Book Review: Frindle

Title: Frindle
Author: Andrew Clements
Release Date: 1996
Genre: children's fiction, school, friendship
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: children's fiction
Age Group: 8+
Awards: 2016 Phoenix Award  

Summary:
Nick isn't a trouble maker. He just has good ideas. He's also a pro at the teacher-stopper question, that question asked right between the end of the lesson and the giving of the homework.
So when he tries this on the notorious 5th grade English teacher Mrs. Granger, he's expecting success.
No such luck. Nick ends up giving a lengthy report on the creation of dictionaries. But this report isn't a waste of time. He learns something about words and where they come from.
Then, he launches an experiment of his own. What does it take to make a word?

Word of Warning
Little to be concerned about here except perhaps the stubbornness of all involved. Nick ends up waging "war" with Mrs. Granger over the word, and various students join in his rebellion. They keep using the new word despite orders not to, and end up serving many after school detentions.
It is explained multiple times that Nick doesn't intend to cause trouble, he just wants to see if he can create a new word. He is a respectful boy even during his "war" with Mrs. Granger, and as we see later in the book, Mrs. Granger was well aware of that.

My Thoughts
For a teacher, at first this book is a little sad. Mrs. Granger tries to squash the good ideas of Nick Allen. But Nick Allen is trying to hijack Mrs. Granger's lesson time. So maybe she's justified?
Then things become more intense, until you reach the end of the book and realize the truth: Mrs. Granger, like all good teachers, helped Nick. Not only did she teach him a valuable lesson about words, society, and what one person can do, but she believed in him enough to wage war with him.
Then we learn the power of words, and how even though the world will continue to change around us, the power of words will never go away.
And as a teacher who has encountered many Nick's, and a writer who believes in the power of words, well, this simple little romp of a book made my heart melt.
Short, sweet, and truthful. This one isn't worth missing.

Book Review: Hatchet

Title: Hatchet
Author: Gary Paulsen
Release Date: 1987
Genre: young adult/children's fiction, survival
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: Young Adult Fiction
Age Group: 12+
Awards: Newbery Medal, Dorthy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award

Summary
Brian is on the way to visit his dad via plane. He's working up in Canada in some remote location, and a small charter plane is going to take Brian there for the summer. Because Brian's parents aren't together anymore. Because of the Secret. Because of what Brian knows.
Brian knows about his mother cheating with that man. He saw them kissing in the car across the street from where Brian and his friend were playing. Brian didn't tell his father, and neither did his mother. But that didn't stop the divorce from happening.
At age thirteen, that's a tough thing to handle. Honestly, at any age that's a tough thing to handle.
But when the pilot has a heart attack over an unidentifiable wilderness, and Brian does what he can to fly the plane himself, things get a whole lot worse.
Especially when Brian crashes the plane.

Word of Warning

• Brian's parents are divorced. His mother cheated on his father (all the detail we have is that they were kissing) while they were still married.
• A very well-known survival story, filled with the elements of survival: struggles for shelter, food, and against the elements.
• Brian has to kill animals for food.
• Vomiting, diarrhea, sickness in general.
• Injuries, an attack by a moose (nothing too deadly or graphic)
• At a very low point, Brain tries to slit his wrists. His attempt fails, and in the morning he wakes up more determined than ever to live.
• Fighting against the elements, including a dramatic experience with a tornado.

My Thoughts
It was decent. I think my all time favorite survival book will always be Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain, but this is also a pretty good book. It gets a bit long, and the writing style isn't something I'm a big fan of (particularly the sentence structure), but there's nothing necessarily wrong with it.
My biggest objection is that it just gets too long. I realize Brian was stuck in the wilderness for a long time, but I just started to lose interest after a while, especially since, knowing the genre, I had no doubt that Brian would somehow survive.
It's a rough adventure for Brian. He goes through a lot. But he makes it, and he's smart. In our ever-changing society which is becoming more and more paved, it's nice to still have a good wilderness adventure book standing strong and still being eagerly read by a variety of readers.

Movie Review: Brooklyn

Title: Brooklyn
Author: BBC Films, Parallel Film Production
Release Date: 2015
Genre: Historical fiction, romance, drama
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: PG-13 (for a scene of sexuality and brief strong language)
Age Group: 18+

Summary
Eilis (A-lish) is stuck in Ireland with no prospects. Her mother stays at home, her sister works, and Eilis works too--at the general store down the street run by a crabby middle-aged lady. Rose, Eilis' sister, writes to Fr. Flood in America and soon enough Eilis finds herself on a boat to Brooklyn with no indication of coming back.
Brooklyn's nice enough, and full of Irish people, but Eilis misses home. And life in America isn't as easy as everyone says.
We hope Eilis can make it America, but making it isn't everything. Hopefully she can thrive.

Word of Warning

• Eilis is very non-combative. This is fine, except it leads to many misunderstandings because instead of explaining or defending herself, she just remains silent and deals with the issues herself.
• We see a sea sick young woman sit on a bucket since the bathroom has been locked. Later, she pukes in the same bucket.
• Language: f*ck. There were others that were less problematic, but unfortunately I don't have a list of them.
• A dead cold body is shown, found by the mother of the dead character. It can be very hard to see because it's so heartbreaking.
• Eilis struggles with being homesick and lonely.
• Eilis neglects to tell her mother about a significant development in her life. This causes all sorts of complications later on.
• A young woman accidentally leads a young man on, then eventually this becomes less of an accident but something she just doesn't bother to clear up.
• Two characters make love the day before they're to be married in a civil ceremony. While we don't see much as far as skin, the scene is very awkward and there is no question about what is going on. It isn't a long scene and easily skipped.

