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movies & books

There's some things in life I'm a little strange about. Books is one of them. If I find an author I like, I tend to read everything that person writes. There's nothing I hate more than to start a book, get a few chapters in, and be exceptionally bored with it. I have this weird thing that I'm supposed to finish every book I start. I don't know why. There's certainly no law about it, but I feel guilty if I don't finish. I think there's only been two books that I started and never finished. One was a John Steinbeck novel. I was in high school, and after page two and I had already hit the 20th curse word I put it down. I don't remember what the other novel was, except that it was more modern fiction. I did read to the second chapter of that one, though.
There's nothing more interesting to me than seeing a movie that is based off a book, and wonderfully done at that. Sometimes, like Harry Potter movie 3, my imagination of the book is much better than the movie and the characters seem woefully miscast, but other times it hits a home, like Ramona and Beezus. I LOVED the Ramona books in elementary school, and even though they flipped the name of the move title around, for the most part it was true to the books (they combined several of the books into one) and had me both laughing and crying. It even prompted me to facebook an elementary school friend this morning and apologize for all the times I pulled her hair while attempting to straighten her curls. (Who knew that pulling one little curly hair from each ringlet and positioning it between the back of her chair and the front of my desk would pull it enough to hurt? Had that been my hair curled by sponge rollers, that would have straightened it for sure! She actually got mad and told on me that time, but I think I had enough of her hair pulled tight for long enough to satisfy my curiosity that her hair was truly miraculously curly. And yes, I was jealous. I don't think I messed with her hair again, though I was often sorely tempted.)

In reflection, one of the things I enjoyed most about Beverly Clearly's Ramona books, was that church was clearly part of the book's culture. Whether it be Ramona getting in trouble for volunteering her mother to make her a sheep costume for the church Christmas play and all the details of practices and such to her preaching to the boys making fun of her sister's name, Ramona was clearly a character I could relate to. Quite honestly, if Clearly was trying to get published today, I'm not so sure and editor would be willing to take quite a chance on her. Respect for elders, chores, parents helping solve problems, morality in family members - those aren't things that are popular in children's publishing today.

I recognize that not everyone enjoys children's books or their movies, but if you do, Ramona and Beezus is definitely a 5 star movie.

Comments

Jennifer said…
we'll probably see it when it hits the $1.50 theater. I remember a little about Ramona.

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