On adapting children’s books: replication vs. recreation

June 24, 2009


Found a great article on The Bygone Bureau by Tim Lehman regarding the remaking of two of my favorite children’s books: Where the Wild Things Are (trailer) and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (trailer).

From the article:

Turning a 40-page book, half-filled with pictures, into a feature-length movie is daunting, and judging by recent attempts, fraught with failure. (The Cat in the Hat, The Polar Express, and Curious George immediately come to mind, though I have admittedly not seen a one of them.) Matt Kirby identified the main pitfall of the process when he wrote, “Picture books are an art form altogether different from other types of literature. For me, they are an alchemy of story, poetry, and image, almost impressionistic works.”

I tend to agree with every point of the article. While I understand the difficulty in adapting books this short, there has to be a certain level of consistency.

In this case, both books take a different approach to adaptation – Wild Things’ trailer is steeped in the same imagery and soul that made the book such a beautiful exercise in imagination, while Cloudy’s trailer shows a ham-fisted attempt at recreating The Incredibles, only this time with food.

(I’ve already made it known which one I’m most excited for.)

What made Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs so iconic – and cemented its legacy as, hands down, my favorite children’s book of all time – was the art. The hand drawn illustrations, looking more like a Wall Street Journal staff picture than the typical children’s art, showed great detail in documenting something so implausible, yet so creative.

It’s a wonderful article for those who love both books, highlighting how one film replicates the feeling of the book, while the other recreates it.

Tags: Books, Literature, Movies |

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16-Page Read: The Velveteen Rabbit

June 12, 2009


The Velveteen Rabbit By Margery Williams
The Velveteen RabbitTwo years ago, we read The Little Prince to Sierra.

She wasn’t born yet. It wasn’t an act of consciousness for her – simply a vehicle for getting her used to my voice: the second voice in her life, and the one she often heard when her mother’s was quiet. She didn’t pop out quoting lines from the book, and her propensity toward books is caused more by availability than some deep-seated memory of reading while still in the womb.

It doesn’t matter. We read it to her anyway. And with Baby Boy Vilhauer, we repeated the task – this time with The Velveteen Rabbit.

I understand that Baby Boy Vilhauer probably won’t remember a word from The Velveteen Rabbit.

But that’s not exactly the point, is it?

Really, we read it for ourselves. We both rediscovered the simple joy in making something real – remembering our own Velveteen Rabbits, those childhood items that we loved more than anything, believing they held some kind of magic powers that keep us safe from evil.

Our minds flowed back to the innocence of youth, finding comfort, understanding that as we grow, our own cherished things become more fragile. Harder. Unwilling to protect us. I find no solace in an old clock, or in the cold sharpness of a family keepsake. But I do see that comfort in Sierra’s toys. As if they weren’t designed for play, but for protection from some unseen tragedy. Designed to keep people young, to preserve that innocence.

More than that, we understood that, by reading The Velveteen Rabbit to Baby Boy through the constricting nature of the womb, we were reaching out to him. Longing to meet him.

The Velveteen Rabbit became, without doubt, Baby Boy’s book. That’s an important connection in our household – a story that will forever be connected to a time and place; laying in bed, Kerrie propped on her side, we went through all 33 pages in two nights, reliving the memory of a classic story, and introducing it to our next great discovery.

Sierra had that with The Little Prince. And, though I understand it’s all coincidence, she has grown to be a caring and peaceful individual, seemingly learning from the lessons of that book.

If our baby boy can move forward with his lessons – on accepting everyone, on loving without barrier, and on the importance of believing in yourself – we’re confident that his first book will be as meaningful to him, even if unknowingly so, as it is for us.

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books, Isaac, Sierra |

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Print is dead, long live print

May 11, 2009


Sorry, everyone. I don’t meant to get all Old Man Vilhauer on you.

But can we stop the ongoing “Print is Dead” argument?

Print isn’t – and never will be – dead. It may not be in first place. It may not even be the social norm. But there will always be a part of us – most of us, that is; those of us who aren’t robots – that will long for something more durable, something tangible we can flip through, something we can dog-ear and drop hastily into our pocket, on the side of the bed.