My Thoughts
It was a simple movie that you need to be in the right mood for, and honestly I don't think any of my brothers will ever sit through more than five minutes of it. But my sister and I enjoyed it. The movie moves slowly, simply, and feels honest and quiet. It feels like Eilis.
Somehow, they capture in film how she's feeling even though it involves no voice overs or camera tricks. This is just the story of an Irish immigrant in the 1950s. There is little to say about it, to be completely honest. It's just good and well done. It's not one of those films that exposes some tragedy or terrible thing that happened.
It just looks at the truth in an honest and simple way, and ends honestly and simply, and worth watching.

Movie Review: Pan

Title: Pan
Author: Warner Brothers
Release Date: 2015
Genre: fantasy, family, adventure, Peter Pan, British literature, children
My Rating: ***
Official Rating PG for fantasy action violence, language, and some thematic material
Age Group: 10+

Summary
Poor Peter and his friends. They're orphans in a very miserable orphanage, as apparently all orphanages always are. He wants his mother, and he's positive that she'll come back for him. But with WWII raging on outdoors, doesn't he have bigger things to think about?
Unlike all literary orphanages, this one has a crabby old nun (wait for it, I promise this is different)...who sells the boys to pirates who fly ships across the sky.
Wait, what?
Peter and some of the boys are kidnapped by Blackbeard where they are forced to mine fairy dust and fight for their survival. But Peter still wants his mother, and his new buddy James Hook wants to go home, so why not work together?
Just when they're ready to take off though, Tiger Lily shows up spewing nonsense about a chosen one, a savior, someone called the Pan. And she's pretty sure Peter is it.
So is Blackbeard, and he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Word of Warning

• As mentioned above, Peter and the other boys live in a sad orphanage with a cruel nun character who is fat and ugly and basically a tyrant. She also sells the boys to pirates. She's just an all-around nasty character.
• As with any orphanage, there are abandoned children.
• The characters are not all together good, even though we're to believe they're on the good side. They break into places, steal, and do general mischief.
• The PG rating comes from fantasy action violence and thematic material. We see scenes where characters fall to their deaths, bombs are dropped (on England and on pirate ships), characters are nearly crushed by a falling metal car, there is an animated war scene (shown as historical of Neverland), an animated battle scene shows a woman made of bubbles being stabbed and dying, a man looks possessed when attacked by fairies (and quite honestly, attacking fairies are rather fierce), and so on.
• The mermaids apparently do not even wear shells. Their hair covers what is absolutely necessary. Tiger Lily wears a bandeau style shirt for significantly long parts of the movie. 
• There is a light, somewhat playful, romance that never amounts to anything physical (not even a hug).
• Blackbeard is using fairy dust to stay young forever. This can be (and should be) disturbing.
• An old man is shot and killed. Other characters die as well, though some of these deaths are meant to be comical.
• Brief mention of suicide, not as an action to take, but rather as a caution.
• The animals of Neverland are creepy and dangerous.

My Thoughts
If you're looking for something accurate to the original Peter Pan stories by J. M. Barrie, this isn't it. It's much closer to the original feel than, say, Hook starring Robin Williams and a grown up Peter Pan (wait, isn't that a contradiction?). However, there is much focus on family, knowing where one comes from, and heroism for the sake of doing the right thing. This is very much not the vibe of the original book.

But if you're looking for a well done movie with little known actors who are incredibly skilled, a fun fantasy adventure romp, this is a great option. I enjoyed it in theaters, and I enjoyed it again while watching it for research. It proposes some interesting questions, and I'd like to see how it is connected, eventually, to the original Peter Pan. By the end of the movie, you get the feeling this is the first half of a prequel to Peter Pan. I'd like to see where it goes from here.
And even if it goes nowhere, it's still a good, well done movie worth watching and enjoying.

Book Review: Matilda

Title: Matilda
Author: Roald Dahl
Release Date: 1988? (hard to tell)
Genre: adventure, comedy, children's fiction, British literature, school
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: Children's literature
Age Group: 8+ (will probably require some discussion, not a read-alone book for this age)

Summary: Matilda is a very special little girl. She taught herself to read. She knows her times tables. She completely blows away her first year teacher.
Of course, her parents think she's stupid. But then again, they're not much better. Her father is a swindler, and her mother's goal in life seems to be to watch her programmes on TV. Her brother...well he doesn't even merit mentioning, aside from saying that her father seems to think the lad is very bright and has a future in the car selling business.
School, then, should be a safe haven for Matilda to really grow. It's not. With Miss Trunchbull as the headmistress, no child is safe at school. I mean that in a very literal sense. They get throw out windows and hung by their ears. Miss Trunchbull is a very mean woman.
When Matilda sees what Trunchbull does to the other children, and her beloved teacher Miss Honey, the little girl sets her brilliant mind to finding a solution and saving the school. Can she do it?

