The Giver

The Giver

Lois Lowry

Originally published in 1993, winner of the 1994 Newbery Medal

Laurel Leaf, 2002

$6.99, Paperback

978-0440237686

April 30^th, 2012

Genre: Science Fiction

Age: 12+

Description: Jonas is an 11-year-old boy anxious about his upcoming Ceremony of 12 where he will be given his Assignment—the job he will perform for his community. One day, Jonas’s father, a nurturer, brings home Gabe, a newchild who needs extra “nurturing.” While playing catch with his friend, Asher, Jonas sees an apple “change” in mid-air but thinks nothing of it. Meanwhile, Jonas spends some volunteer hours with the House of the Old, where old people are sent to await their Release. Jonas also participates in a number of community rituals, such as talking about his dreams and his day, and his first experience of “Stirrings.” Soon the Ceremony of 12 is upon Jonas. He watches all of his friends receive their Assignments while he is passed over. The Chief Elder calls him to the stage because he is not be assigned—“Jonas has been selected.” The previous Receiver of Memory, chosen 10 years ago, failed, so the Elders spent more time in selecting Jonas because he has the qualities needed—intelligence, integrity, courage, wisdom, and the “Capacity to See Beyond.” Jonas’s training is special—he can be rude, he can ask questions and demand answers, he can’t discuss his training, and he doesn’t have to talk about his dreams, but he can’t apply for release from his Assignment. Jonas begins his training with the current receiver, who tells Jonas to call him The Giver. His job is to give Jonas “all the memories . . . of the world”. Jonas soon begins to experience memories of things that the world gave up since it converted to “Sameness,” things such as cold, snow, heat, and sunburn. The Giver soon explains to him the “change” Jonas saw earlier in the apple—it’s the “Capacity to See Beyond.” Jonas is beginning to see in color. His training also involves painful memories, such as hunger and war, but also of happy memories, such as family and love. The Receiver of Memory needs all these in order to advise the Committee of Elders. Meanwhile, Jonas becomes close to Gabe—getting him to sleep by transmitting soothing memories to him. Eventually, The Giver tells Jonas about the previous Receiver who failed—a girl named Rosemary who had five weeks of memories before she went to the Elders and asked for release. Upon her release all those memories went back to the community, which was a very painful ordeal for everyone. One day, Jonas asks to see a release. The Giver orders a recording of Jonas’s father releasing one of a pair of newly born identical twins. Jonas sees the real meaning of the ceremony—“He killed it! My father killed it!” The Giver tries to help him understand his father was just following the rules: “They know nothing.” The Giver believes that things must change and he and Jonas might be able to do it. They secretly plan for Jonas to fake his death. Jonas wants The Giver to come with him, but he tells Jonas he can’t: “When my work here is finished, I want to be with my daughter . . .” Unfortunately, Jonas has to change plans immediately when his father informs him that Gabe is going to be released. Jonas and Gabe travel far away from the community—traveling by night and sleeping by day and staying out of view of search planes. Soon they enter into uncivilized country—Jonas keeps them alive by sharing memories with Gabe. As the boys starve and face harsh conditions, Jonas thinks he might have made the wrong choice, however, “if he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways . . .” At the end of their long journey, they get caught in a snowstorm on top of a hill. He sees a very familiar looking sled and knows what to do with it. He and Gabe slide down the hill and hear music as they approach a new village. The story is later also connected to Gathering Blue and The Messenger. Later this fall, The Son, will be the true sequel (not just companion novel) to The Giver.

Opinion: This is a science fiction story of a future utopian society in which all pain and worrying has been eliminated by a conversion to “Sameness.” The Giver is a Newbery Award-winning novel which addresses issues of individuality and freedom in an isolated community that revolves around the ideal of “Sameness.” The Giver is part of the tradition of dystopian novels in which perfect societies are actually shown as flawed because they regulate intellectual and emotional freedom. Lowry tackled significant social issues of the early 1990s in her novel, such as the anti-abortion versus pro-life controversy and assisted suicide. Lowry’s willingness to write about issues has made The Giver one of the most frequently censored books in school libraries and curricula. It is truly a classic that all tweens and teens should read. (Plus, everyone remembers the cover—it is so iconic. You never forget the creepy old man!)

