The Favourite (a movie review post)

To say that The Favourite is an odd movie, especially one coming out of Hollywood, and especially one that has Oscar hopes, would be an understatement. It is, in fact, a very odd movie. And extremely brilliant. And, amazingly, historically accurate, at least in the broad strokes. It's historical fiction, so the details have been filled in, but there are amazing bits in the movie that we were surprised to find were actual things that happened. Because, after watching the movie, I think you'd be surprised to find that any of it happened. My initial reaction -- because I didn't know anymore about the history other than that there was a Queen Anne and, vaguely, how she became queen -- was that this was more historical fantasy than historical fiction, so I'm just going to say it again: It is surprisingly historical.

The acting from the three primaries is amazing. I'm not overly familiar with Olivia Colman, but she was great. And she's going to be playing Queen Elizabeth in the new season of The Crown so, now, I'm really looking forward to that. Anne suffered a great many ailments, and Colman made them very believable, including what may have been a stroke at some point during the movie. They never make a thing of it but after a certain point in the film, one side of Anne's face becomes droopy, and I'm so curious as to how they pull that off. Even if it's just a shot of something, the actor still has to perform that way, so it's impressive.

Rachel Weisz was great but, then, she really is always great. She knows how to command a room, and she was the center of virtually every scene she was in. But, then, she is the protagonist. And she knows how to deliver a line. There's one point in particular where she says to Emma Stone's character something along the lines of, "I don't think we're playing the same game." It's brilliant. It's brilliant because Weisz controls that scene even though she could easily have handed that control over to Stone without ever meaning to.

Speaking of Emma Stone, and I like Emma Stone; I think she's great. But, in this, she's surprisingly great. It's one of those moments where you see an actor rise above the level of anything she's done previously, and Stone certainly does that in this movie.

So, yeah, great movie. I actually want to see it again, I think, which is a bit odd for me because, on  the surface, it's not the kind of movie I'm usually interested in. Period pieces and stuff about royalty are not, as they say, my jam. But this movie is intricate and puzzling, and I think there are things I will see on a re-watch that I didn't see the first time through.

Now, having said that, I'm not guaranteeing that you'll like it. It's not your standard fare, and I know a lot of people are put off by things that are even a little bit different, and this one is a lot different. But, you know, if different is your thing, your jam, you should check this out.

La La Land (a movie review post)

Let's have an honest moment: I really don't like Damien Chazelle. It's not a personal thing (Probably. Since I haven't met him, that's hard to say, but I did hear him on the radio, and he sounds like an okay guy other than the fact that he can't write and, so, should stop doing that.), but his movies need to go away now. (See my review of Whiplash.) No, I don't care that other people seem to like them. Actually, that's part of the problem. Chazelle's movies are like the Hershey's bars of chocolate: They're fine if that's all the chocolate you have access to but, once you've had good chocolate, you'll realize that Hershey's is kind of waxy and you won't want it again as anything other than a last resort.

Except I never want to see Whiplash again, even as a last resort.

Don't get me wrong, La La Land is a fun movie. Mostly. Fun in a cotton candy kind of way: It's all fluff and no substance. I like Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling just fine, and they do a fine job, but they never really gel. The movies feels like you're watching two people acting as if they are acting they are in love and having a relationship, which adds to the cotton candy-ness of the whole experience. None of it feels real. The whole movies feels as if it's about to dissolve under scrutiny.

I think the thing that most bothers me about the movie is the "message." Sure, it's an actual message, but it's a message that's endemic to our culture of positivity and to Hollywood in particular, so
1. It hardly seems like making a movie about this message anymore is worthwhile (especially since neither of the main characters have to go through any actual hardship (at least not within the action of the movie)).
2. It's a false message.
Oh, the message?
If you just follow your dream, if you're true to it to the exclusion of all else, your dream will come true. Even if it means giving up the "love of your life."