Word of Warning

•  Understand that this is classic Roald Dahl. He has a very British sense of humor (snarky, slightly rude/crude). This particular book is full of great insults. None bad words (so far as I know, given my limited knowledge of British English), but some real whoppers, nonetheless.
• Violence. Children are beaten, hung by their ears, and forced to do miserable things (eating a whole cake, standing in the Chokey (a torture device), and slapped about). This is cartoonish in terms of rules of the universe, which means everyone is fine and not injured, but it can still be rather concerning.
• Matilda is a completely independent child it seems like. She is not even five years old at the beginning of the book. She goes to the library and reads numerous mature books. She goes off to her teacher's house. She decides to live with her teacher (this, for some reason, requires the consent of her parents).
• Matilda's parents are stupid, and portrayed as such, and she likes to "punish" them for their stupidity by playing pranks on them.
• There seems to be a huge role reversal here with Matilda being the "parent" and her parents being the "children".
• It is implied that a man was killed by his sister-in-law.
• A trick is played in which it is pretended that a man (who is dead) writes a message on a blackboard to his implied killer.
• Roald Dahl tends to have a rather snarky slightly negative view of children, but in a more playful way than, say, Augustine's description of babies, or Barrie's description of children as happy, fun, and heartless. Still, one of the harsher words he uses to describe children is "scab" (something to be picked off as soon as possible).

My Thoughts
My first inclination as I was reading this book was to smile a bit and shake my head. Then I laughed a few times. Then I winced while laughing. Then I wondered what the target audience was, since it was getting pretty intense.
Overall, it was a fun book. Roald Dahl can be a bit crude at times when it comes to his language and stories, but he's still good entertainment, and Matilda is no exception.

Book Review: The Five Children and It

Title: The Five Children and It
Author: E. Nesbit
Release Date: 1902
Genre: children's literature, fantasy, adventure, family
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: Children's Fiction
Age Group: 4+ (good read aloud)

Summary:
While on holiday in their country house, five siblings decide to go exploring the gravel pit (going to it by the safe route). There, they find It. It is a Psammead (say: Sammy-add), or a Sand-Fairy. The Sand-Fairy is crabby and old and looks sort of like a furry monkey with snail eyes. If It's appearance is not enough for you, perhaps the fact that It can grant wishes will catch your interest. Yes, It can give you anything you desire, but whatever you wish is, it will turn to stone (or disappear) at sunset.
The kids try all sorts of things. They try for fun, they try for good things for their mother, and a lot of the time their tendency to say "I wish such-and-such" in everyday speech gets them things they never really wanted.
And what if you accidentally wish that everyone wanted your little baby brother? Or to live in a besieged castle? What then?

Word of Warning
There is very little here to warn about, which is why it makes such a good read aloud book for the family. I will say that even when things appear to be dangerous and the children in the book are worried, the reader never has that moment of panic and "are they going to make it this time?!" that other books can supply. It's not urgent, not scary, and more of a fun romp that offers instead the question of, "how will they wiggle out of this one?"

• The kids are normal siblings. They clearly love each other, but they don't always get along.
• There is a rather disrespectful representation of Native Americans. Not inappropriate, but rude. The same can be said for a band of gypsies.
• Speaking of rudeness, while the children never swear, they are not above tossing out an insulting comment now and then to each other.
• Kidnapping.
• The kids are not always big fans of having to bring their baby brother with them.
• It has been proposed that the representation of girls and boys in this book is lopsided and slightly sexist. I honestly see it more as little children just being little children, but it does merit at least mentioning.
• The narrator is different from our usual American children's literature. This can be challenging for the readers to handle sometimes.
• The children never learn their lesson. It feels like they just might, but then they don't, and they wake up in the morning and repeat the whole ordeal all over again.

My Thoughts
 It's fun. It's British. It's cute. It's a romp.
There are no obvious lessons or morals (though some are debated). This is not a preaching book. It's really just a fun adventure with British children as they enjoy their summer home. This is a fast read, and one you probably do not want to miss out on, especially if you have the opportunity to read it aloud to a younger audience.

Fun Facts

• E. Nesbit was a rather controversial figure and would be considered so even now, let alone during her own life time. She preferred to write adult fiction, but her children's fiction sold better. Strangely enough, she wasn't a big fan of children.
• The book was published as a serial novel in The Strand. This might be why it feels so episodic, to the point where you could reorder the chapters and have very little difficulty understanding the story.
• Over the years, this book has been offered numerous sequels from many different authors. It was a huge hit in England and has shaped many aspects of children's fiction for a very long time. C. S. Lewis writes about how she influenced his Narnia series. There are also many film adaptions.
• Since its publication in 1902, it has never been out of print.
• Nesbit also wrote the children's classics The Railway Children and The Treasure Seekers.

Book Review: The Club of Queer Trades

Title: The Club of Queer Trades
Author: G. K. Chesterton
Release Date: 1905 (pre-conversion)

Genre: mystery, adventure, humor, morals
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: fiction (adult)
Age Group: 12+
Students' Rating: "confusing but funny"

Summary
A collection of G. K. Chesterton's writings about Basil Grant, this novel is more episodic than the classic novel we are used to. It revolves around men belonging to the Club of Queer Trades, where one must create an entirely new way of earning an honest living in a way that has never been done before. Basil Grant, likely a precursor to Fr. Brown, left his job as judge long ago, apparently having gone crazy. Now, he wanders about England with his brother Rupert (a mockery of Sherlock Holmes) solving apparent mysteries that, well, aren't nearly as mysterious and criminal as they appear.
 
Word of Warning

• Mention of opium
• Mention of adventures that involve going to different countries and killing animals for sport
• Fist fights
• Apparent danger, prisoners
• Some slightly immoral businesses. Not immoral along the lines of inappropriate, but immoral as in not morally right.
• There are lots of things that simply have to be interpreted a different way for them to be understood as not crimes but merely interesting ways of living.
• Basil is a mystic and stargazer (among other random things)
• Characters smoke

My Thoughts
Think the beginnings of Fr. Brown and Manalive. It's got enough misunderstandings, moral and philosophical murmurings, quirky characters, ramblings, bashing of others' ideas and authors (Darwinism, Doyle, etc), and Chestertonian-ness to be amusing and full of insights. These are fun little capers that are just quirky enough to keep you smiling and reading. Sure, there's a lot going on, and it's not the best of Chesterton's writings, and it doesn't hold together well. But it's still a fun read that can be thought provoking.
At the very least, it's very, very interesting to watch what new methods of work/income GKC can come up with. There really is no end to this guy's imagination.

