Old School Gags: Harry Potter - The book you should read with you're child

Harry Potter - The book you should read with you're child

I remember picking the book up out of curiosity, and then putting it down--several hours and some 300 pages later. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was perfect.

That's not to say that you have to be in pain to enjoy the adventures of Harry Potter. There are lots of good reasons why you should treat yourself to what are sure to become literary classics:

Fun is good. The first, and possibly best, reason for reading the Harry Potter books is because they're fun--and funny. If you sometimes have a hard time remembering the last thing you did simply for sheer amusement, you're probably like 90 percent of the today's hard-working parents. Fun and a little downtime is important.

Know your child. When a series like Harry Potter captures a whole generation of young readers, you know that it really strikes a chord. If your child is a Potter fan, reading the books may help you figure out what's so meaningful to him. And when you do that, you'll know your child better.

Get with it! Harry Potter is more than a series of books, it's a cultural phenomenon. In the books, muggles are non-magical people who simply carry on with their humdrum daily lives, oblivious to the magic that's all around them. These unfortunate creatures are not unlike the many grown-ups who don't have a clue about what the Harry Potter excitement is all about. You don't want to be a muggle, do you?

Take a trip with your child. Reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is like going to a foreign country. If your child were going on a trip, you'd want to know where, and you'd probably want to go along. The same holds true for virtual trips to fantasy land.For a child, going somewhere fascinating and new is even more fun when you can share it with your mom or dad. Besides, these books are complex and the characters wrestle with some thorny moral dilemmas and disturbing situations. Your child might need a guide-or at least a sounding board-along the way.
It's never too late to read aloud. Reading aloud is really important in the early years before your children head off to school, but it's still a good idea even after they're adept readers. By listening, children can enjoy literature that would be too hard for them to read on their own, and reading aloud gives you wonderful high-quality time together. If you take turns reading to each other (for example, maybe you read three pages for every one page your child reads), it can be a powerful learning experience.

You don't have to read. There is a really terrific set of Harry Potter books on tape, unabridged and read brilliantly by Jim Dale. They're fairly pricey at the bookstore, but you should be able to get them from your library if you don't mind waiting in line. Great for car trips!

Younger children get scared. The Harry Potter books are perfect for children who are Harry's age or a bit younger--that is, 9 or 10 for the first book, and slightly older for each book that follows. Go much younger, and the chances that your child truly will be terrified by the scary parts go way, way up. After watching or hearing a frightening story, many children have nightmares for several days. If you're reading aloud, however, and you see your child getting scared, you can stop and talk about it, or you can skip over the parts that are too scary for him. Better yet, save Harry Potter until your child is old enough to really be able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy--usually age seven or eight at the earliest.

Good children's literature is good literature. Period. Good children's literature isn't silly or lightweight. Look closely at enduring classics such as Charlotte's Web and you'll find a complex work of art, every bit as interesting and rich as an adult novel. Even a children's book as seemingly simple asGoodnight Moon is in reality a subtly beautiful poem that speaks to the deep longings and fears of both children and adults. (If you don't believe that Goodnight Moon is poetry, try writing something like it yourself. My attempts, at least, were hilariously bad!)

Don't stop with Harry Potter. If you love the Harry Potter books, help your child--and yourself--to the many other wonderful writers of children's fantasy, and other genres, too. Reading literature with your child is a terrific way to share one of life's greatest pleasures, and to grow together.

For more good books and other news regarding books releases please visit Love Reading

Family Guy Season Premiere 2008

After the scene when Cleveland yells 'Boom goes the dynamite' (a reference to the infamous YouTube video) after having an orgasm with a girl in a public washroom, I laughed out loud for the 5th time in the episode. Then I turned to the clock and noticed that it was only 9:15pm. I was happy that there was only 15 minutes left in the episode and realized that Family Guy is back!

Last season's strike shortened episodes were the worst in Family Guy history. A sub-par Family Guy episode is always better than most shows on network television, but I was very disappointed with their showing last year. It seems like creator Seth MacFarlane, fresh off his $100 million contract to show-run Family Guy, American Dad and the spin-off The Cleveland Show (to air in January 2009), is back as this premiere episode grabbed me. Now I'm looking forward to watch what he's got going next.