Maybe it's just me, but I'm really sick of that message, because it's not a true message. The problem, though, is that if someone doesn't succeed at achieving their dream, people take the stance, "Well, you just didn't try hard enough. You must have let yourself be distracted by other things." It's like the whole positive attitude with cancer patients, breast cancer especially. There's this pervasive belief that if someone just stays positive that she will beat the cancer. If she dies? She wasn't positive enough. The tragedy? Studies are showing that people who rely on positivity have a lower survival rate. (You can see my review of Bright-sided for more on this. Then go read that book.)

So, yes, the hype this movie is receiving makes me a bit mad. Probably more than a bit. It's so undeserving, especially in relation to all of the other movies, right now. Look, it's not that I have anything against people following their dreams. I'm all for it. I encourage it. However, this idea that if you are just steadfast in following your dream then it will definitely come true is a lie. Many people, people who are doggedly determined in following their dream, never see those things come true, because that's not all that it's about. To lead people to believe that it is is not just wrong, it's cruel. It leads people to believe that, somehow, if their dream doesn't come true then the fault is somehow inside of them, that they did something wrong, when, actually, they may have done everything right.

On top of all of that is this idea that Sebastian is some kind of white savior for jazz. Only he really appreciates it's true form, and only he can save it from extinction. If he can only manage to get his jazz club open. You know, if you "build" it, they will come and all that... wait for it... jazz. I find the whole thing kind of insulting. I mean, not only does he appreciate it more, but he plays it better. So, you know, you have all of these great black musicians in the movie, jazz musicians, but it's the lone white guy who is going to save them.

Give me a fucking break.

So, yes, I don't think La La Land deserved any of the Golden Globes it won, but Chazelle, especially, didn't deserve the awards for screenplay and directing.

The Oscar Challenge

Some of you may have noticed the spate of movie reviews on my blog, lately, and the more astute of you may have noticed that most of these (nearly all) have been for movies that are nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. See, several years ago, my wife and I decided to actually try to see the movies that were nominated before the awards were given out. [She's not all that into the big, blockbuster-type summer movies (with some exceptions (Avengers)), so this our movie thing that we do together.] It didn't go so well that year, because we waited until after the nominations were announced, and many of the movies were no longer at the theater and not yet available on DVD. Since then, we've been working on our technique.

Last year, we managed to see six of the nine nominated films before the awards ceremony (we've seen all but one, at this point). Although I was glad that Argo won (for Affleck's sake), I think Lincoln was the better film. At least, Day-Lewis won for best actor, though, because anything other than that would have just been wrong.

This year, we are up to six of the nine nominated films (as I write this, because I think we'll be at seven before this actually gets posted). Of course, my belief is that the count should be seven of 10, because Saving Mr. Banks certainly should have been nominated. Some of what I've read suggests that it didn't get nominated due to Meryl Streep and that she was actively campaigning to keep that nomination from happening. And I get that a big part of the Academy Awards is political, but that kind of stuff just bothers me. And, no, I don't know Meryl Streep, so I can't say that that's true, but I did read about her anti-Disney speech, and I do know that that film should have been nominated.

But maybe it wasn't nominated so that it wouldn't win. I mean, if it was nominated, it would be difficult to justify picking a different movie over it, like, say, 12 Years a Slave, but, if it's not nominated at all, then it can't win. Which is messed up logic, too, but the Academy people do like to go with "important" movies and, maybe, it's still too close to The Artist's win in 2011 for them to go with another Hollywood-ish film even if this one is deserving (as opposed to The Artist, which wasn't).

Anyway...

At the moment, from the nominated movies, I'm going with 12 Years a Slave as the eventual winner. I don't think it's the best film, but I do think it's the most likely to win. Of the ones I've seen, I think Dallas Buyers Club is the most deserving of the Best Picture Oscar, but I don't think it will win. I do hope that Matthew McConaughey gets Best Actor, though; he was tremendous in a similar fashion as Day-Lewis in Lincoln.

