New Blog!

For anyone who may still be checking this blog from time to time, please note that I have started a new blog, Midnight in Edmonton, that you can reach by clicking here.

No real reason for the new blog. I guess I had stopped blogging for a while, and when I started back up I wanted a change of scenery. Please come visit me at Midnight in Edmonton. See you soon!

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins is comprised of three books: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.  I devoured these books while on vacation last winter.  Very entertaining YA fiction.  In a post-apocalyptic North America, the nation of Panem has a shining Capitol surrounded by 12 outlying districts.  The Capitol forces all of the Districts to send one boy and one girl to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.  The books tell the story of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl from District 12 who volunteers to take her younger sister's place in the Games.

These bestselling books have become so popular they are being made into a movie franchise (surprise, surprise!)  I am looking forward to rereading the trilogy in anticipation of the release of the first movie at the end of March.  I have high hopes for the movie.  The action packed storyline seems like it would be easily adapted to the silver screen, and the trailers look very promising.

 

Speaking of excellent YA fiction, a friend forwarded me a link to this essay "The Kids' Books Are All Right" by Pamela Paul.  The essay reflects upon the young adult reading habits of older adults.  Basically, the message is that we need not be embarrassed about still reading kids' books because we are not alone!  Many of the fans of YA fiction (The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, The Dark is Rising, The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson and the Olympians ... dare I say it? Twilight!) are highly educated, full-fledged adults.  I particularly like one of the quotes from the article: "... good Y.A. is like good television. There’s a freshness there; it’s engaging. Y.A. authors aren’t writing about middle-aged anomie or ­disappointed people."  Exactly.  I often find the more socially acceptable adult reading material (Governor General Literary Award, English lit type material) to be exceedingly dry and depressing.  Or, to quote again from the article, "all art and no heart."  Luckily there is a wealth of excellent YA fiction out there offering a welcome alternative for readers of all ages who are looking for some fun, fast-paced mental escapism in their recreational reading material.

Alberta Ballet

I went to see the opening night of Cinderella put on by the Alberta Ballet at the Northern Jubilee Auditorium. Ballet is not my favourite form of entertainment. I prefer words - whether singing, poetry or prose - to tell a story. But I was surprised how much I enjoyed Cinderella! Maybe because I know the Cinderella story so well, I could appreciate the story told through dance even without any words to accompany it. The dancers were incredible, as always. I wish I had half as much grace, flexibility, strength and poise! The choreography was beautifully done - the ugly step-sisters provided excellent comedic relief, the first dance of Cinderella and Prince Charming was enchanting and the little ballerina fairies that formed part of Cinderella's entourage were adorable! I loved the costumes too, especially the colourful, swirly dresses the ladies wore to the ball. I liked the musical score well enough, although I forgot it as soon as I heard it. Overall, I enjoyed Cinderella much more than I thought I would! I think I might even want to see another ballet. As it turns out, the Alberta Ballet is putting on Tchaikovsk's Swan Lake at the end of March. I have never seen that ballet, although I love the musical score, so I might be tempted to look for tickets!

Oh, my other favourite part of the ballet? Watching all the little girls that are invariably in the audience. They are always all dressed up with fancy dresses and pretty hair styles. And they are always so excited to be at the ballet! It's adorable. I know it's expensive to take your child to the ballet, but what a magical experience for a little girl!

Settlers of Catan

The epic board game Settlers of Catan has finally become so mainstream as to make an appearance on the prime-time TV show "The Big Bang Theory."  I was first introduced to the game 10 years ago during my second year of undergrad and it has been a favourite ever since.  It is a strategy game somewhat similar to Risk, without the element of war, bitterness and lost friendship that results when one player completely obliterates another player's armies in her quest for total world domination.  Settlers is slightly more civilized, with natural resources being collected and traded for the roads, settlements and cities used to settle the Island of Catan.  (It is more fun than it may sound in print, and once you have mastered the original Settlers the expansion packs - such as Cities and Knights - are great fun!)  Considering that Settlers is a very nerdy game, with lots of readily available adolescent humour surrounding the natural resource cards "wood" and "sheep", I am actually surprised that it has taken so long for the game to have its own comedy sketch on such a very nerdy show.

Soul Surfer

I love being pleasantly surprised by a random (free!) movie selection. The other night I was browsing the free movies on Shaw On Demand and came across this gem. What a great movie! There were no Oscar winning performances, and there were a few cheesy moments and slightly more religion that I was expecting, but this was a very solid, very emotional film based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton. Bethany is a competitive surfer from Kauai who had her entire left arm bitten off by a shark when she was 13 years old. Shortly after recovering from her injury, she went back into the water to learn to swim and surf with only one arm. With the support of her family, friends and community, and with her own inspirational perseverance and positive attitude, Bethany placed 5th in the first regional competition she entered after the attack. She is now in her early twenties and is a professional surfer.