I am positive that magazines and newspapers in their current state will continue to decline. We may be forced to pay more for these services. Quick information is too convenient and too easily accessed to wait for, so magazines will focus on features and other long-form writing.

But books aren’t in danger. Not yet. So let’s not try to raise warning flags because we’re looking for something to scream about.

Things will change, but print will still be around for a long time.

After all. We’ve all got electric heat. But who doesn’t love a campfire?

Tags: Books, Literature, Writing |

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What I’ve Been Reading - Amsterdam

April 30, 2009


What I’ve read:
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan - AmsterdamI’m risking a lot with this post – they might kick me out of the “pretending to be a literary snob” club. I just read Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam – winner of the Booker Prize, England’s top literary award. And I have just one question.

Was it a down year for novels? Because I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how this is award-worthy.

It’s funny. I typically, without fail, love award winning books. If you look at my ten favorite books of the past ten years, five Pulitzers are accounted for (Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, and John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom [which accounts for two: Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest]).

And that’s not even putting another favorite – The Grapes of Wrath – in the top ten.

But Amsterdam fell flat for me. Really flat. Though, because I’m a novice book reviewer and self-taught critic, I have trouble expressing what exactly it was that I found so…well…

Meh.

Amsterdam is a nice novel. It’s well written. It’s at times haughty, at times funny. It’s everything you’d want in a quick summer read, I guess – intrigue, death, sex, newspapers and grand orchestras. Maybe not so much of those last two, but a lot of the first three.

The story is simple – one woman dies, three ex-lovers meet, two of the ex-lovers plot revenge against the third. The two are a newspaper editor and a composer, the third is an aspiring Prime Minister.

The newspaper person gets some naughty pictures of the aspiring Prime Minister. The composer isn’t sure it’s such a good idea. Hilarity ensues.

Except that’s not what happens. No hilarity ensues – in fact, all we get is a desperate attempt by the newspaper person to slander the aspiring Prime Minister, while (despite a distracting and seemingly unrelated interruption) the composer continues to compose.

It’s a morality tale, or so I’m told. I just read it because it seemed quick, and because I absolutely adored McEwan’s Atonement – another great novel I’ve read in the past ten years. And, upon finishing it, when I had finally figured out how silly and contrived the ending of the book was, I put the book down and just sat there.

Not in wonder, as I have with great books, but in confusion.

I thought this guy was otherworldly. This book seems so pedestrian.

Which, I guess, leads to another question.

Am I missing something?

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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What I’ve Been Reading - Unaccustomed Earth

April 16, 2009


What I’ve read:
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

I’ve never been to India. I’ve never been to the east coast, or attended an Ivy League school. I’ve never traveled up and down the coast searching my soul. I’ve never had parents who were born in another country, who couldn’t understand why I was unwilling to honor their traditions, no matter how outdated and out of style.

Yet, I feel like, given the chance, I could perform in these situations without fail, my mind fully understanding the consequences of each action. I could be a second-generation Indian living in Boston. I could travel to Calcutta and know what it feels like to be both privileged and brilliant.

Thanks, Jhumpa.

Unaccustomed EarthJhumpa Lahiri – who won the Pulitzer for her first book of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies – has a style that’s genuine, not tricky or cute. There’s no mind-bending literary allusions, no sideways words or slight of hand. It’s all honest; great writing from a mind that seems to understand every aspect of social and psychological growth, from child to adult.

Unaccustomed Earth is like Interpreter of Maladies in that it’s a book of short stories. It’s unlike Interpreter in that there’s a common theme throughout each story: the chasm that separates parents born in India from their largely Americanized children. It’s this theme that makes everything so relatable. After all, the reader gets several chances to capture the feeling of confusion in living someplace new, or the pained development of a college student as he struggles to ditch his old culture in preference to the new.

The scenes seem the same – private school education, solemn fathers, traditional mothers, young adults struggling to understand their place between two cultures. But it’s the emotion that makes each story so phenomenal. These are studies into the minds of multi-continental misfits; unable to effectively fit into a mold, they move from adoration to frustration in just pages. They are human, as relatable as any characters I’ve ever read.