Did I say there should be 10 nominations this year? Actually, I don't really think that. I think there should only be nine, because The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't deserve its nomination. It's this year's Beasts of the Southern Wild, the movie that people can't bring themselves to say that they don't get. Sometimes, when a movie doesn't make sense, it really just doesn't make sense. Don't pretend you get it by talking about how deep it is and how other people just don't understand, especially if, then, you're not going to bother explaining because, you know, if you didn't get it on your own, you just can't get it. Do people still believe that line? I suppose they must.
Anyway, I've already been through that class, so it doesn't work on me. Heck, I've been on the other end of that, so it really doesn't work on me. [Seriously, one of my English profs in college would give A's to any paper that was just outside of his understanding. Or, you know, if it was too confusing but you could make him think he just wasn't "getting" it. Rather than look like he didn't get it, he'd just give the paper the A.]

Captain Phillips is this year's Life of Pi for me. It's the movie I just can't manage to make myself want to see. We knew when it was out in theater that we should go see it. We talked about it a lot. It always came down to, "Well, do you want to see it?" "No, do you?" "No..." And, so, we never went to see it, and there's probably no way, now, to see it before Oscar night without buying it, and I really don't want to do that. Although, if we manage to get in the other two beforehand, we might break down. It has been mentioned.

And, yeah, I did, eventually, see Life of Pi, and, yeah, it would have been a cool movie to see in the theater just for the visual aspect of it, but, beyond that, I wasn't overly impressed (you can click the link and read the review if you want).

I guess the real question from all of this is, when all is said and done, "Do I feel, really, like I've watched the year's best movies?" Yes, actually, on the whole, I do, especially this year. There are movies I enjoy more just for the thrill of watching them, but I don't have any illusions of that making them better movies than they are. As with food, enjoyment does not equal quality or goodness (for you). Look, I loved Thor: The Dark World, and I would (and will) watch it again, but Dallas Buyers Club is a better movie. I'll probably never watch Dallas Buyers Club again; it's not the kind of thing you want to watch again (most people, anyway); but I'm really glad I saw it the one time, because it was a powerful and moving movie.

So, mostly, yeah, I think they do a pretty decent job of picking out the "best" movies. The movies with something to say. Except 2011. I don't know what was going on that year. At any rate, that we watch these movies allows me to step a little outside of the movies I would normally watch. It's like (exactly like) reading a book outside of your favorite genre, and it's always good to experience new things. Some of them will suck (Wolf), but some of them will be extraordinary and you'll be really glad you stepped outside of your box even if you're just going to get right back inside (because I totally plan to see Robocop). The thing is, if you do it enough, you'll find that your box isn't quite cube-shaped anymore, and that's a good thing.

Oh, and just to throw it out there, my wife is totally going for American Hustle. I think it's the hair.

Saving Mr. Banks (a movie review post)

Two years ago, when The Artist won Best Picture, it was not difficult to understand why. It's the kind of movie Hollywood loves whether it was actually best picture material or not. I was going to say that I don't really think it was but, upon looking back at the other nominees that year, it didn't have a lot of strong competition, at least from the movies I saw. Come on, War Horse? Really? Which is not to say that War Horse wasn't good, but best picture? That's the best they could do? And as for The Artist, Singin' in the Rain already told that story and did a much better job of it. But, anyway...

Saving Mr. Banks is that same kind of film, the kind that Hollywood ought to love. It's about how one of the most beloved movies in movie history got made. And it's the first time Walt Disney has ever been portrayed in a movie, so that's saying a lot. And, just to put all of this perspective, when Disney first heard that the movie was being made, they're first reaction was to buy it and squash it. See, there's a reason Walt has never been portrayed onscreen before. However, after looking at it, they decided not only not to do that but to produce it! It's that kind of movie.

And it's good. I mean, it's really good. I know it is because my wife cried through about the last third of it. I will be extremely surprised if it doesn't get the best picture Oscar this year. Overall, from what we've seen so far, I think it's most well rounded show out there. And it leaves you feeling good after having had a good cry.