Book Review: Chasing Shadows

*******MATURE CONTENT WARNING *******

Title: Chasing Shadows
Author: Swati Avasthi (pro SWA-thee of-US-thee), graphics by Craig Phillips
Release Date: 2013
Genre: grief, pain, death, friendship, romance, violence, crime, family, mental health, Hindu, graphic novel
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: Young Adult Fiction
Age Group: 18+
Awards: Junior Library Guild Selection, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Star, Library Journal, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults 2014, YALSA Outstanding Books for College Bound 2014, Bank Street Best Children's Books 2014

Summary
"Madness is the emergency exit" --Alan Moore, The Killing Joke
So begins Ms. Avasthi's book, and rather accurately I might add.

The book follows the experiences of Savirtri and her best friend Holly Paxton. Corey, Holly's twin brother and Savirtri's boyfriend, is shot and killed in an act of violence the two girls struggle to understand. Sav tries to convince herself she is not to blame for his death, that her hesitation of forty-seven seconds before running to his car did not cause him to bleed out. Holly, also injured in the attack, falls into a coma where she meets Kortha, the ruler of the Shadowlands where Corey is being kept. If she can find his killer, she may be able to get Corey back.
With Holly drawing further and further from reality, and Sav unable to face her own grief while she is trying to help her best friend, things begin to fall apart.

And Corey? Well, "'Corey made a choice.' His [Mr. Paxton's] voice gets thick. 'He was a good brother. A good man. You have to honor that.'"
Corey took a bullet for his twin sister. Then he died for her.
Can Holly face that reality? Can Sav?


Word of Warning

• The beginning can get a little graphic with the shooting as one character tries to stop the injured from bleeding out. 
• Holly and her boyfriend were sexually involved. At one point, she was afraid she had become pregnant. He finds out and insinuates that it might not be his kid, basically feeding her to the wolves at high school.
• At one point Holly goes to visit him and tries to seduce him to distract herself from her grief. She removes her shirt and has his pants unzipped before he completely turns her down.
•  It's not clear whether Sav and Corey were also sexually intimate. At one point she reveals she wanted to wait, and he accepted that without argument. Still, there are times where she remembers sneaking into his bedroom at night and sleeping next to him.
• Characters kiss.
• Parents fight.
• A girl drugs another girl.
• A character is shot and killed. Another character is injured and in a coma.
• Characters deal with grief in a very raw way that can be painful to read about.
• The main characters in this book are freerunners. That means they're often off running, jumping, and flipping off various things.
• Theft of a police file by multiple characters, then later theft of a gun.
• One character becomes obsessed with a false reality in which a man wants her to kill someone, or touch a killer, in order to save another.
• A character hears voices. This character also stubbornly resists any help in the grieving process, shutting everyone out one by one.
• Gangs are mentioned and initiation (either killing someone and cutting off a lock of hair, or standing without resisting while being beaten) is as well.
• The Chicago police are referred to as the biggest gang in Chicago.
• Racist comments like implying that the police are going to be particularly upset if a black gang kills a rich white kid.
• Lying to the police.
• A character almost kills another character.
• Parents in general fail in this novel. They shut their children out, or force them to do things, or berate their friendship choices, or a multitude of other things. Yes, they are grieving too, but they just fail over and over and over and their efforts not to are nearly nonexistent, making it very hard to forgive them.

The Good

• Josh, Holly's ex-boyfriend, makes a huge turnaround. He's nothing of the huge jerk that he was made out to be. He steps up and is there when Sav needs a friend to turn to in her grief and even tries to help Holly as well. While he might've been an awful person in the past, when Holly comes to him for distraction he turns her down and will not relent, not even when she starts shouting at him and leaves in an angry huff. He eventually becomes one of my favorite characters.
• Corey. For all his mistakes, he was a good supportive boyfriend and a good brother. His father's description of him as a "Good brother. A good man" seems pretty accurate, even with all his faults. It almost brings tears to the reader's eyes when it is revealed that he leaned across his sister and took the deadly bullet--for her.
• The way this novel is written. It is careful and well-done, dealing with a difficult subject in an honest and raw way. It may slip up at times, but I have to give the author credit for her bold move in doing what she did.

My Thoughts
A mishmash of two first person narrators, words, and panels that appear to be taken from a graphic novel, used when words seem to fail, this book is truly one of the strangest things I have ever read.
But it was addicting. I couldn't put it down. I also couldn't stop myself from becoming emotionally attached to characters who are so unlike me it might be hard to find anyone further away.

It was a hard read. Not in the sense of language or structure or anything else we associate with "hard read" when we think of the classics.
No, this was just hard to swallow. Hard to get through. Hard to watch.

Because even though this was words, mostly, that's what I was doing: watching. Watching Holly slowly lose her mind and lock everyone out. Watching Sav struggle to figure out whether she should go along with Holly or stand in front of her and stop her. Watching Corey die, seeing little glimpses into his character even after he was dead. Watching the parents struggle, the police unable to find the criminal, watching. Watching.
Watching.

