Tag Archives: reading

Bringing Harry Potter to Life

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Harry Potter book“A book is waiting to be read. When you open that book, you give it life. Let it live. It wants to live,” I often advised my students. Yes, I know books are inanimate, lifeless.  They are simply words on pages (or Kindles or Nooks or other e-readers, but that’s not the point) bound together. Lifeless.

But books don’t have to be lifeless.  They can lead you anywhere and to anything. Books can take us on journeys, teach us lessons, foster our imaginations, help us to appreciate others, and so much more.

Yes, books serve as our travel agents to anywhere and can leave us laughing, crying or both along the way.

But for a book to live, it needs to be opened.

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Something Epic Is Coming…

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That title was not a tease. Something epic really is coming out.

Captain Underpants and the - Extra Crunchy Book of Fun Two

SJ squealed when he got Captain Underpants and the Extra Crunchy Book of Fun Two

And it is going to rock the MMK world.

A hotly anticipated novel is due out. You can bet we at MMK will preorder. (Well, actually Ms. MMK to be specific. She’s the online shopper of the house.)

No, it’s not the follow-up to 50 Shades of Grey.  No, Harry Potter is not returning.  And there is no The Firm Part II.

The novel I am talking about is the Captain Underpants 11th Epic Novel by Dav Pilkey. While Captain Underpants is not high-brow literature, it is loved in my household!!

As I’ve mentioned before (My Children Are Readers), SJ can not get enough of Captain Underpants. BR, while not the fan he once was, still will pick up Captain Underpants book on occasion.

The Captain Underpants books have turned SJ into a voracious reader.  Every night – when he should already be sleeping and morning when he still should be sleeping – you can find him with the blanket pulled over his head reading through a book from the Captain Underpants series.

Every week he and I create a Captain Underpants story as part of his vocabulary homework. He also made a couple of comic books himself. His teacher stopped him when he wanted to write “SJ-MAN and the Attack of The Lunch Ladies.”

Some of you may not be familiar with Captain Underpants ie those who don’t have a child between 5 and 9 (or an older child who read it when he/she was that age).  Seriously, it seems that just about every child in that age group reads and loves Captain Underpants and is breathlessly awaiting the 11th epic novel.

Don’t believe me? Go ahead and Google Captain Underpants 11th Epic Novel. Or better yet Google Captain Underpants 11th Epic Novel release date. This turned up about 49,900 results in 0.29 seconds.

After sifting through a few of those 49,900 results for the Captain Underpants 11th Epic Novel, the clearest site noted Summer of 2014 as the release date.

Anyway, the basic premise of Captain Underpants, a graphic novel is that there are two fourth grade boys named George and Harold who write comic books and love to pull pranks. Mr. Krupp, their mean principal, wants to get the boys in trouble. However, the boys are able to use a 3-D Hypno-Ring and hypnotize Krupp, turning him into Captain Underpants, their own superhero creation.

As you may have guessed from the title, Captain Underpants makes a lot of use of bathroom humor. Some may be turned off by this humor and the book has actually been banned in some places. My mother, for instance, who loves reading with SJ does not care for these books.

Me – I’m just fine with the Captain Underpants series. Besides, what little boy (and plenty of girls too) does not laugh at the mere mention of the word fart, poop, or toilet?

So SJ along with millions of other Captain Underpants fans will have to wait for the 11th epic novel.  Hey, this might teach SJ patience.

Even my mother would love that.

Here is an SJ creation (I helped a little). The underlined words were his weekly vocabulary words.

Captain Underpants and The Attack of The Blond Girl Monster

One day George and Harold were fishing at the pond.  A blond haired girl was having her birthday party at a camp near the pond. The blond haired birthday girl caught a fish that bit her and turned her into a monster. The monster smelled George and Harold’s mints and went to attack them.

George and Harold got away, but not before the Monster smashed each boy’s hand. The boys went to a doctor who put splints on each boy’s middle finger. They went to their school and found Mr. Krupp reading by a lamp.

Guess what happened next? I’ll give you a hint.

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS!!!!!!

Captain Underpants and the boys went to the pond. Captain Underpants had a fight with The Blond Girl Monster. The Blond Girl Monster made a stinky in Captain Underpants and the boys face. But Captain Underpants was still able to defeat The Blond Girl Monster.  He did so by shooting his underwear into The Blond Girl Monster’s mouth which turned it back into a little blond girl.

George and Harold wrote a letter about this adventure. They put a stamp on the envelope and mailed the letter to Dav Pilkey.

Why Write?

