The Secret of Kells

I may not have seen any of the movies nominated for Best Picture (despite there being ten of them this year), but I have seen one of the five nominees for Best Animated Feature:  The Secret of Kells.  Apparently, I'm one of the few people in the US (outside of the Academy) who has; it doesn't open here until March 6.  But the National Gallery of Art showed it last fall as part of their Film Program for Children and Teens, and the kids and I (not surprisingly) loved it.  According to Variety, "[The Secret of Kells] may be the perfect film for children whose parents are art historians specializing in pre-Renaissance periods."  Close enough!  

Before the screening, the museum educator in charge of the film program asked the kids in the audience to pay attention to the use of color in the movie.  I wish I could remember her exact words (she may have mentioned specific colors and emotions, or not), but her question was short and simple and helped focus the kids' attention, especially when things got a little slow or, conversely, a little scary.  There's an art, I'm learning, to asking just the right question.  What's yours?

11 Birthdays on Groundhog Day 2

I didn't like Groundhog Day (the movie), but I loved 11 Birthdays (the middle grade novel) by Wendy Mass.  They share a similar conceit:  the main characters repeat the same day over and over again.  In the case of Amanda Ellerby, it's her eleventh birthday--the only one she hasn't celebrated with her ex-best friend Leo.  Now she has to figure out how to move on, and she needs Leo's help to do so.  But is Leo experiencing the same day over again, too?  Who's responsible, and why?

It's easy to forget that 11 Birthdays is a fantasy novel (and a Cybils finalist in that category), simply because it's so firmly set in a middle grade world.  Mass revisits that world (and some of its characters) in her latest novel, Finally (Scholastic, 2010).  This one is about Rory Swenson's long-awaited 12th birthday--but the weeks that follow it aren't what Rory wanted them to be.  I wonder if Angelina has anything to do with that?

Shoes News

From last week's PW Children's Bookshelf (8/21/08):
"Noel Streatfeild's 1936 novel Ballet Shoes, which was adapted by the BBC and shown in Britain earlier this year, has been picked up by Screenvision to be shown in U.S. theaters, according to Variety. The feature-length film reunites three actors from the Harry Potter movies: Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Richard Griffiths (Vernon Dursley) and Gemma Jones (Poppy Pomfrey). Limited release begins August 26, and a DVD will follow."

Emma Watson plays Pauline.  The movie is playing in two local theaters, but I think I'll wait for its release on DVD next week (9/2/08), if only because I can't find anyone who'll see it with me.  Actually, I'm not at all sure that I'll like it.  Unlike The Golden Compass, Ballet Shoes (the book) was a childhood favorite, my favorite of all the Shoes books I read.  Sometimes I liked Posy best, sometimes prickly Petrova, but eventually I grew to appreciate (if not identify with) pretty actress Pauline.

I was also delighted to discover that there are Shoes books I haven't read!  This website is an excellent source of information about, and analysis of Noel Streatfeild's books for children (and adults).  Many of them are hard to find now, and I'm sadly missing my childhood copy of Skating Shoes (my next favorite; used copies of the Dell Yearling paperback I had are available on Amazon starting at $43.45).  But Oxford Children's Classics has a beautiful new edition of Party Shoes that I'd love to get my hands on.  In the meantime, I'll just have to get out my worn-out copy of Ballet Shoes.

What are your favorite Shoes?

The Golden Compass movie

My husband and I watched The Golden Compass last weekend. Disclaimer:  I'm not a scholar of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.  I read The Golden Compass and liked it well enough; I started The Subtle Knife and abandoned it (if I recall correctly, its agenda was too obvious); I never bothered with The Amber Spyglass.  I didn't have high expectations for the movie version of Compass, either, all of which may explain why I liked it as much as I did (and more than the first Narnia movie).  I'm actually disappointed that the sequels to the movie will probably never be made.

Here's what I liked:

• The casting.  Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra and Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter were perfect, as was Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby.
• The concept of daemons.  This is what I remembered best from the book.  In case you haven't read it, or seen the movie, your daemon is an animal manifestation of your soul (there's more, obviously, but that'll do).  I spent the first part of the movie deciding what I would like my daemon to be, and had just settled on a hare when Lee Scoresby showed up with Hester.  What would your daemon be?
• The panserbjorne.  I'm not ordinarily a fan of CGI animals, especially ones that talk, but I liked the armored bears, too.  I do wish we could have seen Iorek Byrnison making his own armor, or at least putting it on: I'm always interested in how people (and polar bears, apparently) dress their parts.
• Lyra's knit cap.  If the knitwear in this movie doesn't inspire me to learn to knit (preferably by Christmas), then nothing will.  There's even a pattern available here.

Have you seen it yet?