Post Blog 6: Readicide

Readicide is a reality. Teachers often hear the moans coming from students as they hear "next week we will be starting Hamlet.”  Why is that?  It’s because teachers force students to read books that frankly seem less interesting than a detailed book describing how paint dries.  A little over exaggerated, I’ll admit, but at times it feels that way.  Teachers every year hit students hard to look for that complexity or analysis of symbols within a stale piece of text.  I feel as though it takes even more fun out of the reading than it already has. 

Now here’s another idea.  Let’s say we do a 50/50 of literary fiction and genre fiction.  Who’s to say that in genre fiction novels there are no symbols to be analyzed or passages to be scanned for literary devices?   Plus students will be able to stay engaged with the story/plotline while having a slight decrease in annoyance to annotate and analyze the text.

 In order to keep students educated, reading needs to stay around longer.  In order for that to happen, schools need to ease up on their literary fiction reading, simply because it discourages students from outside reading.  Perhaps English classes should not be reading Twilight or other books with a pointless outline, no offense to the die-hard Twilight fans, but books that have an interesting plotline intertwined with a little complexity.  I think it’s the perfect blend

Adapting Book 2

For the Book Two Project I decided to read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  The biggest challenge I can see if this book were to be adapted to film, is the length.  The book itself is well over 500 pages, making it difficult for filmakers to condense all the content down into a two- two-in a half hour long movie.  Filmmakers would need to cut or eliminate scenes that do not overall impact or somehow effect the plot or theme of the book/movie. 

The first scene I would keep is the opening pages.  This establishes the frame narrative of the entire book.  We see who is telling/narrating the story and essentially gives some background as to who is telling the story instead of a random voice. 
I would also include the scene where main character, Liesel, loses her brother and becomes separated from her mother.   This scene is very important and the actions carry on throughout the entire novel.  Liesel writes to her mother in hopes that one day she will write back, Liesel has nightmares of the train her family was on, etc.  Those moments reoccur in Liesel's life which is essential to keep it in the movie. 
The last and final scene I would include is the scene where Liesel steals her first book The Gravedigger's Handbook as it will begin the ball rolling to the other books she will begin to steal.  The book is also a symbol for Liesel's determination and character as a whole. 

If I were to cut anything from the book it would be the stories or parts of the book that did not impact the plot as a whole, which  occurs frequently in the book, hence the 500 pages. The random tad bits of information/off-topic stories are a part of the book I dislike. 
I would also change the way death interjects in the scenes.  I feel like at times it comes randomly and I think the voice should interject at important times or critical moments.  Sometimes it's a random statistic, or just a fact.  Either way, I think there should be more structure to Death's opinions.