The Golden Compass movie

My husband and I watched The Golden Compass last weekend. Disclaimer:  I'm not a scholar of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.  I read The Golden Compass and liked it well enough; I started The Subtle Knife and abandoned it (if I recall correctly, its agenda was too obvious); I never bothered with The Amber Spyglass.  I didn't have high expectations for the movie version of Compass, either, all of which may explain why I liked it as much as I did (and more than the first Narnia movie).  I'm actually disappointed that the sequels to the movie will probably never be made.

Here's what I liked:

• The casting.  Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra and Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter were perfect, as was Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby.
• The concept of daemons.  This is what I remembered best from the book.  In case you haven't read it, or seen the movie, your daemon is an animal manifestation of your soul (there's more, obviously, but that'll do).  I spent the first part of the movie deciding what I would like my daemon to be, and had just settled on a hare when Lee Scoresby showed up with Hester.  What would your daemon be?
• The panserbjorne.  I'm not ordinarily a fan of CGI animals, especially ones that talk, but I liked the armored bears, too.  I do wish we could have seen Iorek Byrnison making his own armor, or at least putting it on: I'm always interested in how people (and polar bears, apparently) dress their parts.
• Lyra's knit cap.  If the knitwear in this movie doesn't inspire me to learn to knit (preferably by Christmas), then nothing will.  There's even a pattern available here.

Have you seen it yet?

Nonfiction Monday: Making Magic Windows

The night before Leo's third birthday party I stayed up late making banners of papel picado to decorate the house. I followed the step-by-step directions for folding and cutting in Making Magic Windows: Creating Papel Picado/Cut Paper Art with Carmen Lomas Garza (Children's Book Press, 1999). It was kind of like making origami snowflakes, only these papel picado designs (eight of them, rendered in cut paper on the cover of the book) are influenced by Mexican folk art traditions. They're festive and easy to make, even the one that looks like hummingbirds. Carmen's directions are excellent; you could use them to make papel picado with elementary school-aged children and get great results. All you need is brightly colored tissue paper, scissors, a pencil, and string.

We put up (and took down) Leo's banners for every household birthday from 2003 to 2007. After five years they were pretty tattered and faded, so I cut some new ones the night before Milly's birthday party last month.  It's not a birthday at our house without the papel picado banners.  Muchas gracias, Carmen!

[Making Magic Windows is the companion book to Carmen Lomas Garza's autobiographical Magic Windows/Ventanas mágicas (Children's Book Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Pura Belpré Award for illustration.]

Weslandia in Virginia

Yesterday Leo announced that he wanted to start a new civilization.  This didn't come as a complete surprise to me:  he's studying ancient civilizations at school; and, more importantly, he thinks big.  There's probably no better book for him to read as he embarks on this project than Weslandia by Paul Fleischman; illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick, 1999).  Actually, I've been waiting for just the right time to read it with him since I first read it myself.  If you haven't, it's about Wesley's summer project:  "[to] grow his own staple food crop--and found his own civilization!"  (Maybe this is more of a common interest than I thought.)  Wesley uses all the parts of a mysterious and magical plant that he grows in his suburban backyard to provide himself with food, clothing, shelter, and recreation; he invents a counting system based on the eight petals of the plant's flowers and even a 80-letter alphabet which he uses to record the history of his civilization's founding.  His summer project is a spectacular success.  And, once a social outcast, Wesley now has no shortage of friends.

Leo checked Weslandia out of the school library today and, after (finally!) reading it together, he started wondering what his civilization's staple crop might be.  Wesley may have "found it thrilling to open his land to chance, to invite the new and unknown," but if we did that we'd probably end up with a lot of pokeweed.  Maybe we could grow sunflowers in Leo-landia instead?  This civilization is open to comments and advice.

And Maple Syrup Season

Happily, Pancake Week coincides with maple syrup season.  We didn't make it to a sugaring-off this year (they happen early in the mid-Atlantic), but at least we can read this book:  Maple Syrup Season by Ann Purmell; illustrated by Jill Weber (Holiday House, 2008).  We read Purmell and Weber's Christmas Tree Farm (Holiday House, 2006) many times last December:  it was a refreshingly different holiday book, one of my new favorites.  Leo and Milly were interested in how tree farming (as opposed to the more familiar vegetable farming) works, and they loved Weber's illustrations of pines, spruces, firs, and forest animals.  Like Christmas Tree Farm, Maple Syrup Season focuses on a family tradition--of sugaring, this time--and includes lots of back matter about what to pour on your pancakes.

[Newbery note:  One of my favorite Newbery Medal winners, in memory at least, is 1957's Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson; illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush.  I'm rereading it now, the same copy I read as a girl; and I'll post about it here and at the Newbery Project site if I can come up with something that is more review than just happy reminiscence.]