What I remember most about Lahiri’s stories is their finality. Often, short stories are left open-ended, leaving the reader to deduct each character’s final outcome through a series of hints. It’s what makes short stories so creative – they can begin and end at any point.

Lahiri, on the other hand, leaves only a slight opening, summing up each story with some of the most powerful final words I’ve ever read. They’re still open ended, but they close in a way that brings conclusion, the stories ending not like a bottle with the bottom cut out, but like a cloth bag with a string tied around it.

I thought I would be frustrated, reading about the same type of character over and over again across eight stories. Instead, it helped me focus. And by the end, I had nothing but praise.

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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One shape at a time

March 31, 2009


You take seven simple shapes. And you make a bird.

Or a horse. Add some more, and you have a castle. Spend an hour working hard, you might end up with a battleship.

I have never been an artist. But when I was younger, I could feel like one for a few hours at a time. All thanks to Ed Emberley.

The design was perfect. You start with a basic shape and you add smaller shapes as you go. The style was minimal, perfect for aspiring artists, yet it wasn’t sloppy.

Ed Emberley and his Big Books of drawing made creation simple. The most basic shapes could become something fun, each serving as the building block to something more grand.

Art was accessible, and from there creativity seemed accessible. You learned to move away from the standard instructions and start adding on your own changes. It taught me the basics of drawing, and in doing so taught me the basics of creativity.

Ed Emberley didn’t make me who I am today – just as it didn’t make most people. But I bet if you ask around to those friends who write, or design, or direct, or do anything in any creative field, they’ll know who Ed Emberley is.

They’ll say, “I loved those books!”

And they’ll start reminiscing like I just did.

Tags: Books |

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What I’ve Been Reading: McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #30

March 27, 2009


What I’ve read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #30 - Dave Eggers (editor)

And here we are, just one day later, with another What I’ve Been Reading book report.

The reason behind the suddenness of this one has a lot to do with why I had given up on the WIBR format as it was. I had finished both Liar’s Poker and Outliers a few weeks ago. But rounding up the energy to write the entire seventeen page diatribe was difficult, especially when I’m – you know – busy.

So I made the decision to do these one book at a time. With that in my head, I put off writing about the two books even longer – long enough for me to finish yet another book in the meantime.

Thankfully, this book was just another McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, a short story vice I have subscribed to for a few years (and talked about on this site for as long).

With short story collections like these, it’s difficult to summarize, mainly because it’s a grab bag of authors and styles and stories. This one, with it’s Obama-centric cover of relief, is no different. It does, however, feature a Story by a Famous Person. Two or three issues ago, it was Stephen King (Ah! A Truly Famous Person in the hallowed pages of McSweeneys! What a Treat!). This time, it’s Michael Cera.

Yeah. Juno Michael Cera. Big Fancy Movie Star Michael Cera. The one guy who was poised to derail the entire idea of an Arrested Development feature film. That Michael Cera.

I thought to myself, “What does THIS guy think he’s doing? Where does he get off, trying to be an alternacool indie actor AND a thoughtful super independent writer?”

“You can’t be both Casey Affleck and David Foster Wallace, my friend. You can’t have your cake and shit where you eat, too.”

I may have gotten the idioms messed up. I dunno. All I do know is that I wanted to hate the Michael Cera story, “Pinecone.” I really did.

But I didn’t. It was good. Not fantastic – it wouldn’t go into my fictional list of great short stories, a list I have been planning to create for several years – but good.

Funny enough, a story earlier in the collection came to mind. By Kevin Moffett (a McSweeney’s regular), “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events” is about a son who struggles to write a great story, only to find that his father, who is not classically trained, who is just dabbling in the art of storytelling, has taken up writing as a hobby and blown his son out of the water. It’s a fantastic story, and it hit me hard – the writers block, the thoughts of insufficiency, all of it.

The son wants to hate his father’s stories – he doesn’t want to admit that his father has talent. But he does. And that’s how I felt with Michael Cera. I wanted to hate the story, but I couldn’t.

Ugh. Can you believe that? Where’s the passion?

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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