I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Once again I must admit that the cover of this book, the original cover anyway, caught my attention. And I figured, oh, I'll read it later. Then, I saw a movie preview for it, and though, yeah, I'd better read this at some time. But still, didn't pick it up. Then a few months ago, I read some Twitter buzz that this is published by James Frey, the guy of A Million Little Pieces and dealing with Oprah fame, and that there was some controversy with his publishing policies. And again, another reason to read, but still, didn't check it out at the store yet. Well, one of my best friends, Kim, who is my movie and reading buddy, told me she had read it, and really liked it. So, having the Nook checked out, I decided to go ahead and read it. And, you know what, it was really good.

It is about a race of aliens from the planet Lorien who have sent 9 subjects to Earth to wait for the day they can go back and repopulate their planet. Their planet was conquered by a race called the Modagorians (although whenever I say it in my head the d and g get mixed up), who are still looking to find and kill these last survivors on Earth. The 9 children must be killed in order. If the Modagorians find #8, but all the others are still alive, whatever they try to do to hurt #8 will go back and hurt the alien who tried to hurt them. These children have been spread all over Earth with a guardian, an elder Lorien who is not as important. These children will develop legacies, or powers, that can be used to go back and defeat the Modagorians. Anyway, our main character's name is, well the name he chooses when they go to a new town because Number 3 has died, his name is John Smith. His father/guardian is named Henri. And yes, pronounce it with a French accent, because supposedly the Lorien accent sounds similar to a French one.

John has had to move constantly. He has to be careful because he is stronger and faster than humans, and letting any news of this get out could lead to the enemy finding him and killing him. They move to Paradise, Ohio, and here, John falls in love and finds a good friend. He wants to stay, even though things happen that lead to him possibly being found. He begins to develop his legacies, and yes, soon, they are found due to an unfortunate newspaper blog article showing video of him doing something impossible. The book ends with I think Number 6 showing up to help in this fight. We also learn that there may have been a reason they went to Paradise, Ohio, other than just picking it by random. And one of my favorite characters in the book, John's dog, Bernie Kosar, is more than what you think.

Now, there has to be a sequel, it left off that way. And there is a movie coming out soon, so you should go see the movie, but not till after you read the book of course.

And my last thought, the author's name is Pittacus Lore. And supposedly this is the name of one of the aliens. So it would be interesting to know if this is the real author's name, or who the real author is, now that there is this controversy that I heard on Twitter. You can go to the website about the book to read more. And I'll try to post a video of the I Am Number Four Official Trailer as soon as I figure out how to do that! :-)

Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig

I can pinpoint the teachers who led me to some of my quirky favorites in movies. First, my grandpa. No, he wasn't ever a "teacher" per se, but I do feel that he taught me in many different ways, and shaped a lot of who I am. He was an engineer, and I know it is from him that I developed my interest in astronomy, and probably other science. But whever we visited my Grandpa and Grandma Moritz's house, there was a big yellow book called Why a Duck with a cartoon picture of Groucho Marx's head. It is from my Grandpa that I got my love of all things Marx Brothers. I can even remember him laughing at certain parts of the movies when we'd watch them at his house when we went into the air conditioning during the annual family garage sales.

Second is my 8th grade science teacher/principal. I went to a private school, and so the principal was also a teacher, Mr. Riedl. In fact, he was a science teacher, my current occupation. But I remember watching Court Jester, with Danny Kaye one day at school when I was in 7th or 8th grade. Again, I can remember him laughing loudly at the "Flaggon with the Dragon" part of the movie. From this I became a Danny Kaye fan.

Third was my freshman year, my Citizenship class teacher, Mr. Jarvis. In class he showed us the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy. I remember watching the beginning and thinking, wow, another boring school movie, but still being glad we were watching a movie instead of doing work. But if you've seen this movie, you know it is not a boring movie at all. It is a hilarious look at modern day technology, a coke bottle, and how it can corrupt very simple cultures in ways we can't even imagine.

And the last teacher, leads into this book, my junior year American History teacher, Coach Durham. He showed us Gone With the Wind. I fell in love with it. I wanted to be Scarlett and have all the beaus after me. In a way, I have always felt like Scarlett, in that I never quite wanted what was right for me, and often didn't realize the good thing until it was gone. Of course, the reader that I am had to go out and read the book. And then in the early 90's a sequel called Scarlett was published. And I loved that too, even though the critics weren't huge fans. It made me cry, and I felt so much for Scarlett and all the bad choices she made, again, relating to her in that way at least.