Not to get into what the movie is about, but it's about how Walt Disney convinced P. L. Travers to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins, something it took him 20 years to do. Along with that story, you see the story of the defining moment of Travers' childhood, which shows why Poppins was so important to her. From what I've seen from fact-checking, the movie is fairly accurate, which is another plus. A big one, actually. They did have hours and hours of audio recordings from sessions with Travers and some of the people working on the movie (because she insisted that everything be recorded), so they wouldn't have had a good excuse for it not being accurate.

So, first, let's talk Tom Hanks. Oh, man, Tom Hanks was... incredible. There were moments, especially when they showed him watching himself on the old black and white TV show Walt introduced, where he was just like Disney. And, from everything I've read, Hanks did capture Walt to an amazing extent. I do know that the folks at Disney Studios shaved Hanks' mustache to the exact dimensions that Walt wore his. His only being called a supporting actor for this role, but I think it's a safe bet that he will at least get a nomination for it. I will not at all be surprised if he wins. Actually, I hope he does. [I haven't seen Captain Phillips, yet, but he's also being talked about for a best actor nomination for that one.]

Then, we have to talk Emma Thompson, and she may just deserve best actress for her performance. That's a tough call for me, though, because Sandra Bullock carried an entire movie virtually by herself, and that's an impressive feat. However, I'm not sure anyone else could have pulled off Travers the way Thompson did. It was a great performance, and she and Hanks were perfect together.

Paul Giamatti was lovable as Ralph, the chauffeur. This role probably wasn't especially difficult for Giamatti, but he was perfect in it. Jason Schwartzman and B. J. Novak were awesome as Richard and Robert Sherman. Not the parts called for too much, but it was great to see them in the movie. They were good, too. Especially this one part with Novak, but I don't want to spoil it, so you'll just have to see it; then, I'll tell you which one.

Which brings us to Colin Farrell. Farrell is one of those underrated actors who is almost always excellent despite the horrible movies he's in. I mean, Alexander wasn't really his fault, and how can you blame him for not turning down Total Recall? At any rate, he's wonderful and wonderfully tragic as Travers Goff. He was my favorite part of the movie. I mentioned that my wife cried, but there were some scenes of Goff with his daughter where I almost cried. That's kind of saying a lot for me.

I loved this movie. Of the possible best picture nominees, if you have to pick just one, this is the one I would recommend. Sure, Gravity is visually amazing, but this movie has heart that Gravity just doesn't have, no matter how you feel about Walt Disney. And let me make this clear, the movie is not about Walt Disney; the script was written (and not changed) before Disney (the Company) had a hand in it; the movie is about Travers and how she was ultimately convinced to allow Walt to make Mary Poppins into a movie. It's definitely worth seeing.

Also
Make sure you stop by Indie Writers Monthly today. Check out my post and the contributors and follow along. I'm not really sure where we're headed with that, yet, but, if you like sci-fi and/or fantasy, I'm sure it's going to be a good ride.

Why You Shouldn't Trust Traditional Publishing (or Why Kids Should Be in Charge of the Slush Pile)

This isn't one of those posts where I talk about all of the very famous (or merely famous) writers that started out with tons of rejections. No, they weren't really "tons," but any rejection is a heavy load, and, when they start piling up, they certainly seem to weigh tons. If you want one of those posts, there are plenty of them out there, so go find one somewhere else.

This isn't a post that is supposed to make you feel better. Make you want to work a little harder. Make you want to try that one more time. That one more time that will be the time. I'm not really much of a cheerleader, so, if you want that, go look at any of the dozens upon dozens of cheerful blogs that are all about making you feel better about yourself as a writer.

This post might do some of those above mentioned things but not because that's the plan here. It's not what I'm setting out to do. This post is about making you think. If, in making you think, it prompts you to work a little harder or to apply yourself in new ways, well, good, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.

Yeah, I know. I can be kind of a jerk. But, really, I'm just not here to make you feel better about your writing goals. Not that I won't give you advice (if you ask) or tell you what I think about... well, whatever, but I'm not emotional support. I'll help you get the job done, but I'm not going to make you feel good about doing it.

