A book doesn't need to be a literary masterpiece to be enjoyable. I liken novels like that to action movies. Sometimes you just want to see ***explode.
Well, I've been adamantly against Harry Potter since it first came out all those years ago. I remember going to the opening for like the third book with my parents because they wanted it. I don't know, it just never seemed appealing to me. A book about a kid learning magic just doesn't sound like my cup of tea.
Also, I don't have to read it. I just felt like putting it in my list of things to read this semester because kids seem to love it, and many (even the 19+ year olds I sit through class with) consider Harry Potter to be like their Shakespeare. So, if I have a shot at figuring out how to get my students to read, maybe I have to familiarize myself with their choice in literature, and do so with an open mind. But at the same time, there's that part of me that's yelling at me that it's stupid and dumb and not worth my time.
Well, I've been adamantly against Harry Potter since it first came out all those years ago. I remember going to the opening for like the third book with my parents because they wanted it. I don't know, it just never seemed appealing to me. A book about a kid learning magic just doesn't sound like my cup of tea.
Also, I don't have to read it. I just felt like putting it in my list of things to read this semester because kids seem to love it, and many (even the 19+ year olds I sit through class with) consider Harry Potter to be like their Shakespeare. So, if I have a shot at figuring out how to get my students to read, maybe I have to familiarize myself with their choice in literature, and do so with an open mind. But at the same time, there's that part of me that's yelling at me that it's stupid and dumb and not worth my time.
there's that part of me that's yelling at me that it's stupid and dumb and not worth my time.
Tell that part of you to shut the hell up. Always have to be open to try and experience something new. If you read the first book and you don't like it.. then what, it cost you 10 hours of your time? What would you have been doing with that time anyway? Playing a videogame?
there's that part of me that's yelling at me that it's stupid and dumb and not worth my time.
Tell that part of you to shut the hell up. Always have to be open to try and experience something new. If you read the first book and you don't like it.. then what, it cost you 10 hours of your time? What would you have been doing with that time anyway? Playing a videogame?
You've got a point. I just need to ignore that part of me. Open mind, that's what I need.
I've read some questionable books that I normally wouldn't read, just have to sit down and force yourself, you may like it, you may not.
I hate when you read a book and it uses references from other books, so to get a full idea of what the idealism is, you have to read like 6 other books and then reread the first one.
I love those kinds of books! Connections with literature are awesome; it's like solving a convoluted riddle. There are extremes, though. Finnegan's Wake takes it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far.
I'm afraid that if I read Harry Potter, I might actually like it. And that scares me.
The books are actually good :( I hate the movies personally
Movies like 3-7 weren't bad. first two were meh. But I've also come to terms with the fact that movies rarely live up to books and I odn't expect them to be 100% the same.
I've never read Harry Potter either but I now own an entire HP book collection that came in a trunk and I have some wands and scarves and stuff.
Inoritewtf
I do regret not reading them when I was little.
when they were becoming popular back in like..2000 when it was learned a movie would be coming out and junk my school was pushing it so hard..the thing is that I was one of the few white kids in a black school. 13yo Black kids werent going to read harry potter..they were into slapping b####es and hos and the thong song and hating on beyonce and wanting to be all gangsta. Harry Potter wasn't cool.
we had a harry potter day one day. They marched our class down to the library and the librarians were all dressed up like wizards and they wanted us to listen while they read us excerpts from the first book and then wanted to play trivia games. It was funny stuff like "can anybody tell me who their favorite character is? what are your thoughts about Snape? anybody even know who Snape is?"
and like some kid spoke up and was like "uhh..is...it..a..teacher?"
and they were like "....yes :| what kind of teacher?"
the kid replied with "a wizard one"
and then we got a long lecture about how if we're not going to participate we can all just go back to our classrooms because this was supposed to be a day of fun etc etc etc
My entire family went to go see the first HP movie in theaters but me. I kinda regret that too. Oh well.
think I saw all the others in theaters..I dunno, I like the movies as cheesey and corney as they may be.
and this is my favorite scene of all the movies
it kinda weirds me out that I was as old as Tom Felton when HPatSS came out. I don't feel like I was that little at the time.
lol Harry Potter got banned from my sister's elementary school shortly after it came out. Funny how a school like yours would do all that fun stuff and a school likes hers(and I mean there were people who actually enjoyed the books there) just banned it. x:
You know you guys talking about books made me feel bad. I don't like books with magic or.. whatever the new trend in creatures is. I kinda just like high violence or mystery novels.
I tried to read Harry Poter and Twlight even 50 Shades..
I can't like any of them. But I loved Battle Royale when I read it years ago.
lol Harry Potter got banned from my sister's elementary school shortly after it came out. Funny how a school like yours would do all that fun stuff and a school likes hers(and I mean there were people who actually enjoyed the books there) just banned it. x:
well my librarian in my highschool in Albuquerque swore that JK Rowling was a witch and HP promoted satanism. She would go on long rants about how if you did an internet search on JK rowling it would bring up all these witchcraft mumbojumbo therefore it should be banned because our kids would get dragged into Satan's grasp.
well..I saw it the other day. I've never seen any musical theater ever. The only real thing I knew of Les Mis was the Susan Boyle song and the 1998 Liam Neeson movie which we just conveniently watched again last week.
so it was fun to compare with the nonsingy movie. The thing I didn't like about the new one was that the constant singing I don't think worked in a movie setting. I really do think that there should have been dialogue and then a song. Some of what they were saying/singing didn't even rhyme! it bothered me so bad.
otherwise it would have been a really good movie. Anne Hathaway was perfect, her scenes did make me literally tear up. It was very powerful. Hugh Jackman is a good singer and I thought a pretty good Valjean (but again the constant singing! I was like "shutuuuuup")..Amanda Seyfriend was pretty..and so were alot of the revolution boys..I liked the innkeeper scenes (even though HBC and SBC play the same characters in every movie)...but I did not like Russel Crowe in this movie.
her death ruined the shock value of the little kids death
Also she ruined any chemistry that Cosette and whatshisname was supposed to have. Cosette was barely in the movie at all and Eponine got all the screen time. It makes you cheer for Eponine when the movie tries to tell you its wrong. wtf.
and some of the story wasn't connecting. I felt in the 1998 version there was a really good catnmouse story going on between Liam Neeson and Jeffrey Rush but we were horribly missing that in this movie. Javert just seemed to appear and then leave.
This is a thread that I found on another website I post at. It can be really really interesting. I thought it deserved a place here.
Post your random thoughts for the day here, or anything else that intrigues you.
For starters, is it possible to give constructive critism to someone who doesn't have a neck? I totally just walked by a girl who didn't. Someone isn't getting a necklace for Valentines day!
And who decided black and white can't be colors? I want to say a racist. I really do.