Project Three

Harry Potter is a story about magic. When you’re reading, it’s like taking a step so far outside the box that you’re out of the old box and into a totally new box, full of endless beauty and surprises. It feels so whimsical, so freeing, to the point wanting to fly to Hogwarts on your Nimbus 2000, and never, ever leave.  You want to become part of the book. It’s for those of you who love thinking outside of the ordinary—for all of you who seek the vicarious thrill of the impossible. But t’s definitely NOT the book for you if you don’t like using your imagination, or if you don’t want to be shocked an amazed by the wonders of wizardry.

                The Harry Potters are a book series consisting of 7 books about a boy named Harry Potter (You’d never guess, right!) who finds out that he’s a wizard, and a famous one at that. He was orphaned as a baby as a result of losing his parents to You-Know-Who (Voldemort), and these books detail his encounters with everything from flobberworms to boggarts to hippogriffs.

                Though all of the books (based on what I’ve read so far) are totally different, they all have the same general road map. Harry starts out at the Dursley’s, then gets jerked away by someone or something, and goes away to Hogwarts, the school for witches and wizards. From there, things usually stay pretty average, or rather as average as a school for wizards can be, when some outrageous twist occurs, eventually causing a run-in between Harry and He-who-must-not-be-named, resulting in an epic battle of good vs. evil. But, if you zoom in on your viewfinder, each book has its own elaborate plot, complete with its own shady and at-the-time supposedly meaningless events, creating 7 entirely different stories. I would explain in more detail, but it’s not my job to spoil the books for you.

                Something very interesting in the books would be the voice, as it’s a third- person limited omniscient narrator, giving us all the play-by-play on all things Harry. The narrator has a very fun, different way of conveying their thoughts, and often forces me to read in a British accent (LOVE!!). Not just that, but the Divination teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Trelawney. ‘Divination was Harry’s least favorite class after Potions, which was due mainly to Professor Trelawney’s habit of prediction his premature death every few lessons.’(Rowling, pg. 236) Though this passage from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  gives a pretty good idea of the Professor, it doesn’t show that she isn’t out to kill him, but instead, not the best at telling fortunes.

                What makes me wonder is why they never wonder. By ‘they,’ I mean all those included in and affected by the wizarding world, and by ‘wonder,’ I mean why they never question the fact that they can do magic; they just accept it (with the exception of the Dursleys, of course, who won’t even permit Harry to say the ‘M word’ in front of them), and move on. Although some people would go to extremes to find out, that might ruin the uniqueness of the book. But it’s really cool to see how much the characters undoubtedly trust their powers, and most of them can’t live without them.

The Dursleys are somewhat interesting to read about their reactions to magic.  ‘“Watching the news. . .” he said scathingly. “I’d like to know what he’s really up to. As if a normal boy cares what’s on the news—Dudley hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, doubt he knows who the Prime Minister is! Anyway, it’s not as if there’d be anything about his lot on our news—“’ (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Rowling, pg.2). This quote, said by Harry’s Uncle Vernon, shows very well how they feel about Harry being a wizard. Did you see that? ‘His lot.’ This shows exactly the way they treat Harry, all the time. As much as everyone hate them, they’re extremely important to the storyline. Plus, they offer a possible muggle reaction to magic, shedding some light on why Wizardry isn’t exactly out in the open.

                One of the best things, in my opinion, about the series is that there was nothing like it before it came out. Of course, because of its insane success, now we’re seeing stories about wizards and such left and right, making Harry Potter seem less and less, but at the same time, more and more unique. How is that possible? Well, the more of something there are the more common and cliché it becomes, making the stories stereotypically boring. Yet, somehow, Harry’s particular story stands out above all the rest. That’s because the plots, and how intense and well thought out they are, while still being so free-spirited and lighthearted, and overall, so much fun. Not many books can manage to include bizarre characters with crazy names and still be wildly loved, let alone understood. When you have names like ‘Albus Dumbledore,’ or ‘Kingsley Shacklebolt,’ you’d think the book would be a failure, but as it’s commonly known, Harry Potter is probably the complete opposite of failure—Riddikulus success.

             What don’t I like? Hmm, tough question. Sometimes it’s easy to mix up characters, and Potter-heads sometimes accidentally give spoilers, which make the books so much less suspenseful. But even when they do that, it doesn’t give you the same effect actually READING the books do. So what grade does the 7 book series get on it's OWL’s? Definitely, without question, an O, for outstanding.

                               

   

Top Five

Eat Pray Love Trailer

When Harry Met Simba

When Harry Met Simba

                Now I know what you’re thinking. ‘Simba? As in The Lion King?’ Heck yeah! No, I’m not crazy. At least not this time. If you think about it, it starts to make sense. Here’s my logic.