Bridge to Terabithia (Book & Film)

Bridge to Terabithia

Katherine Paterson

Originally published in 1977, winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal

Harper Teen, 2004

$6.99, Paperback

978-0060734015

April 30^th, 2012

Bridge to Terabithia (film)

Based on the book by Katherine Paterson, Directed by Gabor Csupo

Walt Disney/Walden Media, 2007

Rated PG

April 30^th, 2012

Genre: Realistic

Age: 10+

Description: Jesse Aarons, the only boy in a family of five children, lives in rural southwest Virginia. His mother favors his sisters, while his father is busy with work and doesn’t get to spend much time with the family. May Belle, the second youngest sister, adores and admires Jess. Leslie Burke is an only child who moves to the area. Jess and Leslie soon become close friends. He shares his secret love of drawing with her, and she shares with Jess her love of fantasy stories. The two children create an imaginary kingdom, Terabithia, in the woods near their homes, accessible only by a rope swing over a creek. For Christmas, Leslie gives Jess some paints and Jess gets her a puppy. Jess has a crush on his young music teacher, Miss Edmunds. One day he is asked to accompany Miss Edmunds to the National Gallery of Art. While he’s gone, Leslie goes to Terabithia alone. The rope breaks as she is swinging over the rain-swollen creek and Leslie drowns. Jess is grief stricken and eventually moves on by remembering the strength and courage Leslie gave him. To remember her, he builds a bridge across the creek and takes May Belle there to make her the new Princess of Terabithia.

Opinion: When Katherine Paterson published her Newbery award-wining novel Bridge to Terabithia in 1977, critics said children wouldn’t be able to handle a story about death. When the movie version hit theatres nationwide in 2007, viewers were generally pleased to see an adaptation that remained faithful to Paterson’s story, despite pressures to make huge changes to the plot. Of course, we all know that every time a film company decides to turn a novel into a movie there are chances that some changes, either slight or drastic, will occur. Bridge to Terabithia is no different. Remaining faithful to Paterson’s original story, there are some major similarities and differences for readers and viewers to observe. These include some similarities of plot and some updating to the original story’s setting and characterization and the technical aspects of computer generated imagery to bring Terabithia to life.

The main plot of the movie version stays faithful to the book mainly due in part to the screenplay being written by David Paterson, Katherine Paterson’s son, and since the story was based on something that happened to him as a child it was personally important to him so he did not want to see the book turned into a movie version that didn’t even resemble the original story. In 1974, Lisa Hill, a close friend of David’s, was killed when she was struck by lightning. In an interview David Paterson said, “If you can believe this I did meet with some companies that asked if I could just ‘hurt’ Leslie a little bit—put her in a light coma and then bring her out” (Oleck, 2007, para. 2). The film’s director, Gabor Csupo, fell in love with the story and wanted to take the emotion he saw in the book and successfully translate it to the movie version. Thus, the main similarity between the book and the movie is the representation of Jess and Leslie’s friendship and how Leslie’s death changes Jess’s life.

One of the first differences in the film is the setting of the story. In Paterson’s novel, the original story takes place in the time she wrote it—the 1970s. The movie version has been set forward to more modern times. For example, in the book the narrator describes Lark Creek Elementary as being “short on everything”. In the movie version, the school still looks rural, but the playground is a huge, lovely grass field. In the schoolroom there are many references made to things that didn’t exist in a 1970s room, such as modern computers. Mrs. Myers even tells her students that no electronic devices are allowed in class and that nobody better “download” their papers from the Internet.