Sometimes I wanted to yell at the book and the characters. A few times I smacked the pages with an open palm in frustration.

And that is skill. A writer who can cause that kind of emotional response from someone who has read far more books than she's willing to admit, well, sometimes that's more difficult than it ought to be.
It has its problems, yes. Some are unforgivable, sure. They make it inappropriate for young readers, of course. The topic itself even narrows the audience.
But for all that, this is still skill.
And I respect that.

Book Review: The Bees

Title: The Bees
Author: Laline Paull
Release Date: 2015
Genre: fiction, biology...I'm really not sure what to call this one
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: adult fiction
Age Group: 18+
Awards: Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction (Shortlisted)

Summary

Flora 717 is born into her hive just as every other Flora is born--she climbs out of a cell, shakes herself dry, and is ready to work. Just like all the other bees.
Except Flora is, well a Flora. That means she's at the bottom of the bee-list. She's a cleaner of the hive. But a Sage decides to try an experiment and moves Flora up to the nursery where the young bee learns to tend to the babies.
That was a big mistake.
Flora gets smart. She learns how to blend in with any of her sisters, the Sage (priestesses), the foragers, and butting heads with the Teasel. Plus, she befriends a Drone, the most disgusting and self-absorbed member of the hive.
Yes, Flora is dangerously resourceful--and she's a mutant. But one day her ability to move from class to class becomes a real threat. One day, she falls in love with motherhood.
And one day, she realizes something horrible: the Queen is sick.

Word of Warning

• This book is incredibly brutal. Bees and wasps are torn apart and murdered in various ways. Spiders prey upon the bees and suck their lives from them. It's the brutal reality of the animal world like we've never seen it before. The violence is not glorified, and is treated appropriately, but can be disturbing.
• The Drones. They're disgusting and self-centered and just, yuck. Their sole desire is to mate with a Queen (and once they do so, they die). We get a rather stark description of this processes. It's detailed and graphic but strangely non-sexual. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the way the material is treated is more factual and scientific than anything else. It's weird and disturbing to remove romance and anything beautiful from that kind if intimacy. I think that's what bothered me most about this discussion. I realize these are animals, so of course you have to remove that, but I hadn't realized how messed up it sounds.
• The Sisters' (bees) religion kept reminding me over and over of a Pagan/misunderstanding of Catholicism mashup. I never could pin down if the author was trying to mock Catholicism or not. The Sisters have ranks, priestesses, a library with books in it that they revere, and a Queen Mother that they worship above all else. They gather for Devotion once a day and their prayers sometimes sound similar to the Hail Mary prayer. It was really disconcerting.

My Thoughts

Wow. Having grown up enchanted by creepy crawlies and other creatures, I knew pretty much all the factual information in this book. But there is a huge difference between knowing the facts and seeing them in action. I'd never really thought of these facts in the form of a story--at least, not realistically.

Life in the hive is confusing and full of blind followers. It's brutal. It's disgusting.

But it's the life of a bee.

And I honestly enjoyed this book. I found it hard to put down. The writing style was haunting and the story was stunning.

Wow. That's just about all I have to say about this one.

And yes, that may be a purposeful paraphrase of Mr. Slinger in Kevin Henkes' Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse. Because I do enjoy a good picture book, and I have my childhood favorites that I will never forget. Like The Poky Little Puppy.

Movie Review: Tomorrow, When the War Began

Title: Tomorrow, When the War Began
Author: Caitlin Stasey (Lady Kenna in Reign series), Rachel Hurd-Wood, Lincoln Lewis, etc. Basically people I recognized by face, but not name. All with awesome Australian accents.
Release Date: 2010
Genre: war, drama, romance, coming of age, action, adventure, survival
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: R (according to IMDb, but that seems a little high, which is odd given MPAA ratings tend to be too low in my opinion); proposed rating: PG-13
Age Group: 16+ (could be 14+ if not for mention of teens having sex)

Summary
Seven unlikely friends go camping in the beautiful wilderness of their native Australia. Two best friends from childhood, a boyfriend, the rich (but sweet) girl, the town trouble-maker, the boy whose family owns a restaurant, and a church girl (because the parents wanted 8 to go, but they decided 7 would be fine as long as one was a church girl--keep them all in line and whatnot).
They're having a great time on their last big hurray before graduation and moving on to bigger responsibilities. Sure, there are deadly snakes and they have to hunt rabbits, but really, small price to pay for such a great adventure.
Then they go home. And no one is there. The kids eventually learn Australia has been invaded and everyone has been rounded up into camps. Trying to avoid being killed themselves, the kids flee back to their campsite, bringing along yet another unlikely member (a sweet guy who smokes pot).
Guilt eats at them. Finally, they decide to wage guerrilla warfare on the enemy until help comes.

Word of Warning

As noted above, I find the MPAA rating a little high. Granted, I advised the movie not be watched by anyone younger than 16 (mainly because of my first bullet point below), but I am used to MPAA ratings being a bit young. What I see in this movie is horrible, yes, because it is war, but not what I've seen in the very few R rated movies I've seen.