                Let’s start from the beginning. Both Harry and Simba lose a parent (or in Harry’s case, both parents) which causes their journeys as characters. Both characters think that it’s their own fault, which again, it somewhat is, although it wasn’t directly caused by them. In both stories, the parent(s) die to save their child. The difference? Harry is a wizard, and Simba is a lion.

                Later on in the stories, the two characters have grown up. They’re both outcasts in their respective stories. Although Harry is stuck in a family of Muggles who hate him and ‘his kind,’ and Simba goes to live with Timone and Pumba, who love him like family, Simba ended up in that situation because he was tricked into thinking he was an outcast by his evil uncle, Scar.

                Speaking of Scars, let’s talk about Harry’s! Harry’s lightning-shaped scar on his forehead is his claim to fame at Hogwarts, the school for wizards. The minute he arrives, he’s practically worshiped because of this scar, but more importantly, how he got it. The minute Simba comes back, he too is instantly a hero. Everyone sees Harry and Simba as the light at the end of the tunnel—and I don’t mean the train.

                My final similarity is a small, and rather ironic, similarity, but I’d like to point out that when Harry’s sorted into his Hogwarts house, He’s put into Gryffindor. What is Gryffindor’s mascot? Oh! Look! A Lion!

I rest my case—Humans? Lions? Not so different after all, huh?

The Issue with Half-Truths

In my opinion, Books have to be totally, and I mean like a hundred percent, true for them to be considered non-fiction.

Half-truths are fine. BUT, they’re not non-fiction. They can be fictional novels ‘inspired by true events,’ but they are not non-fiction. I don’t think there’d be any issue with Frey bending the truth to tell his story, because his story didn’t (to my knowledge) affect anyone, other than Oprah, but that is a whole different story. Mortenson, on the other hand, I have a problem with. The reason for this is because he features a village in his ‘non-fiction’ stories. Sure, he did go to a village, but not at the time he claimed to in the book and he didn’t even go to the right place. The whole situation with his charity bothers me. Isn’t the point of a charity to help a person, or a group of people for whatever reason, not to boost your fame? He has besmirched (I’ve always wanted to say that) the name of charities!

                I think David Shields is partially right. I think we need some lines between genres, we don’t need all of the little teensy-tinsy sub-categories that we have now, but I do believe we need to have fiction and non-fiction differentiated. That’d be because I think fiction is so much more creative. I think it takes a very special person to be able to sit down and write a book that they magically pulled out of their head. This isn’t to say that non-fiction writers are not special, but I think fictional writers are much more impressive.

                David Shields is weird though, his works weren’t anything but a collection of plagiarized paragraphs and quotes from all kinds of different books. That’s a compilation, or a collection, and I don’t think it has the right to call it ‘his book’ or ‘his work,’ because it’s not.

                From random collections to half-truths, how can we ever know what’s the real deal? And for that reason, along with many other reasons, I’m going to continue to comfortably read my fiction books.

Establishing The Connection

  

                I absolutely disagree with the statement that genre fiction is ‘unworthy’ to be taught as compared to literary fiction. Genre fiction definitely deserves a spot in the school curriculum. If anything, I actually think that there should be more genre fiction taught in the school curriculum, because then people will like reading much more. If you think about it, what are you training the students to think if the only things they are ‘forced’ to read are boring, old literary books? Granted, not all literary fiction is boring, I get that. But can you give me an example of a literary fiction that ISN’T boring? … That’s what I thought. From giving students literary fiction books they just automatically labeling reading as ‘boring,’ and therefore something they would never do in their free time, whether the book be interesting of boring.

                I think that literary fiction gives books a bad name. Disagree with me all you want, but when a person is forced to read a boring book the last thing they’d ever want to do are read something out of the necessary amount.  People who are raised to dislike books won’t gain the creative knowledge or life lessons that they would from a book, and literary fiction turns them away almost instantaneously.

                Genre fiction should be added to the curriculum, YES. Although I don’t want to swap out Of Mice and Men with Twilight, per say, I think it could be swapped out with something else, such as the hunger games, where students can relate to and ENJOY relating to the characters and their emotions. Quite frankly I find it difficult to the characters and time period of the literary fiction, so there goes the connection between the book and the reader. This connection could be reestablished very quickly with the introduction of genre fiction into the school curriculum.

                Reflecting on my response, this quote summarizes a lot of what I believe on the subject.

‘The problem with fantasy literature is that it has a certain stigma attached to it. This stigma has been identified and debunked by literary critics for quite a while now, yet the genre itself continues to be dismissed as escapist fluff-full of scantily clad sorceresses and wizards with long staffs. What seems lacking in acknowledgment are two facts about fantasy that make it perfect classroom fodder:

1. Students like it.

2. It is a metaphor for the human condition ripe with mythic structures, heroic cycles, and social and religious commentary.’