I very much enjoyed this movie, and the resulting good long cathartic cry. Sometimes you need a heart wrenching story - especially a true story such as this - to put your own problems in perspective and to remind you that even when facing what may feel like an insurmountable obstacle in your life, there are still many things to be thankful for. One of my favourite scenes in the movie was when Bethany had her "epiphany moment" during a trip to Thailand with her church group to provide humanitarian aid following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. She may have lost her arm, but she still had much to be thankful for - her life, her friends, her family. Sometimes the key to happiness is not to dwell on the perceived unfairness of your personal situation, but instead to maintain a positive outlook and expend your energy on the good things in life. I especially like Bethany's line at the end of the movie. When asked by a reporter at a surfing competition what she would do if given the chance to go back and change the day when the shark bit off her arm, Bethany replied that she wouldn't change anything because "surfing isn't the most important thing in life. Love is. I've had the chance to embrace more people with one arm than I ever could with two."

Disney Messages

This was a friend's Facebook wall photo the other day, along with a caption, apparently by George Takei, that read: "This may be where it starts for little girls. Parents, think about the messages your children receive."  I agree that parents need to think about the messages their children receive, especially in movies and TV shows, but I wholeheartedly disagree that these are the messages girls receive by watching Disney movies.

First, I think Disney movies are like anything else in that they can be interpreted various ways depending on the eye of the beholder.  If you are specifically looking for messages of gender inequality (or racial profiling, or religious bias, or discriminatory language toward persons with disabilities), you are likely to find it.  In other words, you see what you want to see.  But that does not mean that other people, especially children, will necessarily take away the same message.

Second, I think that it is important to remember that these are old Disney movies based on ancient fairy tales and folklore.  Any messages of gender inequality that may come across in the story lines are a product of the times in which the stories were created. If a parent is overly concerned with the messages in these fairy tales, then perhaps this is a golden opportunity to teach children a mini-history lesson.

• Sleeping Beauty was originally a French fairy tale first published in 1697 by Charles Perrault in Contes de ma Mère l'Oye ("Tales of Mother Goose"), later published by the German Brothers Grimm, and then made into the Russian Tchaikovsky's ballet, which premiered at Saint Petersburg in 1890.  The Disney animated film was released in 1959. 
• Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), although it was actually added to the collection by its French translator, Antoine Galland, who heard it from an Arab Syrian storyteller from Aleppo. His translation of "Aladdin" was made in the winter of 1709–10. The Disney animated film was released in 1992.
  
• Beauty and the Beast is a traditional French fairy tale, first published by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740. The Disney animated film was released in 1991.
• Cinderella is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The oldest known version of the story is often considered to have been recorded by the Ancient Greek historian Strabo in the 1st century BC.  The Disney version of the story was based on the French version of the tale by Charles Perrault, written in 1634 in Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé. The Disney animated film was released in 1950.
• Snow White is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) in 1812. The Disney animated film was released in 1937.
• The Little Mermaid is a popular fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen.  It was originally written as a ballet and first published in 1837. The Disney animated film was released in 1989.

Third - and yes, I know I am repeating myself - these are old Disney movies that came out 20-74 years ago around the time that I was a kid (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin), my mother was a kid (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty), and even when my grandmother was a kid (Snow White).  In the past 20 years, Disney has released some exceptional animated movies, such as The Lion King, Hercules, Mulan, The Emperor's New Groove, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt and Tangled, not to mention all the fantastic animated movies released by DreamWorks (Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens, How To Train Your Dragon, Megamind, etc.) and Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Up, etc.) during that same time frame.  These more recent animated films often feature strong female protagonists.  I think that it would be difficult to argue that Mulan or Rapunzel (Tangled) or Fiona (Shrek) or Mrs. Incredible is sending the message to little girls that all that matters in life is your beauty and your marriageability.

And finally, I think that it is important to remember that children receive message from many different mediums. Books, magazines, advertisements, TV shows, commercials, movies, plays, ballets, family members, friends, teachers ... they all play a part. Parents wishing to shield their children from any possible or perceived messages of gender inequality face an impossible uphill battle. In my view, it would be wiser to accept that no matter how vigilant you may be as a parent, your children are going to receive message that you do not agree with. Maybe instead of fixating on the perceived message of gender inequality in Beauty and the Beast, you should focus on the fact that Belle exerts her strong personality by refusing to be peer-pressured by the townspeople: she loves reading books and continues to do so even though it makes her unpopular, she loves her father and helps care for him even though the townspeople make fun of him for being a crazy old man, and she is willing to look beyond the Beast's external appearance (not to mention the external appearance of the Beast's entire household staff) to discover the person he is on the inside. Are these not appropriate messages for little girls to receive?