•  Two girls at the beginning of the movie talk about sex. There is nothing graphic. One girl says she and her boyfriend did it, and the other girl responds. Both seem excited, and nothing negative is said.
• Clothing. Low cut shirts, short shorts, and a girl wearing a bikini (a guy ogles her unashamedly).
• Kissing. The couple mentioned above is seen kissing a few times. One girl says she kissed a member of the group and claims he is "a really good kisser." Another kiss is shown that starts to get passionate (and, quite honestly, is grossly loud with headphones on).
• Injuries. One kid gets shot in the leg (we don't see it, only blood, and the healing is fast). A girl cuts her leg pretty badly. One kid is shot in the abdomen and is rushed to a hospital (that is the last we see of this character). A person is shot through the head, scene is a far-off shot but still very disturbing.
• This is war. There are guns, people get shot at (and hit sometimes), buildings are bombed, and things blow up. The kids barely escape more than once.
• In a heartbreaking scene the most innocent of the group mows down three enemy soldiers with a semi-automatic to save other members of the group.
• One character lights a stick on fire and causes an explosion that lights several enemy soldiers on fire. We see one soldier in a close-up, her face melted, and she presumably dies. The character who caused the explosion rightfully has a very hard time getting over this.
• A dead dog is shown, eye clouded, flies buzzing about. I realize in the grand scheme of this movie, this really isn't a big deal. But the scene is disturbing and startling based on where it is put in the movie.
• A car chase involving a garbage truck and two to three little zippy cars (no clue what to call them). Cars blow up and flip and the chase is rather harrowing. It's also a good point, because really, a garbage truck and speedy car chase?
• One character smokes pot. In one scene he talks about being stoned, but he's clearly still high.
• Kids lie to their parents, particularly a religious figure.
• Language. I didn't write down the words or the numbers. I hadn't even intended to review the movie originally. Basically, if you deem the other stuff in this list appropriate, the language content should be fine too.

My Thoughts
The movie took a little while to get anywhere, which frustrated me. Then again, they were dealing with seven (then eight) characters, so I can understand why it took a little while to establish any character development. When it does come, I appreciated the raw look at killing and how it changes the soul. The poor teens propose different views of this but ultimately cannot come to a conclusion: only that it seems to be necessary given the circumstances, and that it's awful. Who gets to decide who dies? Why is one person's life more valuable than another? Good moral questions, and the movie does not shy away from them.
My biggest objection (aside from the completely unnecessary mention of sexual intimacy at the beginning, and the apparent glorification of it) is the ending.
Which simply isn't.
I realize this is a movie based on a book series by John Marsden, and this is probably how the first book ended. But still. If you watch it, you'll see what I mean. However, don't avoid the movie just because of the dissatisfying ending.

Fun Quote:
"That a good book?"
"Yes. Better than the movie."
"Books always are."

Movie Review: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Title: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Author: Starring Chris Pine and Keira Knightley
Release Date: 2014
Genre: action, drama, romance, war, thriller
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: PG-13
Age Group: 14+

Summary
After a horrific accident in a helicopter, Jack Ryan works for the CIA undercover. He has possibly one of the most boring jobs out there: watching numbers on a screen. But one day those numbers show something frightening, and Ryan reports to his boss. Who promptly tells him to go to Moscow and fix the problem.
Now, Ryan's not supposed to be an agent in the field, but he's the only one who really knows what the data says or what he's looking for. Plus, this mission should really just involve looking at a few accounts and coming home.
Yeah, no. That never happens in these kinds of movies. And while we're at it, let's throw in a girlfriend who thinks Ryan is cheating on her because he's suddenly keeping things from her, and a surprise trip by this girlfriend to join Ryan in Moscow.
Things can't get much worse, can they?
Oh yes, they can.

Word of Warning

• The helicopter is hit by what looks to be an RPG. This seriously injures Ryan and those inside, and we see Ryan on a stretcher, skin singed, two broken vertebra and in serious pain.
• An unmarried couple living together and presumably having sex. A few kisses, more desperate (since people are almost dying) than passionate.
• A man pretends to be drunk and insults his fiance. This might not merit being mentioned, but it was just really sad and horrible to see how he treated her verbally.
• People die. A lot. A man drowns, others are shot, and Ryan barely escapes with his life more than once. There is mention of torture (waterboarding and others), specifically that of inserting a lightbulb into a young woman's mouth with the intention of breaking said bulb while it is in her mouth. One man likes to kill people with a metal sheers (like the one you use to sheer sheep). While silent and not very gory, there's something very disturbing about this.
• Guns. Jumping off crazy heights. Car chases. Car crashes. A bomb. Basically, all that you would expect from this genre.
• Language? I don't remember it being a big deal, but I know there was some in the movie.
• The end of the movie is the death of a main character. It is silent, with classical music playing in the background, and not dramatic, but heartbreaking.

My Thoughts
Well, that was good. I love a good action movie, far more than I like other genres, and on a Sunday afternoon this one did not disappoint. I don't think I'd watch it again, but action movies in general are not very enjoyable to re-watch. I also don't regret watching it. It was relatively clean and not very gory, intelligent in its premise, but with enough action to do what every good action movie does: make you think the movie is over a good hour before it is. Because you're so sure that's the climax, and then it's not, so that must be it, but that's not it either and so on.
Basically, it was good. I appreciated that the language wasn't a big issue and that, compared to other movies in this genre, the content wasn't too bad.
I'm rambling, and I know that. That's because I liked the movie, but it doesn't stand out enough for me to say, "This is the most amazing movie I've watched!" nor does to say "I really regret wasting my time on this."
So there you have it. It was good. It wasn't the best, or the worst. It just fell in a nice place somewhere in the midle.

