On Handwriting

Last week was my dad's birthday and for his gift, each of the kids made him one of his mom's recipes, which my sister found and scanned for us. (Obviously, because of my limited cooking skills, I got the easiest one, nut crisps. Butter, walnuts, powdered sugar. Yum.) I copied my assigned recipe down on a random scrap of paper and realized while doing so that it was the first time I had ever seen her handwriting. Now this might sound silly to people who don't see handwriting the same way I do. You see, for me, handwriting is part of a person, something identifiable, and something I actually find comfort in, like when I get mail from my parents and grandparents. So making the recipe was definitely a way of getting to know my grandmother, but so was actually seeing the recipe.

Oscar Week: Moneyball

Movie: Moneyball
Book: Moneyball, by Michael Lewis

Nominations: Actor In a Leading Role, Actor In a Supporting Role, Best Picture, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

My Thoughts: This is a book I don't think I would have picked up on my own. We did watch the movie last weekend, and while none of my other "reviews" have been about the movie, I think that the story that is Moneyball, at least for me, was easier to understand while watching the movie rather than reading the book. Of course, I think the book goes into a bit more detail, but because I am not especially familiar with baseball recuriting, the movie details were hard enough for me to grasp. My favorite part of the story overall was that it mixed in Billy Beane's history with baseball with the story of the Oakland A's. And as always with real-life stories, I wished I knew the rest of the story once the book/movie was over, and I have to admit I was searching google and wikipedia to see what has happened since then. So, if you love baseball, sports, statistics, etc., I recommend the book, but if you're like me and are better at "visually learning," the movie might be better. I know, I, too, can't believe I typed that.

Oscar Week: The Descendants

Movie: The Descendants
Book: The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Nominations: Actor In a Leading Role, Best Picture, Directing, Film Editing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

My Thoughts: This was the only book/movie I was not familiar with before starting it. It felt very different from the other books I’ve talked about so far, mainly because of the way it was written. It was not as descriptive and definitely focused more on the characters than the story. The main character, Matt, must deal with the circumstances surrounding his wife’s coma, and help his children deal with it, as well. The emotions make up a huge part of the story, especially since every character deals with this experience in a different way. Things become even more complicated, but I don’t want to give anything away. I would be interested in seeing what the movie adaptation would be like.

Oscar Week: The Help

Movie: The Help
Book: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Nominations: Actress In a Leading Role, Actress In a Supporting Role (1), Actress In a Supporting Role (2), Best Picture

My Thoughts: This was a book I had actually read before the movie was made, and I loved it. I honestly think this is one of my favorite books. The time period is interesting, and Stockett does a fantastic job of painting a picture that seems so real. It is thought-provoking. The book also features an ensemble of characters, rather than one main character and many supporting characters—every character is so different in terms of their experiences, what drives them, what motivates them, and the decisions they make, and that is something that is unique. I also love that the book is a story of determination, just as the book is a product of Kathryn Stockett’s determination.

Oscar Week: Hugo

I really like the Oscars, even though I tend to think books are always superior to the movies they are adapted into. I always try to read the book before I see the movie (at least if it’s a book that is well-known before the movie is made). But there is something exciting and interesting about seeing books turned into movies and how the world that is created meshes with the world you created yourself. So, in celebration of Oscar Week, I checked out four books that are nominated for Best Picture (among other nominations) to experience the stories that are behind the nominations. And, if you’re wondering how I chose these four, it came down to what was available at the library. Today, we’ll start with the movie with the highest number of nominations.

Movie: Hugo
Book: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Nominations: Art Direction, Best Picture, Cinematography, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

My Thoughts: I was initially surprised when I picked up The Invention of Hugo Cabret from the library: For a children’s book, it seemed to be very long. But after starting the book, it was over too soon and not long enough. The other wonderful part of The Invetion of Hugo Cabret is that there are beautifully drawn pictures. The story is really interesting, and the pictures complement that very well. The characters are more complex than you usually find in children’s books, and I love that there is a boy character and a girl character for all kids to relate to. I can definitely see the desire for this to be a movie, as the visual effects of the books are wonderful and I can only imagine the movie makes them even better.

Building Our Valentine's Library

Over the time we've been together, Nathan and I have built quite the library (or added to the already overflowing library as the case may be), thanks to our Valentine's Day tradition of giving each other books.