Long story short, I just think that there are far worse things than a little girl enjoying a Disney movie and imagining herself to be the heroine. I was that little girl. I remember watching Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid countless times, and I am proud to report that I have no lasting psychological damage. In fact, I still love those movies and I think I may go watch one right now ...

The Power of Six

I just finished reading The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore (pseudonym, obviously).  I am bitterly disappointed with this second book in the  Lorien Legacies series.  In fact, I feel so cheated by the sloppy writing that I am furious with the author/editor/publisher for allowing the series to be ruined in such a spectacular fashion. 

Here's my problem.  I enjoyed reading I Am Number Four, the first book in the series.  It was fun, fast-paced eye candy.  Critically speaking, the book had some issues with quality of writing, overly juvenile content and gaping plot holes, but I was willing to overlook these flaws and just enjoy the ride.  I was intrigued because the author had created a semi-original storyline in the teen science fiction genre and the next books in the series were bursting with potential! I was so excited to read the next books and learn more about this new world and its cast of characters.

Let's just say that I am no longer excited to read the next books.  In my view, the author in The Power of Six committed the most unforgivable written act by repeatedly insulting the reader's intelligence.  I understand that the book is aimed at an audience of 15 year old misunderstood boys who just want to blow stuff up, save the world and get the prettiest girl in school.  I am not trying to hold the book to a higher standard.  But still, I have to think that even a hormonal 15 year old boy might notice that when Six (from America) finally meets Marina, Ella and Crayton (from Spain) in the Spanish countryside after taking out 20, or 30 or 100 Mogadorians (always in large numbers, always men who are presumably trained soldiers, always with superior weapons, always killed by a couple Lorien teenagers with little or no previous training - how exactly did the Mogadorians wipe out the entire Lorien planet??) ... anyway, when Six and Marina finally meet near the end of the book they have a nice little conversation.  Apparently, in English.  Even though there was no prior indication that Marina speaks any English (considering she's spent the last 10 or so years living in a secluded convent in rural Spain) or that Six speaks any Spanish.

If this were an isolated incident, I would be able to overlook it.  But unfortunately, this level of sloppy writing and half-ass plot development pervades the entire book.  I mean, give the reader a little bit of credit!  One more example.  If there are only 9 surviving children from the entire Loric race who are sent to Earth to hide out with their guardians for the sole purpose of coming into their powers, winning the war against the evil Mogadorians and saving the planets Loric and Earth, then wouldn't you expect these children to have spent the past 11 years on Earth training for this very purpose?  Or at the very least, that they would have been given a small history lesson to understand who they were and what they were fighting?  Instead, of the 6-7 remaining Loric children, we know that at least two of them (John and Marina) have already lost their guardians, have no formal training whatsoever and have an extremely limited knowledge of anything Loric.  Heck, John had to learn his parents' names from reading Henri's last letter?! 

Once again, I understand that this is teen fiction, not Governor General prize material.  But kids aren't stupid, and they deserve good books just as much as the rest of us.  I still remember when I was around 10 years old and I read a short fiction book from the library about this normal boy who by the end of the book discovered that he was adopted and his biological parents were British royalty.  But then, after all the signs pointed to the fact that he was a real life prince, the boy realized that his biological parents couldn't possibly be British royalty because he didn't have a British accent!!  I was only 10 years old, but I was furious with the author for writing such an incredibly stupid ending.  As you can tell, I'm still rather angry about the whole thing!  My point is, you can write age appropriate material without offending the sensibilities of the reader, it just takes slightly more thought and planning.

Which is really what is lacking in the Lorien Legacies series - thought and planning.  The author built a solid foundation for the series in the first book, but instead of carefully creating a detailed and internally consistent storyline, he got lazy and rushed into the next leg of the story without much consideration.  And who's to say that wasn't his intention all along?  Sure, I would love to have a great new teenage science fiction series to read over the next few years, but maybe all the author wanted was a lot of money very quickly.  In that case, well played.  Especially with the movie franchise already in full swing (although don't get me started on the movie, which is terrible for many different reasons and not worth discussing).

Okay, so I am done with my rant against Pittacus Lore.  If you are looking for a GREAT series to read in the teenage science fiction/fantasy genre (also aimed at an audience of 15 year old misunderstood boys who just want to blow stuff up, save the world and get the prettiest girl in school), I would highly recommend the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan.  Also fun, fast-paced eye candy, but much better written than the Lorien Legacies series.  The Lightening Thief  is the first book in the series and is definitely worth reading.