Movie Review: The Prince

Title: The Prince
Release Date: 2014
Genre: action, thriller
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: R for violence, drug content, and language
Age Group: 18+
Summary
Paul is just a simple mechanic who loves his daughter very dearly. When Beth goes missing from college, instead of calling the police (since they will claim she is just a runaway teen), he sets off to find her himself. The road leads him back to his past where he must face the horrible reality of what he had done. Old enemies raise their heads and threaten to kill Paul's daughter, and Paul is only human.
Or is he?
The Romans tried to conquer Scotland but discovered a people so crazed they built a wall and let the Scottish live their lives unhindered. The people of a city down south saw Paul as a Scot, a wild one it would be a bad idea to fight, and called him the Prince.
Or so they say.

Word of Warning
I did not keep a list for this one since I did not plan on doing a review. Since this is an R rated movie, the list would have been too extensive anyway and I would have summerized, so I suppose this was a good movie to forget to take notes on. Interestingly enough, the official rating hits on the problems of this movie, just not with much detail.

• Violence. There is a lot of violence, though hardly any of it is graphic. A scene in which a woman and her daughter are in a car which blows up is shown multiple times. People are shot and die, some more dramatically than others. There are one or two car crashes. A lot of people die senselessly. A man is shot (not seriously) and stitches up his own wound while the camera watches closely. A man retells a story in which he had a gun to his head and nearly died, but did not. He later finds out the only thing that saved him in this theater shooting was the assassin running out of amo.
• Drugs. The whole movie centers around a girl who gets into drugs and a father who goes to save her. We see the girl rarely, but drugs are mentioned often and are never glorified by the good characters (and, interestingly enough, even the bad). The climax involves a man going into a house full of people who are taking drugs. Many of them are high. Beth is also shown on drugs and looks very sick and hardly aware of what is happening around her.
• Language. The f-word is used so frequently I would have lost track even if I had been counting. I do not remember vividly any other words, but I would not be surprised if they are in there.
• Sexuality. Women are shown pole dancing in a club in a very sensual scene. A man is shown shirtless. A younger woman approaches a man who could be her father in a sexual way, high on drugs, but he pushes her away, disgusted but gentle. Low cut shirts, short shorts and skirts, etc. It is implied that Beth's friend was planning to go home for the night with a man at the bar. Lots of sensual flirting.
• Drinking. Beth's friend gets drunk often and when she is first shown she openly admits that she is drunk. Men drink all the time. Multiple bars are shown where people are drinking and are often drunk.

My Thoughts
What to say? I just made this movie sound very unattractive, but in truth I do not regret spending my time watching it. I might regret it during the school year, but not on 4th of July weekend.
And now I step back and wonder why I did not regret watching a movie with so many problems in it.
It was because of the father. The father has horrible secrets from a horrible past life, but he comes off as a normal concerned father who loves his daughter very deeply. He does not look intimidating, does not have a deep scary voice, nothing implies that he should be associated with gangs and drugs and guns.
Flashbacks do. But his character does not. His actions sometimes do, but there is a strange disconnect between the actions he must take to save his daughter and who he really is. It's like he is still capable of that but he no longer is that.
I think I liked it for the disconnect, and the fatherly love. Because nothing quite gets me like a story where a father is shown being a real father (not a Disney father who was allowed to live)--especially for a teen son or daughter.

TV Show Review: Terra Nova

(Please note that while I will not be reviewing specific episodes, I will be commenting on the specific trends that most of the episodes followed.)

Title: Terra Nova
Release Date: 2011
Genre: family, survival, dystopia, romance, TV series
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: N/A
Age Group: 12+

Summary
The Shannon family lives in a horrible dystopian Chicago in which there is a 2 child policy and air so thick masks are worn to keep from suffocating. But as the Shannons tell their youngest, they love each other and their children so much they wanted another. So they broke the law, and their third child Zoe lived happily with them for a few years before they were found out. Then, the father was thrown in prison, separated from his beloved family.
Then Mrs (Dr) Shannon receives an offer for a new life. She and her family can travel into the past through a time machine where an outpost (Terra Nova) has been set up to give people a second chance. She takes it. Only problem is that Mr. Shannon can't come. But the family always beats the odds, and Mr. Shannon escapes from prison and sneaks his youngest through the portal.
That's when the real excitement comes. The Shannons must learn to deal with family problems, giant dinosaurs, school, friends left behind, strange diseases, rebels attacking the outpost, mysterious deaths, and of course boys (and girls) from outside the family.
Can they make it? Will they remain a closely knit family? Will they all live?

Word of Warning

•  There is one episode early in the season in which the parents try over and over to get some time alone in their bedroom. While it's pretty clear to an older audience that they want to have sex (they're married and have been apart for years), it isn't ever stated and they only kiss and embrace. They finally do get their moment, but all we see their shadows as they kiss, then the scene cuts. It's actually a rather sweet and cute storyline, but could be seen as a problem.
• Dinosaurs kill people. In terrible ways. There is a good amount of gore in this show.
• People steal and sneak out when they're not supposed to and teens drink concoctions that are equivalent to being alcoholic.
• There are traitors and crazy people and a storyline eventually surfaces that shows how a father alienated his son.
• Blackmail.
• Kissing between married and unmarried couples.
• Death happens all the time. People's close family members die, members of Terra Nova die, people just die. Sometimes main characters cause this. Sometimes it isn't right, sometimes it's the only option.