A second difference between the book and the film versions involves some minor changes in characterization. One thing most readers will notice automatically is that the physical appearance of Jess and Leslie has been switched. In the book, Jess has “straw-colored hair” while Leslie has “jaggedy brown hair cut close” to her face. In the movie, the children’s hair colors are switched. Also related to the appearance of the characters, Jess, in the book, has a hard time even identifying Leslie’s gender, calling her an “it” at first. In Csupo’s movie, Leslie is clearly a girl from first glance with her bright blonde hair and colorful wardrobe. The children’s clothing also gets an update from a plain 1970s style to a more modern 1990s look. On the first day of school, Paterson describes Leslie as appearing “dressed in the faded cutoffs and the blue undershirt,” which shocks the rest of the class sitting there “dressed in their spring Sunday best”. In the movie, Jess wears modern clothes for school, and Leslie is decked out in bright colors, multiple layers, elbow pads, and a multitude of bracelets and other jewelry.

Unfortunately, a third major difference between the book and the movie versions, which came from a conflict between Paterson and Csupo’s visions and the studio’s vision for the film, lies behind adding CGI to bring to life the imaginary world Jess and Leslie create in Terabithia. Weta Digital conceived the special effects, creating CG creatures and inserting them into the film. Despite the limited amount of CGI actually produced for the film, the effect these added shots had on the press releases prior to the movie’s opening was enormous. While Katherine Paterson left most of the details of Terabithia to the reader's imagination, the film’s media efforts presented its version of Terabithia as the flashy main attraction to the movie. Both Paterson and Csupo believe that the movie’s trailer didn’t represent to potential viewers the real depth of the movie’s plot. The filmmakers even distanced themselves from the advertising campaign saying that the advertising was deliberately misleading and made the film seem to be about or occur solely in a fantasy world. Overall, the added CGI effects to the movie was a necessary step to make the world of Terabithia come alive in front of a movie audiences’ eyes. It was an acceptable change to the movie because something visual needed to be put on the screen unlike the Terabithia of the book which could be whatever a reader’s imagination envisioned it to be.

Despite some CGI effects causing the marketing of the film to appear to be a full-on fantasy story and some slight updates in setting and changes in characterization, the book and film version do have a number of elements that stay faithful to one another. In both versions, Jess is apprehensive at first to Leslie’s attempts at friendship. He is angry at her for winning the relay race, but then he warms up to her when he feels bad that the class teases her for not owning a television. They are both teased by Janice Avery, an eighth grader who is beaten by her father, and later turns out to be a possible friend. Other plot similarities between book and movie include such little things as Jess giving Leslie her dog Prince Terrien, the painting of the “Golden Room”, Leslie going to church with the Aarons family, Miss Edmund taking Jess to the museum, and Leslie’s subsequent death. All of these little similarities move the movie’s plot to its resolution—Jess’s reaction to and acceptance of Leslie’s death—which almost mirrors the book’s plot perfectly.

In both the book and the movie, Jess’s first reaction to Leslie’s death is flat out denial—Leslie can’t drown. Jess runs away to the woods, and in both versions is brought home by his father. The next morning he acts as if nothing happened because he is still in denial. The family goes to Leslie’s wake where a tender moment is shared between Mr. Burke and Jess. One of the last scenes that translated well from book to movie was Jess’s decision to honor Leslie’s memory by building a bridge to Terabithia. It’s moments like these that are touching for both fans of the book to see acted out and for viewers enjoying the film that have no prior knowledge of the story.

Luckily, for most fans of the original Bridge to Terabithia novel, the film version will be a future favorite as well. Fans of the book will be forever grateful that Paterson’s son, David, co-wrote the screenplay while remaining faithful to his mother’s original novel. Despite some modern touches to the setting and characterization and a few minor CGI effects to bring the imagination of Terabithia to life, the movie is an accurate portrayal of the book’s plot due to the fact that the screenwriter and the director believed in the power of Paterson’s original story and didn’t want to change a bit of its powerful message in the transition of the plot from printed page to silver screen. 

