Post #6 Readicide

I do think Readicide is a problem in schools because personally having to sit through a lecture on why the writing wanted the curtains and walls a certain color in the room to create a feeling. The author just wanted the color to be that color, and by the actions of the character you can guess pretty close as to what the mood is. But if the teachers over teach the book it makes you not want to read the classics. Sitting in my honors English class the first trimester of school was dreadful because all the teacher did was ask what everything means and we over analyzed EVERYTHING. The fact that I really do not care for Romeo and Juliet anymore should say something; that is how much we went over it. I don’t feel that genre fiction is less worthy because no matter what we read it will in some way or another expand our mind and help us in our everyday life. Whether that is how to kill a dragon or what to do when you are a star crossed lover of two families that hate each other. We always take at least one thing away from everything book we read. More times than not, I take away almost everything you could from a book. I think that we still do need to teach the literary fiction because those are the classics, and you make references to them in everyday life without even noticing it almost. Song writers put them into their songs, take Taylor Swift for example.  In her song Love Story she made the whole song around Romeo and Juliet, anybody can see that, as she said the names, but if we stop teaching the books, then nobody will know the true meaning behind the reference in the song, it will just be weird lyrics that “make sense”. I think that we should add more genre fiction into the curriculum, but not too much that it over powers the classics, there needs to be a fine balance between the two. I don’t think that we should swap the classics with modern day popular books, even if some day they might have a chance of becoming the classic. I think that preserving what has been taught for so long is good, but the teachers are suffocating the fun in what the book really means.  They have a set plan and tests for the book, but you might think something entirely different of the book, but the teachers won’t care because that is what they are supposed to teach you, so what does it matter to them if you think differently? Most teachers, in my experience, only think what they have to teach is correct. I remember wanting to tell my teacher something about Romeo and Juliet and when I finally did, she laughed it off because it was not in the curriculum. I think that we should be able to read with a certain variety, that does not suffocate us with the ideas of others and then we be able to take what we want from the book and apply it to our own lives. That being said I think that a modern day book list should consist of different amounts of classics and present day popular books. As I said before, we can take things away from books, anything that we want, but then change it to apply to modern day life. So if we do keep literary fiction, and I think we should, students can apply whatever we want to their own lives, without the ideas, that may not be wrong,  to modern day life. Kids need to read books so that they don’t have to stare at a TV screen for two hours to know that Marley dies at the end. Kids should read the books to find that out. The books allow you to create your own version of everything. And people may differ you’re idea, but it’s yours and only yours. There is no one that can take the idea away from you no matter how hard they might try. The fact of the matter is that books allow us you reach into our mind and see the vivid details that the author writes. The movies give you a representation of what others think, they put that view into your mind and then you will never truly know what you think everything looks like. I think we need to read books to let our mind run free with imagination.

Adapting The Book Theif

I think a filmaker would have a hard time showing the concept of the time changes or the little exerts that the book has to inform you further. One place where an exert was helpful was when Rudy and Liesel werer waiting on the street for a soccer game and they saw Pfiffikus. The exert helped explain what he looks like in about three or four sentences rather than putting it into the story and taking a whole page to explain him.
One scene that would be crucial to the making the film version of this book was on the train.  I think it is so important for this scene to be present in the film because it shows Liesel's brother dieing. It shows how her view on things has been shaped because of the death of her mother and the "disappearance"of her mother. This scene does not show her leaving her mother, but it does explain how she gets scared from the night mares later on in the book.
Another scene that would be important to have is when Liesel steals her first book. The Gravediggers Handbook. I think this is imporaatant because it shows that Liesel has a book and she wants to learn how to read, but she does not know all of the words. The book helps her with that throughout the beginning of the book. Liesel and papa read the book in the mornings and afternoons so she can learn how to read. Each word she does not know, they work through together so that she may learn the words and how to read.
The last scene that i would like to include (up to where I have read) is the library scene. When the mayors wife invites Liesel to go into their library filled with hundreds of books. I thinkthis scene is so important because it shows how happy books can make Liesel. she had never seen so many books in her life, and yet there they all were.
If I were to make a cut, I would probably cut out all the times when Liesel is going to get the wash for her mum. I would include a short scene of her going through the town a couple of times, but it is not very important until you get to the Mayors house. Another scene I would cut is when Liesel rolls the cigerates for her father.