The Literate Teacher's Manifesto

How do I love Jane Eyre ?  Let me count the ways. Because even in the darkest moments of the novel: at the school when the children were told not to talk to Jane, living with the hateful Reeds, being lost and almost starving on the moors, living in the terrible understanding that Rochester was going to marry Miss Ingram, in trying to please St. John and live up to his completely unreasonable expectations, Jane never loses her utter "Jane-ness".  She never loses sight of herself and who she is, and she never wavers in her faith in herself.    Because the love story between Rochester and Jane is almost purely intellectual.  She never seeks to hide her thoughts and feelings from him behind the wall of femininity, and in doing that, she inspires all women to be truly feminist.  Jane speaks her mind and tells the truth, and Rochester loves her all the more because of it.   Because Jane is more beautiful in my head because she sees herself as plai...

The prompt for this posting was "A book turned into a movie and completely desecrated."  I'll be honest and say that I'm having a really difficult time thinking of any books turned movies that I really loved or really hated.  They generally don't have that much of an effect on me.  Certainly there have been a great many movies made from books that do not in any way do justice to the plot.  There are many movies I've seen that are great in their own right, even though they really departed from the book ( To Kill a Mockingbird  and The Book Thief  come to mind).  I guess the only truly abysmal book-turned-movie that  I can think of would have to be The Da Vinci Code . So, yes, I am outing myself that I have read and enjoyed Dan Brown novels.  In fact, when my hubby and I visited Italy, we took the Angels and Demons  tour in Rome.  (An entertaining and informative tour, FYI!)  I know that Brown is a bit of a pattern writer, and ...

It's very difficult to choose just one secondary character for this post.  It would be my first instinct to choose from classic literature, but I've decided that I want to stick to reading I've done recently to complete this challenge.  I narrowed it down to two finalists: Haymitch, from The Hunger Games , and Thomas, from Being Henry David .  And the winner is... ( drum roll please )... I read Being Henry David, by Cal Armistead, over the summer.  (You can read my review of it  here. )  It was a decent read, but one of the things that really added to my experience was how gifted the author is at characterization.  The characters are some of the most memorable from any novel I have ever read.  Even characters we only meet for a page or two are incredibly well-crafted and interesting.  And Thomas bookwormed his way into my head and into my heart as one of my favorite characters ever. Not to give too much away, but the premise of the ...

If you were hosting a party and you could invite any 5 literary characters, who would you invite? I would invite Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird , because I would love to hear his opinion of the travesty that has become our political and justice system, and maybe some thoughts on  how to fix it.  I would have Gregor Samsa, from Kafka's Metamorphosis , because I have always been fascinated by his somewhat lackadaisical, unperturbed reaction to his startling change into an insect.  I would invite Jo March, from Little Women , because I love female characters who are strong, smart, and capable of conversing about books (can she bring the Professor with her, but only count as one guest?)  I have to choose Albus Dumbledore, for his conversational ability and his infinite capacity for putting people at ease.  My final guest would be Death, as he appears in The Book Thief .  My absolute favorite narrator of all time: witty, sarcastic, dry, but with a c...