 (Teaching Fantasy: Overcoming the Stigma of Fluff’ by Melissa Thomas)

STUDENTS LIKE IT. Isn’t’ that one of the most important things? The student’s actually enjoy the book they’re reading, they engage in the plot, they get stuck on the cliffhangers.

Relating to the book, establishing that Connection—isn’t that what reading’s all about?

Eat Pray Love, the movie

My book is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m not finished with the book yet, but because of the way the book is divided into three sections (Italy, India, and Indonesia) and I’ve finished all of Italy and am working on India right now. So my answers are going to come from only those parts of the book.

                First of all, this book is a true story, so the author is the main character. For this book, I think that some challenges a filmmaker would have in turning this book into a movie would be that for one, nothing is actually happening in ‘real time.’ Most of it is just the author’s thoughts after the fact. If I were making this into a movie, The whole idea of thoughts after-the-fact would kind have to be taken out, and replaced with mostly real-time interactions.

                A scene I believe is necessary to keep is the section of the book where the author is going over her divorce, especially when she’s in the car with her friend and they’re talking about how she wants her husband to sign the divorce agreement and everyone is ‘signing it.’ Another scene I think is very important is when the author breaks down in the car and Giovanni comforts her and takes her to a statue to help calm her down. The final scene which is very important would be in India, when she finally achieves her state of meditation, and then  when she’s finally about to be totally connected to her spirit or whatever the blue-ness in her meditation symbolized, she stopped and yelled out ‘I’m not ready yet.’

                There were actually a lot of things I would cut. I would definitely cut the three to four chapters where she talks about her sex life and that she is sex deprived. The younger guy hitting on her could go too, because it was kind of weird and seemed random. Another thing I’d cut if I were making this book into a movie is the part where her sister comes to Italy to visit her, because I didn’t really see a point in it.

Promoting Th1rteen R3asons Why, (I'm trying to make it itallics!) by Jay Asher

Idea number one: Books on tape.

                My idea is to have a special ‘Deluxe’ version of the book released, including a set of 13 tapes, or a CD with 13 tracks, (which although being more common and current, wouldn’t be as related to the book) with a recording of someone reading the books.

                The idea of having a set of books on tape comes from the whole premise of the book. The book is written in a format where the main character, Clay, is listening to this set of 7 tapes left for him by Hannah, who had committed suicide earlier in that school year. When you're reading, all of Hannah's words are in italics. 'I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. and if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why.' (Asher.7)  If we had the option of being able to listen to the narrator(s) voice(s) then it adds a whole new depth to the story.

                I do believe that this would target a new audience for this book, because some people who don’t like to sit down and ‘read’ would have an alternative. Instead of reading the book from paper, they could experience it a different way; by listening to it.

                This would work because obsessive readers are always looking for a different way to do the thing they love. This would also target people who loved the book, and wanted to hear the writer’s interpretation of Hannah’s voice and compare it to their own idea, or people who loved the book and want to experience the book in a whole new way.

               
(This is a picture of what books on tape typically look like. of course, all of these are Disney books (which I love, by the way) meant for little kids, but at least this gives you an idea of what the books on tape could be like.)
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Idea number two: Hardcover Maps

                The second idea for marketing this book would be to include Hannah’s map on the inside of the book jacket for the hardcover copy.

                The reason behind including Hannah’s map is that when Hannah gives this certain selection of people her tapes, they also get a map that she has made for them marking key locations in her life. 
'I almost forgot. If you're on my list, you should've received a map. ... A few weeks ago, just days before Hannah took the pills, someone slipped an envelope though the vent of my locker. The outside of the envelope said: SAVE THIS--YOU'LL NEED IT in red felt-tip marker.' (Asher.11) 
The reason that it would be printed on the inside of the hardcover book jacket is because avid readers love hidden bonuses. They want the super-exciting bonus version with all of the extras. This would also promote hardcover book sales, generating more money because hardback books are always more expensive than paperbacks.

                New readers would be intrigued by a map on the inside of the book jacket because it makes them believe that there’s a reason for the map to be there, and it’s their job to figure it out through reading.

                This targets the people who love finding little Easter-eggs. Easter eggs, of course, meaning little hidden surprises. People who discover the ‘cool’ version will tell their reader-friends that the hardcover version of the book is better than the paperback, OR, it helps people follow along better.

              
(after I  came up with this idea I found out that it already exists in the exact way I described. I promise I didn't know that!)

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Idea number three: Celebrity endorsement.