So... here's the thing:
We all know about  the subjectivity of the publishing industry. At least, we think we do. Emotionally, however, we are still invested in the idea that traditional publishing is the Gatekeeper of who is and who isn't a writer. That, somewhere, they have some secret measuring stick that they apply to manuscripts to see  if they measure up. We know this isn't true, but we don't believe it. If we would come to believe that the "professionals" don't know any more about what's good or what will sell than, say, the troll under the bridge down the path from my house, we would ALL abandon traditional publishing forever. But we cling to this... idea... that we can't really be writers unless the publishing industry bestows that title upon us.

And it will... if we just keep at it long enough. As Jim Butcher says about getting published, "You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you." I have to say, though, that getting published doesn't make you a writer. I don't care who's dubbing you "Sir Author." Have you seen some of the crap that's being published these days? And not just these days. Have you seen some of the crap that has always been published? And why is crap published? Because publishers don't know crap from gold. Nor do editors. Nor do agents.

See, I was thinking (and that's the phrase that generally causes my wife to say "uh oh")... Wait a minute, before you think any of this is about me, it's not. You'll kind of have to follow my separate trains of thought to where they collide in a crash almost as spectacular as the one in Super 8.

I had just come home from reading The House on the Corner in my younger son's class (6th graders), and I was out taking the dog for a walk. [Note: I read in some class or other every morning of the week.] They had been upset when it was time for me to stop. They feel like I "always end on a cliffhanger." The thing is, I wasn't reading from one of the "exciting" parts. But, whenever I have to stop, they don't want me to. I'm in the middle of something happening even if it's just exploring. Or a game of hide-and-seek. And there are groans every time.

See, kids have a different way of looking at books than adults do. And I think kids have it right. The publishing industry is really big right now on starting in the middle of the action. Why? Because they say you have to do that to grab a child's interest, but that's just not so. Kids actually have the patience to allow something to unfold in its own time and enjoy it. It's adults that want to just get right into things. Adults who sacrifice story for action. Sacrifice empathy with the characters, knowing the characters, for immediate thrills. It's adults that want to just jump straight into bed and skip the getting to know the other person and the making out. That's not how kids are.

Hold on... I'm going somewhere with this. See! You're all out there thinking, "just get to the point!" Where's the blood? Where are the explosions?

Another thing: kids are pretty honest. This is not to say that they don't lie, but they're not going to come up and tell you they like something that they don't. If you stick a pile of spinach in front of them, they're going to tell you how they feel about it. Even if you are a guest at someone else's house. They don't have the whole lying for the sake of politeness thing down.

Kids like my book. The closest I've had to any of them not liking it is one boy (2nd grade) asking me when I was going to make The House on the Corner into a movie. I asked him why, of course. Didn't he like the book? Oh, yes, he likes it very much, but he likes movies better than books.

This is where I was in my head when my thoughts strayed over to Tolkien. Did you know that The Hobbit and, by extension, The Lord of the Rings only exist (as published works) because of a child? Before I go on, let me state that I've read numerous biographies about Tolkien and C.S. Lewis including one about the two of them together and how their friendship influenced their writings. However, I don't have any of these books available to me at the moment as they are still in boxes in the garage [Yes, only unread books have been unpacked, at the moment. >sad<], so I'm going off of memory here. I'm not remembering exactly why Tolkien was seeking publication for The Hobbit, but it probably had to do with Lewis. Lewis was the impetus for pretty much all of Tolkien's fiction getting published, so it was probably Lewis back there saying, "You need to get this published." However, no one wanted The Hobbit. I don't mean there were a lot of rejections and, finally, someone said, "Yeah, I like it." No one wanted the The Hobbit. It was too different, and no one believed there would be an audience for it. Kind of like with the whole home computer thing.

At any rate, after no one wanted the book, the manuscript was sitting around someone's house. A big someone's house. Like the owner of the publishing company that eventually published The Hobbit. They had already said no to it. But something happened then. Something unexpected. The man's son got a hold of the manuscript, and he read it. He told his dad he should make it into a book. I think there was some discussion involved, but the son was firm in his opinion that The Hobbit be published. So, more to mollify his son than anything else, The Hobbit got published with a small print run of only 1500 copies. That was all. It has never been out of print since.

