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Saturday, November 26, 2005

Terrifying Bedtime Story!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've likely seen ads or trailers for Disney's upcoming movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It looks like it's going to be great, and the East Grand Forks Mobergs are planning to see it for several reasons:
  • Susan remembers reading, as a youngster, the C.S. Lewis book upon which the movie is based (in fact, she has read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series of seven books);
  • In 1996 Susan and I were in a musical called Narnia, also based on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--I played Aslan the lion, and she played the White Witch; and
  • we have recently been reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with our daughters in anticipation of the movie, to which we hope to take them.

Each night we cuddle up together on the couch or on someone's bed and read another chapter of the novel. The girls know about the musical that Mommy and Daddy were in, and they have heard some of the songs from it, and they have seen ads for the upcoming movie, so they are especially interested in the book. And they're terrific listeners and imaginers--the book has very few illustrations, but they listen carefully and easily picture in their heads the characters, settings, and action. They ask the best questions after we finish each chapter, and they make excellent predictions of what will happen the next night when we read again.

(This imagining and predicting is something too many of my students--juniors and seniors in high school--are not able or willing to do when they themselves read, either having lost the ability over the years or having never developed it as early readers. As a consequence, they often label whatever they're reading "boring," unwilling to expend the mental energy that a reader must in order to interact with the book and make it interesting. Some people speculate that this is a consequence of their having grown up inundated with media that do all the interpreting for them: video games, TV shows, movies, music videos, etc., that show them without ever requiring them to picture things for themselves and that they take in passively without ever having to do much mental work to interact with them. I myself am a big fan of well done movies and TV shows and don't blame them alone for so many students' poor reading. Instead, I think it's a result of never being encouraged or required to read--of being allowed to take in only visual media and rarely or never just a good book. In any case, it's a sad situation.)

Last night, the girls and I were on a roll and read four chapters before finally calling it a night and tumbling into bed! We stopped in part because Suzanna was crying. She is so good at developing empathy for the characters in a book or movie that she gets outwardly emotional when they're in a sad or scary situation. Last night she got scared during the chapter when the four Pevensie children are at Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's house eating and talking about the White Witch's evilness and Aslan's upcoming return to Narnia. At one point, the Pevensies notice that their brother Edmund (under the witch's spell) has slipped away, presumably to report the others' whereabouts to the White Witch. I was lying on my stomach, and Suzanna was on my back, and she clutched my shirt, buried her face into my back, and started to cry. We had a group hug and talked about why she was crying: she was concerned that the White Witch was going to find and hurt the children, and she didn't want to keep reading for fear that she would have to witness that horrible act! We had a great conversation about fiction and reality and good vs. evil and God and "getting into" reading, etc. What a sweetheart! And her sisters were so sweet about comforting her, too (and perhaps a little patronizing, but not intentionally).

A few years ago, we watched the movie version of The Wild Thornberrys, a terrific kids' show on Nickelodeon. At one point the daughter Eliza is sent to boarding school and must say goodbye to her parents. She is waving to them as they part, and the background music is sad--and there sat Suzanna between her mom and me, shuddering and sobbing.

I hope she always maintains the capacity to develop a sense of empathy for the characters in the books and movies and TV shows that she enjoys. That's the way that she will be able to experience the catharsis of a good cry during an emotional book or movie, and that's a good indication that she will be an empathetic and sympathetic member of the human community to which she belongs. And we need more of those kinds of people in this world.

Everyone, keep reading!!

4 comments:

  1. I too appreciate a good TV show or movie, but the clearest indication to me whether or not I was using my imagination while reading happens if I enjoy the movie version of the book I read or not(assuming that a movie was made). Many times I have such a clear vision of what the characters look like and how the plot should go, that to see a movie portray it any differently disturbs me! Read!!!

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  2. That happens to me too! I remember the first time I read a book, then saw the movie. It was in elementary school and we read The Summer of the Monkeys in class. Then, after we had finished the book, we got to watch the movie. I was horrified. The movie was so different than the book. I dreaded everyday that we had to watch it. Like Nick said, I develope my own pictures of the characters and settings, then when they are different in the movie, I get truly disturbed.

    You talked about your daughter crying over sad or scary moments in movies or books. Two really sad movie moments are also sticking out in my mind right now. One was during The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. At the end, when everyone is being separated and they have to say goodbye to eachother, after all the struggles and hardships they endured together...ugh. My stepmom and I just sat there, bawling in the theater. The other one was during Terms of Endearment. At the end when emma dies, and you finally see her mothers true feelings...:'( It was so sad. Not to mention I was watching it with MY mom... I'm not sure if you've seen it, but if not, its really REALLY good. OH. and a sad book moment. I remember the first time I cried over a book. I was quite young, and was reading The Orphan of Ellis Island, by Elvira Woodruff. During the book, one of Dominics brotherly friend type guys ends up dying. I was so heartbroken due to the sorrow that he had to endure. It was aweful.
    Any sad movie or book moments you want to share? Im always up for a good cry over literature! :')

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  3. Nick:

    I love seeing the movie version of any book that I've read. Even if I'm disappointed in changes they've made in adapting the book to film, I still enjoy the act of noticing those changes--and of trying to figure out why they chose to change what they did.

    Brittany:

    I don't know if Suzanna has ever witnessed me crying over a book or movie, but I do indeed do it, so perhaps her reacting the same way is genetic. One recent tear-jerker was the book Ghost Soldiers, which is surprising because it's a nonfiction book about World War II. But it's about rescuing POWs, and the end (the rescue) is truly emotional. A recent tear-jerker movie was Serenity--also an odd choice because it's sci-fi, an adventure story set in the outer space of the future. But some beloved characters die unexpectedly, and I was caught off guard by those plot developments and the sudden loss of two favorites.

    You may be crying in American Literature later this year when you read Of Mice and Men or Their Eyes Were Watching God or A Place Where the Sea Remembers or Tuesdays with Morrie.

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  4. mmm i love narnia! my dad used to read them to my sister and i before we went to bed when i was younger. they are def. some of my favorite books. its a toss up between the magicians nephew and the silver chair, and the lion the witch and the wardrobe, well heck i love the whole series. i just hope that the movie won't be a disappointment.

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