2009
Whitney: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and The Rim of the Prairie
Nathan: The Graveyard Book and James and the Giant Peach

2010
Nathan: Lamb
Whitney: The Believers

2011
Whitney: Great House and The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels
Nathan: This Book Will Change Your Dog's Life, Why Does My Dog Do That?, and Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel

This year, we're adding a few more books. We went out this weekend to Barnes and Noble a did a little joint shopping. It was fun in the beginning to try and hide around the store and hope that we didn't figure out what books we were getting, but eventually i needed help at the "Buy two get the third free young adult fantasy table" and Nathan needed help navigating the store. (because all of the books he had researched were in totally random places, like by the bathroom...what? That required an actual sales person.). So I'm not ruining the surprise by telling you what books we got this year.

2012
Nathan: City of Bones, Unwind, and Pathfinder
Whitney: The Night Circus, Anna and The French Kiss, and Walking Back to Happiness

A Mouse In The House

This weekend, our peaceful movie night featuring Moneyball (which was really good), was interrupted by some rustling upstairs. However, it was not upstairs, but in the ceiling. Unfortunately, there had to be some kind of rodent living in our ductwork. It was way below freezing, after all, and the little guy was just trying to stay warm.

We set out some traps yesterday, but haven't heard another peep (aside from the squeak I heard yesterday while putting away the groceries). I'm hoping that said rodent decided to just leave now that it's warmed up and we won't have to use the traps, because they make me sad. But, we certainly don't want a mouse running around, either.

The whole incident reminded me of The Borrowers, by Mary Norton. After first reading the book when I was little, I really hoped the borrowers were real, and that maybe I would eventually find some. Unfortunately, I never did. Maybe the reason we haven't caught anything in our traps is because the intruder is not mice, but borrowers, and they were just extra loud on Saturday night because they were having a party.

Another movie version of The Borrowers comes out this Friday: The Secret World Of Arrietty, with voices by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, among others. Maybe we'll have to check it out to learn some tips on living with them.

An Ode To Laura

Hello, my name is Whitney and I have a secret obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder (and, consequently, pioneers). OK, so maybe it’s not so much of a secret anymore, but I do still love her. Today, she would have been 145 years old, and she has left so much of a legacy.

Little House In The Big Woods is the first book I remember reading myself. I went to Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary School, where it was required reading, but I read it on my own and fell in love with the series. I still love to reread the books, though it is interesting how my perspective has changed as I've gotten older. My favorite book has changed, from By The Shores Of Silver Lake to These Happy Golden Years, and I see Laura as a different person. Even though so many of the books are about her childhood experiences, it is the adult Laura, who we see in the last books, who I relate to the most. She is strong, independent, and hardworking, and I think her thoughts on growing up are universal, still to this day.

I think my perspective has also changed since visiting De Smet, South Dakota, the "settling down" point of the Ingalls family and the place where Laura and Almanzo first settled. Nathan and I went a couple of years ago, and it was so much different than I had ever pictured in my head. While I always knew she was a real person, walking around the surveyor's house, seeing the Ingalls homesead (which now houses what I like to call the Laura Ingalls Wilder Amusement Park museum), and seeing the Wilder's homesead, made her that much more real. And different, too, because all of these things I imagined seemed so different and real.

Laura definitely made me into a reader, which I will always be grateful for.

Movie Review: One Day

One Day was recommended to me by my friend Lisa, who started reading it and absolutely loved it. She got the book for me and I also couldn't put it down. The plot is a simple enough idea: looking at one day, the same day, every year over the course of many, and how relationships and lives change. The two main characters, Emma and Dexter, experience life's ups and downs, as does their relationship. While I wondered if so many big events happen on the same day, for the sake of the story, I think it works fantastically. And looking at one day also lets the author write about little moments, and how they can become the bigger moments down the road, which I think is a very realistic portrayal of life.

The movie version of One Day has Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. I really questioned Anne Hathaway as Emma, because while I love her, I was dubious of her English accent. But she was perfect, and while watching the movie, it was very accurate to the characters I had pictured in my head, and their interactions seemed to match book Dex and Emma just as I'd imagined them. I can see how this would be a hard movie to adapt, simply because of all of the different stories. The book obviously provides more context for each of the years, and the movie actually didn't show much of some of the years, obviously in the interest of time. In a sense, I thought the movie made things a bit easier to understand, because it seemed to flow between the years more clearly. And especially in the end, the movie had a lot more impact on me--it definitely impacted Nathan, too.