My Thoughts

Part of me feels that I have forgotten something. But then I remember that all things considered it was a relatively clean TV show, which really impressed me. Aside from the gore, it wasn't so bad. The story was interesting, and as with all TV shows just when you're ready to stop watching because you realized the plot is the same for every episode, it gets more interesting and a twist is added.
And then, after working out that twist, another twist was thrown in, and the show as canceled. So there's that.
The reason I watched it though was not for the twists or the story. Honestly, I am very tired of dystopian anything. I watched it because it was mostly clean and it was about a family. It was sweet, watching the father bond again with his teen son as they learned how to understand each other again. Watching the father protect his family and decide what to do about his oldest daughter's love interest. Watching the mother interact with her children and her husband. Watching all of them interact with each other. There was self-sacrifice, love, fighting, forgiveness, suffering, fear...everything a normal family encounters.
In a dystopian universe where the characters travel back in time. And yes, I am still battling with whether or not traveling back in time counters the point of the dystopian genre.

My only problem (aside from the gore) is that this was not continued. I really fell in love with the family. Not one character and not the plot line. It was the family.

Movie Review: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Title: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Release Date: 2014
Genre: family, comedy
Author: Disney
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: PG for rude humor including reckless behavior and language
Age Group: 12+ (I would like to say 8+ because that seems to be the target audience, but the content doesn't fit in that category)

Summary
Poor Alex has a tough life. Things just never go his way. The girl he likes thinks he's crazy, someone schedules a birthday party the same day of his, and he sets the school lab on fire. That's only the beginning, but multiply it by ten and you might get the idea.
Alex has a great family. They all love each other. But they just don't understand what it's like to have an awful day. In fact, their lives and days work out so well that Alex feels left out.
So in the middle of the night, celebrating by himself with a cupcake and the school Guinea pig, Alex makes a wish: that everyone would know what it's like to be him and have an awful day.
Oops. When he wakes up, Alex's seems to have come true. Alex feels bad and tries hard to help his family avert disaster, but one thing leads to another, and the day spirals into a black hole of awful.
What's a family to do when nothing goes right?

Word of Warning
 Note: I was pretty disappointed with some of the content. For the most part, they were funny and almost innocent jokes. But then there were the other ones that made me wish my younger siblings weren't sitting there. Made me wonder how much they were picking up on. It wasn't comfortable.

• Alex starts the movie by saying his parents are wrong
• A girl pukes three different times during the movie
• Slow motion of a 12 year old girl
• Term "sexist" is used out of context
• Character has a shirt that is too low in the front
• We see briefly pictures of models in bikinis and other tight short clothing
• 12 year old boys use the word "boobs"
• The term "Faummy" which means "father-mommy" which sounds sweet at first. But then it makes you wonder: why isn't father enough? Why must a father, who is someone who looks after his children, be seen as playing the mommy's role when he changes the baby's diaper or drives the kids to school?
• We see a little kid on a potty (no detail)
• Kid starts a fire in the science classroom (no one is hurt)
• A man sticks his hand in the garbage disposal to pull something out. Nothing happens, but this is a very bad idea in real life
• The kids are rude to their parents and, for the most part, the parents do not scold them
• "Hot" in reference to a girl
• Alex complains that another kid sent "butt thong" pictures to the whole school (these were Photoshopped, but the point here is the term)
• Parents kiss briefly twice
• Naked baby bottom more than once. also, the baby pees on the kitchen floor and later in the sink.
• Mother stubs her toe on the door and mutters "motherhood" in a tone that suggests she wanted to say something very different. My objection here is choosing to say such a beautiful word in such a tone.
• Mother walks in on teenage son in the shower (he is, presumably, completely undressed)
• Mother says, "I have seen every penis in this car" when she is in the car with her three sons and their father
• When talking about a classmate having chicken pox, a kid says that the spots are everywhere, even "in his butt crack."
• Near disaster/car crashes avoided, more comical than scary
• Anthony has apparently been waiting all year to "make out" with his girlfriend in the car. "Make out" isn't defined, but the parents respond by saying they didn't want to know that and leave it at that
• A girl guzzles cough syrup and it makes her high (more or less)
• Father's sleeves catch on fire (he's fine)
• Alligator in the house
• Male strippers were accidentally hired for a kid's birthday party. Luckily, disaster is averted and the men are told to keep it PG. The parents find this mistake amusing and are glad they caught it in time. The kids don't even know.

My Thoughts

It was funny--kind of. This may sound like an odd critique, but the laughs were short lived. They weren't those deep from-your-belly laughs that leave you sore and exhausted and feeling good after a movie. Not the kind that, if someone were to quite that line from the movie, would cause you to laugh when you remembered how funny it was. They were in-the-moment funny. Which is fine, but not satisfying, and not what I expect from a comedy.

Also, the parents weren't parents. As in, even though they ran the house and worked jobs and all of that, they tended to interact with their kids more on a buddy-buddy level. This was evident when Alex reveals Anthony has been waiting all year to make out with his girlfriend. Instead of speaking to Anthony about this, the parents just shrug it off and say with a little shudder, "I didn't need to know that." What? That's not what a parent is supposed to do, is it?

The movie did have some good points, however. The family dynamics were not the classic bickering family you see in shows like this. (Indeed, "show" is what it felt like. An episode from a TV show, not a well-thought out movie.) The family members really did support each other, and the teen characters were not your typical selfish creeps. Anthony does what he can to keep his girlfriend happy but eventually *SPOILER* breaks up with her to be with his family. They all ban together to create a really awesome birthday party for Alex. They don't want to tear each others' throats out, they want to help each other out. In addition to family dynamics, or maybe in elaboration of, the father sees his role as to protect everyone from harm and bad days. Which is, I think, a revelation of a great truth movies like this often neglect to point out.

I don't regret watching it. But I watched it on break with a week ahead of me. I wouldn't watch it again. I did laugh. Some parts made me squirm. Some parts made me smile.
Three stars seems about right.