So here we are at the point. The climax, as it were. Traditional publishers didn't want The Hobbit. At all. It was a child. One boy who believed in a book with a father willing to humor him. The Hobbit is now considered the most influential piece of children's literature of the 20th century, and it almost never was. And this is why you shouldn't trust traditional publishing. The truth is that they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's good and what's bad. They're not reading the books; they're just comparing aspects of them to what's popular and making judgements on what they think will sell. Any time anything slightly different comes along, they don't know what to do with it, and they tend to just say "no."

Kids should be reading through the slush pile. At least through the piles of things that are age appropriate. Kids don't care about what's popular (they do in that they are attracted to those things, but they don't evaluate new things based on the popularity of other things, not until they're teenagers, generally); they don't care about "how things are done;" they enter each new thing just as it is, a new thing, and they form their opinions based upon their interactions with that thing. It's unfortunate that, as adults, we can't enter into each new experience with those same sets of open eyes. That ability to not pre-categorize everything. That ability to not have made up our minds before an experience as to whether or not we'll like it.

As Yoda says, "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."

So, really, don't take those rejections the wrong way. Even after the success of The Hobbit, the publisher (the same publisher, mind you) didn't want The Lord of the Rings. The wanted The Hobbit II. Tolkien really tried to give them what they asked for, but he just couldn't do it, and they kind of just published The Lord of the Rings because they knew they weren't going to get anything else, and they demanded severe changes in the text before even that happened. Like dividing it up into 3 volumes, which Tolkien hated and had to do extensive rewrites to accommodate. Of course, The Lord of the Rings is now considered the most significant piece of fiction of the 20th century. So, really, what do traditional publishers know?

It makes me wonder what pieces of literature the world has never seen because there was not a child available to advocate for it. It makes me sad.

[Note: In similar situation, none of the Hollywood studios would support Lucas' new movie Red Tails, which I really wanted to go see last weekend but didn't get to. Several of them completely snubbed the screening and didn't show at all. Lucas said they treated Red Tails the exact same way they treated Star Wars back  in 1976. It's something different. Something that hasn't been done before. Even though it's Lucas, they won't support it. Fox grudgingly agreed to act as the distributor but only if Lucas footed the entire bill. What's the point, at that point? Hopefully, I'll have a review of this one soon, as Lucas says it's going to be his last "blockbuster" movie (other than one more Indiana Jones (if they do it)).]

The Reading Dilemma

I had my first book presentation at a public school, last week. Well, a public school that's not the one my kids go to. That one doesn't count. Anyway...
So I get this call to come in and do a presentation at this middle school in the area. They're all very excited and so am I. Not that I wanted to let on that I was excited, but it's hard not to be. I get there just a little early, because I don't really know what they're expecting of me or where I'm going to be or, even, whom I'm presenting to other than that it has to do with the English department. Which is, you know, appropriate. It would have been kind of weird if I'd been called in by the math department. They take me over to the library, which is where I'm going to be (which was also good because I had a copy of The House on the Corner to donate to the library), and there are actually a few kids on their lunch break waiting to meet me. That's not something that I was expecting. Of course, the librarian totally embarrassed one of the kids by telling me how eager to meet me he was. He blushed and tried to play it off as no big deal, but it was fairly obvious he'd been waiting for me to come in. After shaking off his red face, he drifted over to me just about the time his bell rang, and he had to leave. But he was back for one of the presentations, so he did get to ask me a couple of questions.

The first class came in, I introduced myself, and I took a couple of questions. After that, I read the first chapter and, then, jumped ahead to read this bit that happens on Halloween night. I felt it was seasonally appropriate. After I read, I took questions for about 20 minutes or so. There was, of course, the expected, "What inspired you to write this book?" question.