                Now, of course, this is going to be the most difficult of the three ideas to attain, primarily because of our inability to control a celebrity’s opinion. Otherwise, the title of this idea is very self-explanatory. The book could be endorsed by a reading-loving celebrity who poses as a role-model for teens and young adults, and they could promote the book.

                Although this idea isn’t located anywhere specifically in the book, it could pose as kind of a ‘between-the-lines’ message. 'I think I've made myself very clear, but no one's stepping forward to stop me.' (Asher. 280) In this quote, we see that if someone had made a move to stop Hannah, her suicide could have been prevented. Having a well-known and well liked celebrity speak out against teen suicide would promote awareness and possibly prevent Hannah. This would connect because not only would the celebrity be promoting the book itself, they’re also attempting to end teen suicide. Anyone who has or has not read the book would understand a celebrity endorsement, because it’s not the type of thing you have to read the book to understand.

                Celebrity endorsements target all fans of that celebrity. It nets the book’s attention because celebrities are wildly publicized, and you can imagine there’s some reporter out there that would be asking all about it.

(These people are so modest! Just kidding. This isn't my best example of a celebrity endorsement, but it gives a clearer idea of the picture in my head. Of course, in my head, Jane Lynch is holding Th1rteen R3asons Why and is promoting an end to teen suicide, but this is the best I could come up with.)

Teachers and E-teachers

A book is a teacher. No, not that kind where you sit in your chair and listen to them drone on for hours and hours about something you could care less about in monotone, but the best kind. The teacher that helps you learn life skills, such as humor, humility, community, romance, friendship, and one of the most helpful, violence! –Just kidding. The most important is imagination and originality, just like music. So technically, books are my music, music is my life.

                Out of the quotes given, the one that stands out to me the most was written by Victor LaValle, entitled ‘Scribble.’ And the reason it stands out to me is because I completely and totally disagree with it. Why? Well books are more than a toaster, Mr. LaValle. They are more than just the crazy brainchild thrown onto a bunch of pages. They are more than just stone tablets.  A paper book is a meaningful object, worth so much more in personal terms, and is special. Not just the words, but the feeling of picking up a new book at Borders, Barnes and Noble, Half Price books, wherever. You don’t get that feeling with an electronic book.

                Q- So, Which do you like better? Electronic books or paper books?
     A- Call me old fashioned, but I like paper books. I like knowing exactly how far I am in the book, just by looking at the top of the book. As well as this, what would happen to publishers? Bookstores? Libraries? All of the employees of these places? They’d all disappear. Plus you don’t have to worry about a paper book breaking into millions of little tiny pieces if you drop it. Paper books don’t have batteries, so they can’t run out if you forget to charge them, and no technological malfunctions, and in our current society we know how often that can happen. Overall, there are just so many problems with e-readers and things of that nature. And think about it—if books are teachers, would you want an e-teacher? Wouldn’t that be a robot? Things to think about!

:)

Why I read

I read for many reasons- One, it gives me something to do. Two, I love it!

     Of course, these are the first two answers that pop into my head. If you asked me to dig a little deeper, I'd say that I love to read because it's a different story every time. Each time you pick up a different book, it's going to be different from the last. Even if it's not by much. I also read because it helps me be creative. I know-- 'How can you be creative when you're reading someone else's book??' Well it's not the reading itself, but the fact that you get to make up your own version of the story in your head. You get to condure up your own image of the characters, the scenery, and people's voices. But I can't forget interpretation. I can't imagine everyone who reads a certian book, no matter what it is, has the exact same interpretation of all of the author's words. And that's what makes them special. Plus, books teach you what to-- and not to-- do, by having characters make the mistakes before you do. 'You' being a very general term, of course. What I mean by this is you learn from people's mistakes, right? Well I also learn from characters.

So from my wonderful paragraph shown above, there's more of a reason on why I read that I never even realized, and probably never would have realized before I wrote about it. And from that, you, and I, figured out the real reason behind Why I Read, and why I love to read.

Maggie lasts Forever!

My author of the book I'm reading right now (Forever) is Maggie Stiefvater.
Three things i've learned about her are....

1. She has a 1973 Camaro that she has named 'Loki'
2. She has gone to work as a waitress, technical editor, and a calligraphy instructor dressed in her pajamas
3. She plays many instruments including the Celtic Harp, piano, and the bagpipes.

I really like this quote from http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/forever-0#

Tension mounts as perils seem to arise on every side, with no obvious or easy answer in sight. Ultimately, in a move that may generate either salvation or heartbreak, the friends try to find Sam's father figure, Beck, the one who may hold their last best chance for lasting peace.

(written by Norah Piehl)

That's my book :)