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“Write what you’re called to write. Your job is not to pander or entertain. It’s to create, to share stuff from the soul as you are moved. If others are moved, that is merely coincidental. Consider it “gravy.” Your job is simply to write.”

The above is from a post by Jeff Goins. He has an extremely popular blog that I’m sure many of you are familiar with. For those who are not familiar with Mr. Goins, he is a writing guru. His posts are meant to inspire writers. I enjoy his blog and apparently so do many others as it was voted the number one blog for writers.

Despite Goins’ popularity, I am not so sure I agree with his advice. I want people – a lot of people to read what I write. I can’t give you an exact number because the answer is always more. What’s wrong with ambition?

I belong to a few writers groups on LinkedIn. Recently, someone posed a question that goes something like this: Would you still write if you knew no one was going to read your work? Most of the responders said yes. They writer because writing is in their blood. So, they write for themselves first and then for other people. I suppose this is what Goins meant.

As you may be able to guess based on what I have said so far, my answer was different. Tell me when you make a great meal, do you want people to eat it? When you draw a beautiful picture, do you want people to see it? When you do something that you are proud of, particularly something that is creative, do you want to share it? Do you want other people to enjoy and appreciate your creation?

Look at blogging. One of my favorite things about blogging is the instant feedback/reaction one recieves. In addition to the desire to hear feedback and engage in conversation about my writing (and other people’s writing), I used to be compulsive about checking stats. I know I am not the only one. My blogging friend over at ‘A Teachable Mom’ mentioned this in a post (http://ateachablemom.com/2012/11/07/rushing-is-the-new-crack/). Another blogging friend over at ‘Did That Just Happen’ mentioned how disappointed she was that a blog post failed. http://didthatjusthappenblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/bedtime-ramblings/

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I was 21 years old and lying in my childhood bedroom. It was late at night, and I had just finished reading a book. It was the 4th and final (another book was added later, and I had not read the first at that point) book in the Rabbit series by John Updike. Now, I had read plenty of books before that. However, this book and character sucked me in like no other had prior. I don’t know exactly why Updike’s Rabbit series so moved me, but I knew that it did.

It was after that literary experience that I truly contemplated being a writer. I wanted to move people. I wanted to make them laugh and cry, smile and curse. Now, my writing journey has zigged and zagged. However, my basic premise for writing has not. I want to move people. That can’t be done if my work stays on my computer, sits on a shelf, or is latched up in my head. It also can’t be done if I ignore the reader and the marketplace.

So, I say my job is to write. I need to write what moves me. However, a big part of what moves me is moving other people.

Read and Write

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I look at my watch and crunch the numbers, and decide to keep going. One more. I have time. Besides, it’s a short chapter. Kind of. Everything else can wait.

Actually, the decision was made for me. I had to read more. Besides, I wasn’t really reading but consuming the book page by page. And I was ravenous.

I wanted more. More of the words which formed a running movie in my head. So, somehow in my crammed schedule, I stole time to read some more.

All you readers know just what I mean. I’m sure you could name a book or 30 that grabbed you like this. You rush to the end but are sad when it comes. Or maybe you slow down as you approach the conclusion savoring each scene, page, and word. When the end comes, you are both sad and exhilarated. For those of us who are also writers, maybe — like me — you feel a pang of jealousy and awe. You hope that you move people as you have been moved and are blown away by the writer’s skill.

I recently read Johnathan Tropper’s One Last Thing Before I Go. I became aware of Mr. Tropper while reading a review of one of his books at http://alenaslife.wordpress.com. One Last Thing Before I Go focuses on a man in his 40s. His life is screwed up both personally (divorced, very distant relationship with his daughter) and professionally (after being the drummer of a band that had one hit song, he periodically plays weddings and bar mitzvahs). He gets the news that he must have surgery, or he will die. He decides his life is not worth saving. However, before he goes, he sets three goals: be a better man, be a better father, and fall in love. The book is about his uneven pursuit to fill these goals. There were moments of humor, sadness, and downright lunacy which encompassed both. I lost track of how many times I read a line or scene that forced me to ponder and think, “I wish I would have said that.”

Ultimately, this book made me feel writerish (I know that’s not a word, but I am using it anyway. For anyone who used to listen to Richie Ashburn announce Phillies games, this is a tip of the cap to him; he used to periodically announce that a particular batter looks hitterish.) I added a few chapters to the novel that I have been writing in my head. I have a short story idea that I will be pursuing. I already stole an idea for a recent blog. I am in a writing state of mind.

So, grab a copy of One Last Thing Before I Go byJonathan Tropper. But be prepared to change your schedule.