana teacher Paul Hankins started a Twitter feed called #speakloudly.  Teri Lesesne, also known as Professor Nana, launched a series of posts on her blog about Banned Books Week, but also resolved to buy multiple copies of Speak and other books challenged in Missouri (including Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer and Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) and send them out to teachers across the country.

Now professor and YA author David Gill has started a website where teachers, librarians, bloggers, and authors can come together to speak out against the censorship of media materials for teens.  Here you can find archives of #speakloudly Twitter posts as well as posts by bloggers who have joined in on the conversation in the past week.  There's a Facebook group for Banned Books Week, too.

All this activity around book challenges can leave your head spinning.  But what better way to remind us of the importance of Banned Books Week--and the importance of an informed, invested reading public.

Jennifer Buehler

The kiss never came.

I was dreading the kiss but the kiss never came. That is why I like this book.

Somehow Amber’s friend Ty began to stand out from the other members of The Five and it seemed inevitable that Amber and Ty would end up together by the time Matthew Quick finished writing page 353 of Sorta Like a Rock Star. But the kiss never came and its absence is what earned my respect for this novel.

It threw me off when Ty started showing his feelings for Amber because it seemed as though she had tried to be her own person, a solitary hope spreader, and in the end she could only get herself back together with the help of a man. That is why I am glad the kiss did not happen. The kiss always happens and it always sends the message that people need to have a significant other to be happy, that they can’t just be happy on their own. This book was different though, because it didn’t resolve the relationship between Amber and Ty. We know there is some interest there, but it never develops. I can’t decide if the inclusion of the Amber-Ty relationship makes the novel stronger or weaker. I feel like it detracts from the storyline by adding extra tidbits that don’t need to be there, but at the same time it almost adds to the message by pointing out that Amber gets back on her feet not because she has some significant other to fall back on, but because she has her friends’ love for her and her love for everyone she meets. She is not like her mother who needs to rely on one boyfriend or another; she can be strong and support herself with the help of her friends.

Hilary Korabik