And that's a very good question. Because I wasn't struck by inspiration for The House on the Corner so much as I went out and found it. I'd love to tell the story of that, but that's not what this post is about, so that will have to wait. At any rate, Tolkien and The Hobbit are involved in that story, so I asked the question, "Who's heard of J. R. R. Tolkien?" Blank stares. Seriously. I was met with a room full of blank stares. Not having hands might be expected, because, sometimes, kids don't want to raise their hands in that kind of situation, but you can generally tell who actually knows and is just trying not to raise their hand. But I was met with blank stares. Finally, after several moments, one of the teachers raised her hand and said he wrote The Lord of the Rings. Ah, some recognition and some mumbles about having seen the movies. I went on to explain that The Hobbit is one of the two books I think everyone should read.

When the class was leaving, the English teacher (not the one that had answered the question) came up to me and told me that I had inspired her to go read The Hobbit, because she had never read it. That's a good thing. Of course, I wish I could have inspired her to read my book, but, truthfully, my book is not one of the two books I think everyone should read. The Hobbit is a good start.

So I was distressed by the whole interaction about reading, and I realized that I'd forgotten to open with the question I meant to open with which was "Have any of you ever thought about being a writer when you grow up?" That question followed by an encouraging word about reading and writing like I talk about in this post. I did ask the second group that question and was met with identical blank stares as when I asked about Tolkien.

Before that, though, between groups, I asked the librarian what kind of reading participation they have at the school. Oh, my... I'm still having problems comprehending this. She said they had instituted a program a few years ago where the students earn points for doing reading and can exchange those points for... well, I don't know what, but they can exchange them for some kind of rewards. That sounded like a good idea until she said it had had basically no impact on the students. Then she showed me some of the reading statistics from the school.

They have one class of advanced readers. These are the best readers in the school. A middle school. Hundreds of kids. Out of hundreds of kids, they have two (in the whole school) that read at a high school level. They have two more that read at a middle school level. About half of the class of advanced readers read at a 5th grade level. The rest of the advanced readers are below that. This is the advanced class. The advanced class is full of kids reading below the level of my 8-year-old daughter. I had, and still don't, no idea of how to respond to that. I can't even begin to comprehend the kids in the rest of the school. The ones that aren't advanced. Is it a middle school full of kids who actually just can't read? I do know that California, as a state, had some of the poorest STAR test results in reading ever, last year.

The librarian went on to say that they really don't know what to do about it. They don't know if it's a problem with the school or the parents or both. They do know that none of the tactics they've tried so far have made any significant difference. I would say, though, that from the little I saw, the teachers don't set a good example for reading. Of course, I think the biggest influence for that is going to come from the home, but I'm not sure I would listen to a teacher telling me about how I should read more if the teacher wasn't a reader. And the librarian seemed to be not much of a reader considering how unfamiliar she was with the actual contents of the books in the library. But that's just a guess. Maybe she reads entirely different material. She was lacking in student book recommendations, though.

As a writer, the lack of reading distresses me. And it's not a distress that's about not being able to sell books to people that don't read. I just can't comprehend the lack of reading. Is it because Hollywood is so quick to make movies out of anything that looks remotely profitable? I do have kids asking me on a fairly regular basis about when I'm going to make my book into a movie. Because they don't understand that I can't just decide to do that. After all, I decided to write a book, so I must just be able to decide to make a movie, too. But this whole thing makes me question that. I don't really have a good answer.

Is reading a skill, like riding a horse, that's passing out of common usage? Are we going beyond needing it? To a place where visual media is replacing reading like automobiles replaced the horse? Like calculators (which I was never allowed to use when I was in school) have replaced the need to learn basic mathematics (because they actually have classes in how to use calculators and, not only are they allowed in classes, now, they're often required). Honestly, the whole thing scares me. The idea of a world without reading scares me. But, I'm sure, the idea of a world without horses used to scare some people, too.

The one solace I  have in all of this is that the public school system clings to tradition like no other institution in the United States. Despite all the data supporting changing the way some things are done, the school system clings to its traditions and its "we've always done it this way" mentality. As long as that is maintained, I'm sure reading will stay in the schools even if 50% of people never touch another book after they graduate.