Whereas the last 15 episodes of Family Guy really had no plot at all, the premiere episode lead with a plot. Yes, Family Guy is all about randomness and strange events, but if there is no actually plot, we the audience will get bored even if the jokes are funny. Storytelling using plot is something we've been used to ever since our parents or guardians read us nursery rhymes as babies. We need to follow a plot, no matter how Family Guy insane it is, in order for us to be interested.

This episode follows Brian (with Stewie not far behind) on a journey of finding love. A common story in the Family Guy series. This time he abstains from sex with his new girlfriend in order to gain respect from her. Of course this backfires when she is horny and ends up with Cleveland. Cleveland is a funny character and it should be interesting if he can pull off leading an entire series when he's spinned-off into his new show. Brian tries to separate them with the help of Stewie, and tries to get Cleveland's ex to come back and take Cleveland away so Brian can have the girl.

Of course all of this is insane but Brian after all is a dog. And that's what this show is all about. Common storylines and pop-culture references in the crazy world of a talking Dog and evil genius talking Bab living with an even crazier family.

A colleague of mine suggested that universities should create a course about Family Guy episodes. It should be called Family Guy and the Pop Culture Influence of our World. He swears that it's needed in post-secondary schools because we need to understand how in our society why the entertainment industry is so prominent. And how Family Guy episodes really put the wink in the wink-wink of our world.

So here's to a solid first episode. Hopefully there are 20 more to come.

The Simpsons Movie – first review

Homer Simpson, the oafish paterfamilias of America’s favourite dysfunctional family, emerges from his big-screen debut a bona fide Hollywood action hero.

At the start of The Simpsons Movie Homer’s dreams of glory are limited to helping his new pet pig to walk upside down on the ceiling while singing “Spiderpig, Spiderpig” to the Spider-Man theme song

But when the adopted swine gets him into bigger trouble than even this celebrated screw-up has ever experienced before, he falls under the influence of a chesty Native American woman he calls “Boob Lady” and undergoes an uncharacteristic epiphany that galvanizes him into action for the good of his by-now estranged clan.

By the time the witty final credits roll, Homer outshines even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been elected president and ordered great harm done to Homer’s home town.

The Hollywood action theme helps the hit cartoon series, after 18 seasons on television, to land its death-defying leap to the big screen with panache. The result is a postmodern parable about an environmental scare that is at the same time hilarious and horrifyingly poignant. But thanks to an unexpected glimpse of Bart’s genitalia, this is a postmodern parable with a “pickle shot”.

The film boasts the same sly cultural references and flashes of brilliance that have earned the television series a following that ranges from tots to comparative literature PhDs. Despite its clownishness and childish graphics, it still offers searing insights into the pathetic human condition.

When the residents of Springfield learn that they are confronting catastrophe, for instance, the panicked occupants of the bar and the next-door church pour out into the street and change places — the drinkers taking solace in religion and the religious finding comfort in drink.

But the movie will be equally satisfying to those who just find it funny that Homer wants to kiss his pet pig — or laugh at Marge pondering the (literally) weighty issue of the pig’s “leavings”, or excrement.

Early on The Simpsons team shows their nerve by making Homer wonder out loud why anyone would pay to buy a cinema ticket to watch what they could see on TV free — the underlying question of the whole big-screen adaptation. In Homer’s view, anyone who pays for cinema tickets to watch a TV show is a sucker. Jabbing his finger at the audience, he declares: “Particularly you!”

What you get for your money is the Simpsons on an epic scale. The familiar, if geographically indeterminate, territory of Springfield is suddenly transformed into a cross between The Truman Show and Escape from New York, with a Big Brother government conspiring to keep all its unruly residents in line until it can be bombed into a “new Grand Canyon” tourist attraction.

The middle section, set in Alaska, lags because of the absence of the familiar props of the Simpsons’ home town. I found myself longing for Homer and his tribe to return to wreak more havoc on their neighbours, particularly the long-suffering Flanders.

But the film ends with a tense second-by-second countdown that fully exploits the bathos of that schlump Homer becoming an action star able save the world, or at least his little part of it. The conventions of the “disaster flick” allow The Simpsons’ left-leaning creator, Matt Groening, to indulge his politics with wry warnings of environmental doom without boring us out of our mustard-yellow skin.

Lisa, Homer and Marge’s swotty daughter, has become an ardent environmentalist who makes an Al Gore-style presentation entitled “An Irritating Truth” to the local populace.

In the same spirit, this film could have been subtitled: “An Inconvenient Cartoon”.