When Rhett Butler's People came out in 2007, I ordered it from the book club I belonged to at the time. It has sat in my bookshelf of books to be read since that time. I couldn't quite bring myself to pick it up. Not sure why, just couldn't. But now, once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I fell right back in love the with the story. And I loved all the way we got to see into everyone's thoughts in this story. I worried as it started that it would only go up to the time when Rhett got married to Scarlett. Needless to say it followed right on through the end of Gone With the Wind and past. Totally didn't go with Scarlett, and while yes, I do love that story, I do like how this one ended a bit better. I cried, I smiled, I just loved this book. I can't gush enough about how much I liked it. Again, not sure the critics were big fans of this one either, but I loved it. I think I need to get the movie out again and watch it. I loved seeing Rhett's side of the story and his family, and Melanie Wilkes's side, etc.

Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Wow, I was sooooooooooo disappointed in this movie. And anyone who knows me knows that it takes a lot to really disappoint me. As someone who has almost always read the book before I see the movie, I know that the movies never, or almost never live up to the book. One exception I can think of right now is the Green Mile, which I think they did an awesome job with! But anyway, back to my point. So much was left out of Twilight, I mean if you hadn't read the books, the movie doesn't really let you see how Edward and Bella fall in love. But I still was able to really enjoy seeing Twilight brought to the movie screen.

The Lightning Thief had too much changed and too many important things left out. Maybe it's because I've read this book so many times, because I've read it to like 3 different groups of students. And we answered questions and discussed it, so I know it detail by minute detail. But I feel they left out such important characters, such as Mr. D. (Dionysius), Ares, and Clarisse. Plus, they went to Nashville Tennessee instead of to St. Louis like in the book. And then, Annabeth is supposed to be blonde, not dark haired. And there was no mention of Kronos, the whole "voldemort" bad guy who goes throughout the whole series. (I threw the Voldemort reference in for those critics who called it a cheap copy of Harry Potter, which it SOOOOO is not). And then, Annabeth is supposed to have a crush on Luke, and not believe in Luke as a bad guy so quickly. Plus, there's the whole thing where we're not supposed to know who Percy's dad is right away. Plus, I feel like Percy is supposed to be 12 years old, yet the characters in the movie are all high school age.

If you haven't read the books, go see the movie, it's probably really good in that situation. But if you've read it, and love the books like I do, you might skip it. I'm not even sure how they can do a sequel with all the stuff they left out.

First Friday Post

Tonight was a favorite Friday night for me because I got to see two movies: The Time Traveler's Wife and District 9. So I'll now do my first movie reviews on this new blog.

The Time Traveler's Wife: This was a really good book. It's been a while since I read it, but I think the movie stayed pretty true to the book. They bill it as a love story, and it is. No matter what anyone says.

District 9: Pretty good as well. An interesting new slant sort of on alien type movies. A little of the camera work that makes me kind of sick, although I'm not sure if it was that, or all the cinnamon sugar powder I put on the popcorn. But I spent part of the movie feeling nauseated. Still kind of do. So I got a diet 7-up out of the fridge when I got home.

I walked either 9 or 10 miles today, lost track for sure. Didn't quite make my goal, I still have about half a pound, but I decided that I will go ahead and open the laptop tomorrow. I figure I've worked hard all summer. I've denied myself a lot to stay on my diet, and I've walked so much that while it was a good summer, and I enjoyed walking, I didn't get any days really to just lay around all day in my pj's, which is part of what makes a teacher's summer enjoyable. So I'm also thinking tomorrow I will take a day off from walking, even though I have the time. I'm going to pretty much stay at home all day, until I go to work, or possibly also to have lunch with a friend. I will probably do my Wii fit some though, and follow my WW diet still. But it will be nice to sleep in as well. Even though I still didn't get up as early as school will make me, I rarely slept in much really, so I plan to do that tomorrow. I wish it would rain tomorrow though, that would make a perfect sleep in morning.

The pain today was still enough to make me scream. And while walking didn't bother it, as soon as I would sit down for even a minute, I'd be in pain again. So I called the doctor's office to find out if I could take tylenol like my brother said. They said I could. So far, the extra strength tylenol is a miracle worker. Now, I wasn't calculating correctly the time to take my second dose, and so I took it a few hours early, which could also possibly be what led to me feeling sick at the movies.

Okay, off to watch tv and go to bed soon. Tomorrow I may do my first book review on this blog as my main blog of the day.