References

Oleck, J. (2007). “Bridge to Terabithia” hits the big screen. School Library Journal, 53(2), 20. Retrieved from Wilson Web.

A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet #1)

Madeleine L’Engle

Originally published in 1962, winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal

Square Fish, 2007

$6.99, Paperback

978-0312367541

April 30^th, 2012

Genre: Science Fiction

Age: 10+

Description: Meg Murry is seen as a troublesome student, while her family knows she’s destined for great things. Her parents are great scientists, her father is missing, she has 10-year-old twin brothers (Sandy and Dennys) and a five-year-old younger brother Charles Wallace who happens to be a child genius. Unable to sleep during a thunderstorm one night, Meg leaves her room to find Charles Wallace has already prepared her hot cocoa in the kitchen. Soon they are joined by their mother and are then visited by a new eccentric neighbor, Mrs Whatsit. While chatting, Mrs Whatsit casually mentions a tesseract, which causes Mrs. Murry to almost faint. The next morning, Meg discovers the term refers to a scientific concept her father was working on before his mysterious disappearance. The following afternoon, Meg and Charles Wallace team up with Meg’s schoolmate, Calvin O’Keefe, to go to the home of Mrs Whatsit. There they encounter Mrs Who, who promises that she and her friends will help Meg find and rescue her father. Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which turn out to be supernatural beings that transport the kids through the universe by means of tesseract, something similar to folding the fabric of space and time. Their first stop is the planet Uriel, where they learn that the universe is under attack from an evil being called The Black Thing. They then travel to the dark planet of Camazotz which is entirely dominated by the Black Thing, and is where Meg’s father is trapped. The planet turns out to be controlled by an evil disembodied brain with powerful telepathic abilities, which the inhabitants of call “IT”. To escape, Dr. Murry “tessers” Calvin, Meg, and himself away from Camazotz, but Charles Wallace is left behind, under the influence of IT. The three Ws charge Meg with rescuing Charles Wallace. To help aid her, they each give her gifts. When Meg confronts IT she realizes that the one thing she has that IT does not is love. She focuses all her love at Charles Wallace and is able to free him from IT’s control. Everyone is then reunited.

Opinion: Unfortunately, I’ve read this novel a lot—first in sixth grade and then again over the years for various classroom reasons. I have never liked it. A Wrinkle in Time is a mainly a book about the eternal and universal theme of the battle between good and evil. The lessons the book teach children are mainly shown through the growth of the central character, Meg, an awkward girl who feels she is completely alienated from her normal world. One of the biggest lessons that Meg learns is that conformity is not always the greatest thing in the world and that everyone should want to be different and should appreciate their uniqueness and not take it for granted. At the beginning of the novel, Meg is an awkward teenager finding it hard to fit in anywhere. She complains to her mother about being “an oddball” and how she tries to pretend to be just like everyone else but finds that it doesn’t usually work. Meg soon learns the price of conformity when she sees how it has affected life on the planet Camazotz. Camazotz is the epitome of a world devoid of creativity and individuality—it is Meg’s desire for conformity taken to the extremes. All the residents have to do the same thing as everyone else—there is no room for deviation. The inhabitants of this world have to be in total synchronicity with each other so that there is no room or individual freedom and happiness. Individuality is punished. Only in her argument with the “possessed” Charles does Meg realize that conformity isn’t all that great. He tries to convince her that everyone on the planet loves their lives because nobody suffers and nobody is unhappy because nobody ever has anything to worry about—IT takes care of all that. Meg realizes that Camazotz isn’t a great place because “nobody’s ever happy either”. Everyone just lives the same dull life without a choice for individuality. Only when Meg sees the evil of conformity over the residents of Camazotz does she really begin to appreciate how different she is from everyone else. The book, which is religious in its overtones, is a classic and many tweens and teens will continue to read it throughout the upcoming years. There is, however, a graphic novel version coming out later this year (that is LONG!) that I will read as I think the story could translate to graphic novel format nicely.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Brian Selznick

