Funnily enough, I just stumbled across Tokyo Vice during my last flirtation with fascination with organized crime (standard MO: I wiki stuff and spend an hour or two pretending to seriously look for a book on the subject). I managed to get my hands on a hundred-page online sample and yeah, it's really good. And it crosses my brief flirtations with crime with my abiding love for Japan so you know what? I might have to man up and look for a copy seriously. Thanks for the reminder. And I didn't realize Diary of a Wimpy Kid was so bad. My little brother reads it all the time. Maybe I should start subtly throwing CS Lewis or at least decent comics at his head as a hint for him to read better books? (Speaking of CS Lewis - this is really, REALLY random but have you seen the movie that just came out? I'm kind of on a crusade to find people to tell me how good it was before I can go out and see it myself. SO EXCITED.) Sorry for the tl;dr, I'm procrastinating on doing actual work. Subjecting people to my babbling is cathartic.
it crosses my brief flirtations with crime with my abiding love for Japan
Haha, this describes me so exactly! I think you would definitely get a kick out of the book.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid-it's not that it's so bad, it's that it's nothing. Totally empty. I wouldn't decry the series as evil, but I'd definitely try to work some better books into kids' hands.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite Narnia book, but I have heard that the movie is...not so great. I don't know; I'm scared. It's my favorite and I don't want to see it represented poorly. Reepicheep! Edmund! EUSTACE!
The aforementioned deep and abiding love is dampened a little at the moment by the fact that I have a Japanese final on Friday *sigh*
But so long as he reads the Diaries I have a totally valid reason to throw books at his head, right? I am not looking that gift horse in the mouth.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favourite, too. (Actually, I think now that I'm older if I saw The Silver Chair again I'd appreciate it a lot more. When I was a kid, the BBC version we had on tape really freaked me out.) Is it really getting bad reviews? You'd think that would be the one you'd have difficulty messing up ... epic quests to sundry islands! Ships on the high seas! Dragons! Magic fountains! It should be awesome by proxy.
Yes, definitely recommend him other, better things!
The Silver Chair was my favorite for many years, but as I got older, that switched back to Dawn Treader. I still love the quest plot in The Silver Chair, and the underworld and Puddleglum, but Eustace and Jill don't actually really do much of anything in that book; Dawn Treader is more satisfying to me now. And it has one of my favorite lines: You were only an ass, but I was a traitor. Not to mention: There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
You'd think that would be the one you'd have difficulty messing up ... epic quests to sundry islands! Ships on the high seas! Dragons! Magic fountains! It should be awesome by proxy.
I know! And yet...the reviews I've read, and the one friend who's seen it, have not been positive.
The big deal with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, in my view (I teach middle school kids who speak English as a second language - every single one of them is a 7th grader who reads at a 2-3rd grade level), is that they're easy enough, interesting enough, and relatable enough to kids who can't read very well. The books you mentioned, Lewis, L'Engle, Wilder, et al - my kids wouldn't even pick those up, let alone read more than a page. The language is archaic, the contexts unfamiliar, and the plots too complex and long (just using these as examples since you mentioned them as examples of what you liked). Kids need to be successful at reading in order to stay with it, practice and become better readers. Wimpy Kid, while perhaps not being quality literature, has a good combination of text that's larger and spread out, pictures to help with comprehension, and humor that kids can relate to
( ... )
I'm not saying and have never said that kids shouldn't read these books; I tend to think that (almost) anything kids want to read is good at least on some level, because it will hopefully get them in habit of reading and enjoying reading. But I do not understand the appeal of these particular books, and while it doesn't, like, disgust me that kids are reading them (certainly not to the degree that I shudder when I see young girls glomping on to the Twilight books), I do hope those same kids will then read something with rather more substance to it. I'm fine with these books being a stepping stone if they really do work that way, but I still don't think they're very good; further, I think there are far better things out there. Contemporary stuff, too, not just my favorites from when I was a kid: the last two Newbery winners, When You Reach Me and The Graveyard Book; Brian Selznick, Gennifer Choldenko, Adam Rex, Mark Haddon, Suzanne Collins, Kazu Kibuishi...I could go on.
I read it in March, so I'm a little sketchy on the details now, but he's mean to his brothers (especially the younger one), and he's totally dismissive of his best friend, to the point of actively betraying him. (This last prompts Greg to come as close as he comes in the entire narrative to learning a lesson, but even there...barely.) Basically, Greg is apparently a boy who doesn't like anybody. What a blast!
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And I didn't realize Diary of a Wimpy Kid was so bad. My little brother reads it all the time. Maybe I should start subtly throwing CS Lewis or at least decent comics at his head as a hint for him to read better books?
(Speaking of CS Lewis - this is really, REALLY random but have you seen the movie that just came out? I'm kind of on a crusade to find people to tell me how good it was before I can go out and see it myself. SO EXCITED.)
Sorry for the tl;dr, I'm procrastinating on doing actual work. Subjecting people to my babbling is cathartic.
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Haha, this describes me so exactly! I think you would definitely get a kick out of the book.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid-it's not that it's so bad, it's that it's nothing. Totally empty. I wouldn't decry the series as evil, but I'd definitely try to work some better books into kids' hands.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite Narnia book, but I have heard that the movie is...not so great. I don't know; I'm scared. It's my favorite and I don't want to see it represented poorly. Reepicheep! Edmund! EUSTACE!
Reply
But so long as he reads the Diaries I have a totally valid reason to throw books at his head, right? I am not looking that gift horse in the mouth.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favourite, too. (Actually, I think now that I'm older if I saw The Silver Chair again I'd appreciate it a lot more. When I was a kid, the BBC version we had on tape really freaked me out.) Is it really getting bad reviews? You'd think that would be the one you'd have difficulty messing up ... epic quests to sundry islands! Ships on the high seas! Dragons! Magic fountains! It should be awesome by proxy.
Reply
The Silver Chair was my favorite for many years, but as I got older, that switched back to Dawn Treader. I still love the quest plot in The Silver Chair, and the underworld and Puddleglum, but Eustace and Jill don't actually really do much of anything in that book; Dawn Treader is more satisfying to me now. And it has one of my favorite lines: You were only an ass, but I was a traitor. Not to mention: There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
You'd think that would be the one you'd have difficulty messing up ... epic quests to sundry islands! Ships on the high seas! Dragons! Magic fountains! It should be awesome by proxy.
I know! And yet...the reviews I've read, and the one friend who's seen it, have not been positive.
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