Scholastic, 2007

$24.99, Hardcover

978-0439813785

April 14^th, 2012

Caldecott Medal

Genre: Historical

Age: 9+

Description: Hugo Cabret is an orphan and a thief. His uncle disappeared a while ago so Hugo has been taking care of the clocks in his busy Paris train station ever since. When he gets caught stealing toys from a toy maker his prized notebook—featuring pictures of an automaton his father was trying to fix before he died—gets snatched and Hugo has to work to get it back. When he and Isabelle, the goddaughter of the toy maker, try to figure out the odd connection between him and the automaton they discover hidden secrets that point to the toy maker being George Melies—a famous filmmaker presumed to be dead and all his films lost. They confront her godparents about it and when Hugo goes to retrieve the automaton he gets caught by the station master who doesn’t believe he is who he says he is. Luckily, everything is sorted out and Hugo goes to live with the Melies. A year later, Georges films are being shown and Hugo is now a magician ready to make his big debut with his own magical automatons.

Opinion: A mix of novel, graphic novel, picture book, and film (it uses real film still images), Hugo is a multi-medium format. While its size is daunting (520 pages) it only took me an hour to read it. I really though it was kind of bland—what is the big deal that everyone says about it? I can see why the movie technically bombed—it would make for a very boring movie. It has a very Dickensian feel to it—a poor street urchin gets taken in by the rich man in the end. The picture element of the book could appeal to reluctant readers or turn them away. 

Harriet the Spy

Harriet the Spy

Louise Fitzhugh

Delacorte, 1964

$15.95, Hardcover

978-0385327831

April 10^th, 2012

Genre: Realistic, School Story

Age: 10+

Description: Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. For a long time, she has written about the many people she spies on in her journal. Her comments are pretty rough—“Pinky Whitehead will never change. Does his mother hate him? If I had him, I’d hate him.” When Harriet looses her notebook and her friends read her comments about them they end up ostracizing her. Harriet finds her life upside down—with Golly gone she is all alone and refuses to stop writing and slacks off in school. Soon she’s faced to go see a shrink and eventually a plan forms to get her back on track.

Opinion: I must admit that I started reading this book and ended up hating the first half and put it aside for about a week. When I went back to it I found out I had only been one page—one page!—away from when Harriet looses her notebook and it was from then on that the story started getting more interesting. I overall really didn’t like this “classic” novel. I understand that it is a classic and I’ve wanted to read it for some time. I can also see how a bunch of people nowadays would complain about the content. Harriet is a very rude girl. Her comments are plain mean and hurtful. She calls a bunch of people fat, calls one girl a future Hitler, and so on. When Harriet’s notebook is found many of the classmates fight fire with fire and in response to Harriet they treat her exactly how she treated them (which isn’t a very nice way to promote dealing with such issues). A lot of what they do to her is actually a lot worse than some nasty comments—they steal her lunch, they spill ink on her on purpose (on her dress and in her dress), and so on. Harriet also doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions—one person she spies on she doesn’t even hesitate to walk into the person’s kitchen and hide in the dumbwaiter to spy on the lady. In the end, the way Harriet gets her friends back is by getting the job as the editor of the school’s sixth grade page and with the idea of putting her writing skills to use. Instead, her articles for the paper are just published versions of her journal comments just not on her classmates. She just now publishes her mean comments as gossip. The nicest thing she writes is a story about the cat man but we don’t even get to see what the story is—we just continue to see the mean stuff. Harriet uses the newspaper to apologize to her friends (as an editorial retraction) but still what do Harriet and her friends really learn? There is no real lesson about not talking bad about other people and no real consequences for everyone’s actions. I find this book disturbing and don’t think it has aged well.